Walladmor Volume II Part 8

A considerable interest in Bertram had from the first arisen in Sir Morgan's mind from the general air of candor and amiable feeling which marked his demeanour; and this interest was not weakened by the remarkable resemblance which Sir Morgan believed that he discovered in Bertram's features and expression to the portraits in the Walladmor picture-gallery of two distinguished ancestors of his own house. Partly on these special claims to his notice, and partly with the general desire of expressing his concern to the young man for the unmerited distress into which he had been thrown, the kind-hearted old gentleman gave him a pressing invitation to take up his abode for some time in Walladmor Castle; an invitation which, as it offered him a ready introduction into English society, and was pressed with evident sincerity, Bertram did not hesitate to accept.

The clergyman of the parish, who had been sent to Bertram as a ghostly adviser and summoner to repentance, could not boast of much success with his subject in that character. In fact the young stranger had been too much interested by _some_ of the books[1] furnished from Sir Morgan's library to have leisure for such serious thoughts. But a thing or a person, that is of no use in one function, may do excellent service in another: and the Reverend Mr. Williams, who had failed in his spiritual mission, was turned to good worldly account by Bertram as a gossiper and a mine of information upon all questions which had arisen to excite his curiosity in the course of his recent adventures.

The case of poor Mrs. G.o.dber, his aged hostess in Anglesea, was easily explained.

Four and twenty years ago her eldest son, at that time about seventeen years old, had partic.i.p.ated in some smuggling transaction during which two revenue officers had been killed under circ.u.mstances which the law adjudged to be murder. n.o.body suspected young G.o.dber of having (in the English sense of the word) a.s.sisted in this murder, foreseen it, or approved it: but in the French sense he _did_ 'a.s.sist:' that is, he was present: and therefore in the eye of the law an accessary. As such, he was put upon his trial--found guilty--and sentenced to death.

Unfortunately at this time the outrages of the smugglers upon the coast of Wales had become so frequent and terrific, that it was judged necessary to make an example. The case came before the Privy Council: the opinion of Sir Morgan Walladmor, as lord lieutenant of the two counties chiefly infested by the smugglers, naturally weighed a good deal with the council: and this opinion was unfavorable to the poor young criminal.

"But in later years," said Mr. Williams, "and when Sir Morgan had come to think very differently on some parts of that unhappy affair, I have often heard him protest with earnestness that in giving the opinion he did at the council h.o.a.rd he was simply reporting the universal judgment of the magistracy throughout the maritime counties of North Wales.

This, Mr. Bertram, I am sure was true. But that was known to few; and Sir Morgan from his high station drew the whole blame upon himself: and perhaps in one view not unjustly. For, though he was not single in the opinion which decided the case against the poor boy, it was generally believed that his single voice on the other side the question would have outweighed all opposition, and have obtained the mercy of the crown. So at least the poor boy's mother thought: and she addressed herself to Sir Morgan morning, noon, and night. The lad was her darling child; indeed her other son, Tom, was then only an infant; and, as the time drew near for his execution, she was like a mad thing. Never was there such an agony of intercession. She wept, and prayed, and clung about Sir Morgan's knees, and tore her hair: she rushed through all the servants, ran up stairs, and found out lady Walladmor's room: lady Walladmor was then ill, and sitting in her dressing-room: but she (G.o.d love her!) was the kindest creature in the world: and she was easily won to come and beg for the poor distracted mother. In the great hall she kneeled to Sir Morgan: but all wouldn't do. I have heard Sir Morgan say that his heart relented even at that time: and he had a sort of misgiving upon him that night, as he looked back upon the frantic woman from the head of the great stair-case, that all could not go right--and that some evil would fall upon him for standing out against such pleadings as he had just heard. Still his sense of duty, according to the notion he then had of his duty, obliged him to persist: and besides he told them both that, after what had been said to the council, it was now impossible to make another application on the case--unless some new circ.u.mstance in the boy's favor had come out. This was very unadvised in Sir Morgan: for it confirmed the mother in her belief that it was _his_ representations which had determined the fate of her son.

"Mr. Bertram, you have read Virgil: and in that fine episode of Mezentius, which we all admire so much (and which, by the way, seems to me finer even than the 'Shield of aeneas,' or with the critics' leave than any thing in the sixth book), there are two grand hemistichs applied to the case of Mezentius in the moment of his mounting his horse to avenge the death of his gallant son who (you will remember) had fallen a sacrifice to his filial piety:

"----mixtoque insania luctu, Et furiis agitatus amor----"

"I remember them well," said Bertram "and Virgil has reflected rather a weakening effect on them by afterwards applying the same words to a case of inferior pa.s.sion."

