“Ay, was he, youth! brave both to do and to suffer. Brave, both with the quick and dauntless courage to act, and with the rarer and more elevated courage to resolve and hold fast to resolution. But who are you, who, living with him, know both so little and so much of William Allan? If you be not his son, who are you?”
“His sister’s son, Sir Miles—his only sister’s son, to whom, since that sister’s death, he has been—God forgive me for that I said but now—more than a father; for surely I have tried him more than ever son tried a father, and he has borne with me still with a most absolute indulgence and unwearied love.”
“What—what!” exclaimed Sir Miles, much moved and even agitated by what he heard, “are you the child of that innocent and beautiful Alicia Allan, whom—whom—” The old man faltered and stopped short, for he was in fact on the point of bursting into tears.
But the youth finished the sentence which he had left unconcluded, in a stern, slow voice, and with a lowering brow.
“Whom your friend, Durzil Olifaunt, betrayed by a mock marriage, and afterward deserted with her infants. Yes, Sir Miles, I am one of those infants, the son of Alicia Allan’s shame! And my uncle did not slay him—therefore it is I asked you, was he brave.”
“And yet he was slain—and for that very deed!” replied the old man, gloomily, with his eyes fixed upon the ground.
“He was slain,” repeated the young sailor, whose curiosity and interest were now greatly excited. “But how can you tell wherefore? No one has ever known who slew him—how, then, can you name the cause of his slaying?”
“There is One who knows all things!”
“But He imparts not his knowledge,” answered the other, not irreverently. “And unless you slew him, I see not how you can know this. Yet, hold, hold!” he continued impetuously, as he saw that Sir Miles was about to speak, “if you did slay him, tell it not; for if he did betray my mother, if he did abandon me to disgrace and ruin—still, still he was my father.”
“I slew him not, young man,” replied the cavalier, gravely, “but he was slain for the cause that I have named, and I saw him die—repentant.”