“Then, Colonel Armytage, since a male heir is found for Lunnasting, I fear that I must alter the will which I lately made in your favour.”
“You may save yourself that trouble, Sir Marcus,” said the sheriff, somewhat sternly. “There is another claimant to the Lunnasting property. I would save your daughters from the pain of listening to the investigation of the case which must now be held. They will, however, perhaps wish to see that justice is done to all parties, and they may be assured that it is with the greatest unwillingness that I shall say anything which may wound their feelings.”
Mrs Armytage thanked the sheriff, and expressed her wish to remain; but Hilda did not speak. She had sat like a statue with her hands clasped during the examination of the witnesses, once only casting a look of reproach at the marquis, when he confessed that he had instigated Tacon to carry off her son. Still she sat in the same position, lost in thought, and utterly regardless of everything around.
“Sir Marcus Wardhill,” said the sheriff, “as you well know, the heir to these estates was Bertram Brindister. He was first in succession before your wife, but unaccountably disappeared, and was supposed to have been washed away by the sea. Two witnesses have now appeared, who can prove that he was designedly carried off by a noted smuggler and outlaw, Halled Yell by name, and by themselves. They are both present. All three men and the child were rescued from a wreck by Captain Andrew Scarsdale, who brought up the boy under the name of Rolf Morton. You knew his father. There stands the present Bertram Brindister, the real Lord of Lunnasting; is he not like his father?”
Sir Marcus looked up furtively at Rolf Morton, who stood with a calm countenance, expressive of more pain than triumph, directly in front of him.
“Yes, yes, he is very like,” he answered, and then conquering any fear he might have felt, he added—“But gentlemen, assertions are not proofs. This latter tale is too clumsy an imitation of the first we have just heard not to make a man of sense discredit it. Let us hear what the men have to say.”
On this the two old men, Doull and Eagleshay, stepped forward and described their having carried off a child from Whalsey at the very time the boy, Bertram Brindister, was missed, and all the events which followed, but they could neither of them tell the exact date of the occurrence.
“I thought so,” said Sir Marcus, calmly. “The man I see before me may be Bertram Brindister, but it cannot be proved; nor can, as far as I can see, the instigator of the crime be discovered, if, as I say, there is truth in the story, which I am inclined to doubt. An important link is missing, and your case, gentlemen, falls to the ground.”
“But the link is found, and truth is triumphant. ‘The prince will hae his ain again! The prince will hae his ain again!’” exclaimed Lawrence Brindister, starting up and flourishing two papers in his hands, while he skipped about the room, in doubt to whom he should deliver them. “This is your marriage certificate, cousin Hilda, and I have been a faithful guardian of it; and this, Mr Sheriff, is the link you require to prove that honest Rolf Morton is really Bertram Brindister, and rightful Lord of Lunnasting, and that yonder old man, who has tyrannised over me, and insulted me and wronged me in every way, is an impostor; and that he instigated the villain Yell to abduct the heir that the inheritance might be his. See, it is the paper signed by Yell, and those other two men, and delivered to honest Andrew Scarsdale. Many a long year have I kept it. You all have heard that it was locked up in Captain Scarsdale’s chest, which, guided by a hand more potent than that of man, came floating by the northern end of Whalsey, and was drawn on shore by me and my old dog, Surly Grind. In a cave I had hard by, I kept the chest and its contents, but months passed away before I examined them. When I did, I saw well that nothing would be gained by publishing them. The rightful heir was away, and with his means how could he hope to contend with the wily and astute Sir Marcus Wardhill? So I did what many a wiser man might not have done, I bided my time. Maybe, Sir Marcus, you have thought me at times a greater fool than I was; but which is the greatest fool of the two—the man who obeys, or he who sets Heaven at defiance? Once, who could compete with me at school or college? and what might I not have been had you not, when I was struck down by illness, taken advantage of my weakness, and by sending me to a madhouse, confirmed my malady; but fool as you called me, I can see that Heaven’s retributive justice has chastised you through life. Me you got into your power on the ground that I was insane, and the mind of the daughter, in whom you took such pride, often totters on its throne; her son was carried off, as was the rightful heir, and for long weary years has she waited his return, while the daughter you loved has been a stranger to your sight; and now deprived of fortune, dishonoured, and disgraced, you are sinking unregretted into the grave.”
“Oh spare him! spare him!” cried Edda, gliding forward and taking the old man’s hand, for neither her mother nor Hilda could speak. “Let his grey hairs, cousin Lawrence, be his protection.”