"It will not be so easy to arrest me, Mr. Burrel," answered the young man, in the same calm tone in which he had spoken before. "It will not be so easy to arrest me, unless I like it myself. So you sent for me by mistake? Well, I had hoped that there was one man on earth that knew how to work me properly--but no matter--no matter! And you took me for Captain Delaware, did you? God bless him, wherever he is, for a noble gentleman and a gallant officer! So, they tell me they have accused him of the murder, and made him fly his country, and that he is to be dismissed his majesty's service;" and as he spoke, the calm tone was lost, and he was evidently working himself up to a pitch of excessive fury--"And if he is taken he is to be tried," he continued--"and there is already a coroner's verdict against him--and that he will be hanged to a certainty--and that his good name is already blasted forever--and that poor Miss Blanche will weep her heart out for him--and poor old Sir Sidney will die of grief for his son's fate--and all for a crime that he did not commit--and, d--n your eyes, do you think I am going to stand all that! No, never, by--! Weren't they kind to me when never a soul was kind to me in all the world? and didn't they stand by me when every soul abandoned me? And am I going to see them all go to ruin and to misery, because I myself and that black villain have brought damnation upon my own head? No, no, never you think that! Why, it was bad enough before--and every time I thought upon their going and murdering the poor old man, while I kept watch in the passage, I was ready to go and give myself up, and beg them to hang me out of the way, that I might think no more of it--but now--now that I find all that it has done besides, d--me if I would not hang forty such fellows as that, rather than that the captain should come to ill by it!"
From this confused speech, which Beauchamp listened to with eager attention, though certainly not without some surprise, he learned all that the judicious reader has already discovered, of what was passing in the mind of poor Walter Harrison. He saw, in short, that remorse had done its work; and that the fact of the crime in which he had taken part, having brought down such misfortunes on the family who had been his benefactors, had carried remorse to its natural climax of despair. It was evident, too, that his remorse was of that purer kind which is kindred to repentance, and that, at all events, he contemplated atonement; and Beauchamp felt confident that, by proper management, full and satisfactory evidence might now be procured of the facts necessary to exculpate William Delaware completely. He saw, however, at the same time, that the spirit with which he had to deal--wild, wayward, and violent--would require most skillful treatment to bring it to the point he had in view.
"You are heated!" he said, "Walter Harisson; but if I understand you right, there is still a hope, through your means, of saving William Delaware from all the evils that you have brought upon him."
"Hear me, sir--hear me!" replied the young sailor. "Only tell me what is necessary to save him--and if you bid me hang a slip-knot to the yard-arm, then put my neck in it, and cast myself off, I'll do it."
"I take you at your word," said Beauchamp. "There is but one way to clear him--but one way to restore him to that clear and honorable character which he always maintained in life, notwithstanding poverty."
"Ay, there it is! there it is!" cried the young man "clear and honorable, and yet poor--as poor for his rank as I was for mine--ay, and I might have a clear and honorable name, too--but never mind--never mind--it is all coming to an end soon!" And casting himself down in a chair, he pressed his hands over his eyes.
"You lose your self-command, Walter," said Beauchamp. "Be calm, and let us speak over this business rationally."
"Calm! calm!" cried the young sailor; starting up. "How the devil would you have me calm, when you are speaking of things that are burning in my heart like coals of fire? How can I be calm?"
"You came here," said Beauchamp, somewhat sternly, "with a fixed determination, I suppose, of some kind--either intending to do right or to do wrong--to make the only reparation that you can for the crimes you have committed, by delivering your benefactor from the consequences of your errors--or boldly to deny what you have committed. If you intend to do right, the first noble and generous determination that you have formed for long, should teach you to execute your purpose with the calmness and fortitude of a man."
"You say true, sir--you say true!" replied the youth, in a tone of deep melancholy. "You always say true; and if I had attended to what you told me when you brought me home from the fire that night, I should not have felt as I do now--but there is no use of talking of that--I did come here with the intention of doing right; and I will do right, if you will tell me how. What I want to do, is to clear the captain of every thing, and make it so plain that he never had any hand in the bad business, that even those old devils at Emberton shall have nothing to say. You were going to tell me the way when I stopped you. Now, I will stick at nothing, either on my own account, or that of others--for as to that accursed ruffian who entrapped me into the business, I have had many a black thought, when he sneers at me because I am sorry, to finish him myself."