"He has so. But, to return to the case of Mrs. G.o.dber, these fine words of the Roman poet may convey some picture of her state of mind; it was truly the state of Mezentius--'mixtoque insania luctu'--frenzy mixed with grief; and the tenderness of maternal love, that love which is taken in Scripture as the express image of the love which exists in the divine nature, tarnished and darkened by earthly--I may say by h.e.l.lish--pa.s.sions. Even then, and from that very night, she altered much: as one pa.s.sed her, she muttered indistinctly; often she would lift up her hands in the air, clench them, and shake them as if at some figure that she saw in the clouds; and at times she slunk into corners, refused all comfort or society, and sank wholly into herself."

"And how meantime did her son behave?"

"Oh, Sir, incomparably well. He knew his mother's temper: and the very night before he suffered, as he hung about her neck and kissed her at their farewell interview, he wrung her hand and prayed her to put aside all thoughts of vengeance. I attended him to the last: and his final words to me on the scaffold, as the executioner prepared to draw the cap over his face, were--'G.o.d bless you. Sir, and remember!' by which he meant to remind me of his only request; and _that_ was that I would visit his mother, and endeavour to soothe her into resignation, and persuade her to let him sleep unremembered in his grave; and not to recal the memory of his unhappy end to people's minds by any action that might make shipwreck of her own conscience. Young as he was, Mr.

Bertram, these were the thoughts that made the bitterness of death to him; 'thoughts high for one so tender:'[2]--most of all the thought afflicted him that _he_ should be made the occasion of overthrowing the peace of mind of her whom he loved beyond all things in the world. Sir Morgan mused much when he heard this report of the boy's latter hours; and afterwards much more, when two of the older smugglers were taken and condemned for the same murders: for their confessions wholly exonerated him from all knowledge of their worst actions: he was considered by the whole gang as a mere child; so indeed he was: and nothing was ever communicated to him of their schemes: nor was he ever present at any of them except by mere accident. The extent of his connexion appeared to have been this--that now and then he had given them a helping hand in stowing away their smuggled goods; and _that_ only for the sake of his mother, who was very poor, having just become a widow,--and in this way obtained a few groceries or other additions to her domestic comforts. This it was that made the sharpest sting in the mother's wretchedness: she knew that all had been done for _her_; that, but for her sake, he would never have gone near the smugglers; and that, without perhaps directly giving her sanction to such connexions, she had never decidedly opposed them--and had availed herself of their profits. Some were unfeeling enough to throw this in the poor creature's teeth, whose heart was already wounded beyond what she could bear; and after that she became perfectly frantic."

"You visited her then, Mr. Williams?"

"I did for a time; and indeed she has always been willing to hold intercourse with me in consideration of what I did and attempted to do for her son. But I will confess to you, Mr. Bertram, that the spectacle of a human being originally of strong mind driven by extremity of wretchedness into the total wreck of her own final peace,--her moral feelings all giving way before a devilish malignity, and her wits gradually unsettling under this tremendous internal conflict,--was too pitiable to be supported by me, unless I had felt myself able in some way or other to stem the misery which I witnessed: and, after the perpetration of that great crime by which she sought to avenge herself, I could never bear to go near her; though I have occasionally conversed with her on the roads."

"What crime do you speak of, Mr. Williams? and how is it that, having committed any crime to justify your present language, she is yet allowed to go at large?

"I do not speak of any crime proved in a court of justice, or perhaps capable of being so; but n.o.body ever doubted that Mrs. G.o.dber was the secret mover in the matter; though the very nature of her purpose obliged her to employ the hand of an intermediate agent.--About three months after the execution of the poor boy, and when the ferment of that unhappy affair was beginning to subside in all minds but those of his mother and of Sir Morgan, lady Walladmor lay in of twins. By whose means it never has been discovered,--the only person, who could certainly have cleared up that matter, being so soon removed by death,--but from some quarter or other a moving representation had been made to lady Walladmor, when riding out, in favour of a young woman who about that time applied for the place of under nurse: she was described to have been deserted under circ.u.mstances of peculiar interest by a person to whom she was under an engagement of marriage; and other particulars, implying some unusual elevation of character in the young woman, were reported in a way which was likely to plead powerfully with a woman of her ladyship's known goodness of heart. But all these representations were false, as came out when it was too late. However she was hired. It was not known at that time,--or, if it were, only to those who allowed it no weight in their minds,--that she was a niece of Gillie G.o.dber's. That perhaps of itself was not so important a fact: but she had lived for the seven last years of her life in her aunt's house, had fallen deeply under her influence, and shared in her feelings with regard to the execution of the young boy her cousin.

Moving chiefly under this influence, and confirmed no doubt by the means which suddenly offered of appropriating a very large sum of money, this woman lent herself as the instrument to the savage vengeance of her aunt--which in one hour laid prostrate the happy prospects of an ancient house and ravaged their peace in a way which time has done nothing to heal. And here it was, Mr. Bertram, that Gillie G.o.dber forfeited all hold on the public sympathy--even amongst those whose rank indisposed them to judge Sir Morgan with any charity.

