“‘They’ll tell thee, poor lad, that I was a murderer! though it be false as hell! They’ll shout after thee, There goes the murderer’s son!’ He paused, and then with a sudden start said—‘There will be no grave for thee or thy mother to come and cry over!’
“‘Adam,’ said Mr Hylton, very anxiously, ‘weary not yourself thus—alarm not this poor child, by thus yielding to fear and despair; but rather, if it can hereafter remember what passeth here this day, may its thoughts be of thy love and of thy gentleness! If it be the will of God that thou must die, and that unjustly, as far as men are concerned, He will watch over and provide for this little soul, whom He, foreseeing its fate, sent into the world.’
“Ayliffe lifted the child with trembling arms, and pressed its cheeks to his lips. The little creature did not cry, nor appear likely to do so, but seemed the image of mute apprehension. The whole scene was so painful, that Mr Hylton was not sorry when the Governor of the gaol approached, to intimate that the interview must cease. The prisoner, exhausted with violent excitement, quietly surrendered his child to his attendant, and then silently grasped the hand of Mr Hylton, who thereupon quitted the cell; the door of which was immediately locked upon its miserable occupant: who was once again alone!”
From the prison let us to the great Earl’s house. His lordship has become morose and almost vindictive against the supposed murderer of his son, from the very efforts that have been made to save him from the gallows. Had Adam Ayliffe been suffered to die the unpitied death of any other heinous criminal, no one, perhaps, would have more pitied the wretched malefactor than the Earl of Milverstoke himself. The interest taken in the convict, not only by the minister, but by his own daughter, and, as he suspected, by the very widow of the murdered lord, his daughter-in-law, seemed cruel forgetfulness of the dead, and wanton injury to the living. He upbraided the minister who preached the virtues of mercy and forgiveness; he looked with anger and violent impatience when others dared to take up the thread of the clergyman’s unauthorised discourse. During an interview with Lady Alkmond, the Earl had heard the syllables forgive! dropping from the widow’s mouth; he made no answer, but repaired to his library, in which he walked to and fro for some time, meditating with sternness and displacency upon the word. Let us open the door gently and carefully, and, using our lawful privilege, look in.
“On taking his seat at length, his lordship opened with some surprise a Testament which lay before him, and guided by the reference written by the trembling fingers of his daughter, he read as follows:—‘So likewise shall my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts for give not every one his brother their trespasses.’ This verse the Earl read hastily, then laid down the book, folded his arms, and leaned back in his seat, not with subdued feelings, but very highly indignant. He now saw clearly what had been intended by the faint but solemn whisper of Lady Alkmond, even could he have before entertained a doubt upon the subject. Oh, why did not thoughts of the heavenly temper of these two loving and trembling spirits melt his stern heart? ’Twas not so, however: and even anger swelled within that FATHER’S breast of untamed fierceness—anger almost struggling and shaping itself into the utterance of ‘Interference! intrusion! presumption!’ After a long interval, in which his thoughts were thus angrily occupied, he reopened the Testament, and again read the sublime and awful declaration of the Redeemer of mankind; yet smote it not his heart. And after a while, removing the paper, he calmly replaced the sacred volume on the spot from which it had been taken by Lady Emily. Not long after he had done so, he heard a very faint tapping at the distant door, but without taking any notice of it; although he had a somewhat disturbing suspicion as to the cause of that same meek application, and the person by whom it was made. The sound was presently repeated, somewhat louder; on which, ‘Who’s there?—enter!’ called out the Earl, loudly, and in his usual stern tone, looking apprehensively towards the door—which was opened, as he had thought, and perhaps feared it might be, by Lady Emily.
“‘It is I, dear papa,’ said she, closing the door after her, and advancing rather rapidly towards him, who moved not from his seat; though the appearance of—NOW—his only child, and that a daughter, most beautiful in budding womanhood, and approaching a FATHER with timid, downcast looks, might well have elicited some word or gesture of welcoming affection and tenderness.
“‘What brings you hither, Emily?’ he inquired coldly, as his daughter, in her loveliness and terror, stood within a few feet of him, her fine features wearing an expression of blended modesty and resolution.
“‘Do you not know, my dearest papa?’ said she, gently; ‘do you not suspect. Do not be angry!—do not, dear papa, look so sternly at me! I come to speak with you, who are my father, in all love and duty.’
“‘I am not stern—I am not angry, Emily. Have I not ever been kind to you? Why, then, this unusual mode of approaching and addressing me? Were I a mere tyrant, you could not show better than your present manner does, that I am such.’
“His words were kind, but his eye and his manner were blighting. His daughter’s knees trembled under her. She glanced hastily at the table in quest of the little book which her hands had that morning placed there; and not seeing it, her heart sunk.