“To change a name is common with such adventurers,” answered Mertoun, “and Clement had apparently found that of Vaughan had become too notorious—and this change, in his case, prevented me from hearing any tidings of him. It was then that remorse seized me, and that, detesting all nature, but especially the sex to which Louisa belonged, I resolved to do penance in the wild islands of Zetland for the rest of my life. To subject myself to fasts and to the scourge, was the advice of the holy Catholic priests, whom I consulted. But I devised a nobler penance—I determined to bring with me the unhappy boy Mordaunt, and to keep always before me the living memorial of my misery and my guilt. I have done so, and I have thought over both, till reason has often trembled on her throne. And now, to drive me to utter madness, my Clement—my own, my undoubted son, revives from the dead to be consigned to an infamous death, by the machinations of his own mother!”
“Away, away!” said Norna, with a laugh, when she had heard the story to an end, “this is a legend framed by the old corsair, to interest my aid in favour of a guilty comrade. How could I mistake Mordaunt for my son, their ages being so different?”
“The dark complexion and manly stature may have done much,” said Basil Mertoun; “strong imagination must have done the rest.”
“But, give me proofs—give me proofs that this Cleveland is my son, and, believe me, this sun shall sooner sink in the east, than they shall have power to harm a hair of his head.”
“These papers, these journals,” said Mertoun, offering the pocket-book.
“I cannot read them,” she said, after an effort, “my brain is dizzy.”
“Clement has also tokens which you may remember, but they must have become the booty of his captors. He had a silver box with a Runic inscription, with which in far other days you presented me—a golden chaplet.”
“A box!” said Norna, hastily; “Cleveland gave me one but a day since—I have never looked at it till now.”
Eagerly she pulled it out—eagerly examined the legend around the lid, and as eagerly exclaimed—“They may now indeed call me Reimkennar, for by this rhyme I know myself murderess of my son, as well as of my father!”
The conviction of the strong delusion under which she had laboured, was so overwhelming, that she sunk down at the foot of one of the pillars—Mertoun shouted for help, though in despair of receiving any; the sexton, however, entered, and, hopeless of all assistance from Norna, the distracted father rushed out, to learn, if possible, the fate of his son.