All hearts were steeled against her. Sir Morgan might be thought to have done her wrong: with regard to the fact, as it ultimately came out, he certainly had; though not, as I am sure, in design or according to the light of his conscience at that time. But for lady Walladmor, the meek and gentle lady that had wept with her--wept _for_ her--pleaded for her--prayed for her--knelt for her;--Gillie G.o.dber, that was a mother by so bitter a mother's pang, to forget the mother's heart in her benefactress; she, that mourned for a son, to tear the infants for ever from their mother's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and consign them--oh! heart of Herod--to a life worse than a thousand deaths amongst robbers, pirates, murderers,--this it was that blotted out from all men's memories her own wrongs, cancelled and tore the record of her sufferings.--Mr.

Bertram, it will be four and twenty years next summer from the date of this miserable transaction; and yet I protest that the storm of affliction, which in one night descended upon this ancient house of Walladmor, was, in itself--in its origin--and its irreparable nature, so memorable a scene of human frailty, such a monument of the awful power for evil which is lodged in the humblest of human beings when shaken by extremity of pa.s.sion and liberated from restraints of conscience, that at this moment the impression of all its circ.u.mstances is as fresh and perfect as if it happened yesterday; nor do I think that any time could avail to dim them. To me, as also in the end to Sir Morgan, the moral of the whole was this--that human affections, love and grief in excess, are holy things,--yes, even in that wicked woman, were holy--and not lightly to be set at nought or rejected without judgment and vengeance to follow."

Here Mr. Williams paused: but Bertram was so much interested in the story, both in itself and from the connexion into which he had so recently been brought with two of those who bore a princ.i.p.al share in it, that he earnestly requested him to complete his narrative; which, after a short interval of thought, he did.

"The dreadful event, to which I have been alluding, took place on the 12th of June, three-and-twenty years ago--dating from the summer which is past. About seven o'clock on the evening of that day, finding herself unusually languid and weary, lady Walladmor had lain down on a sopha in one of the children's apartments. A fortnight, I ought to mention, had pa.s.sed from the time of her _accouchement_: she had suffered much, and was recovering but slowly: and her female attendants had, in consequence, been a good deal hara.s.sed by unseasonable watchings and sudden disturbances of their rest. They, poor creatures!

submitted to these, as they would have done to far greater hardships, cheerfully and without a murmur: indeed all the servants in the castle would have gone through fire and water to have served their lady; all but one: and _that_ one, alas! was now left alone in attendance upon her. Lady Walladmor, who was all consideration for every body about her, and just such another angel upon earth as Miss Walladmor at present, had dismissed her own maid and the upper nurse--to refresh themselves in any way they thought fit from the fatigues of their long day's attendance; for they had been called up at two o'clock in the morning. One of the under nurses was engaged in the laundry. And thus it happened that the duty of attending the two children, who were both asleep in the adjoining room, devolved on that serpent--Winifred Griffiths."

"Winifred Griffiths?" exclaimed Bertram in a tone of consternation.

"Yes; Winifred Griffiths:" and at the same time Mr. Williams looked at him keenly; "have you ever met with a person of that name?"

"I do not know that I have," replied Bertram: "but I remember reading many books in my youth that bore that name in the blank leaves. One of these I left at Machynleth; and I will show it you to-morrow. Meantime pray go on."

Mr. Williams mused a little, and then proceeded. "Griffiths, as she was generally called in the castle, to distinguish her from another Winifred upon the establishment, had a style of person and countenance much like those of her aunt, Mrs. G.o.dber; but she was still handsomer, and (if possible) prouder. Many people wondered that lady Walladmor could like her; but she was a girl of superior understanding, very well-mannered, and subtle as the fiend; so that she masqued her demoniacal purposes before lady Walladmor with a cloak of insinuating softness far too thick for that good creature to penetrate. She had besides many accomplishments, which she had learned from the young ladies of an elegant Irish family by whom she had been educated: and amongst these was the art of reading, which she had undoubtedly in great perfection. This, and the elegance of her manners, recommended her especially to lady Walladmor. And on the present occasion, as the other women were leaving the room, lady Walladmor bade them tell Griffiths to stay in the adjoining one; meaning, in case she found herself unable to sleep, to go and sit by the side of her children, whilst Griffiths read to her. Hoping however that she might be able to sleep, they were directed not to return until Griffiths or her ladyship should ring.

"Unhappy mother! that was thus unconsciously preparing all things for the snake that even now--'her crest brightening with hope' was couchant by her children's cradle. Unhappy children! that on this quiet summer-night were to be driven out upon the main sea of a stormy and wicked world from the quiet haven of their father's castle, and had already on this earth parted for ever from their angelic mother!----

"Lady Walladmor fell asleep: and, when she next awoke, the room was gloomy with dusk: indeed it was all but dark; for it must have been nearly ten o'clock. She rang the bell: and the housekeeper, who happened to be pa.s.sing the door, answered it.

"'Oh, is that you, Mrs. Howel?' said her ladyship: 'send candles; and tell lady Charlotte that she may come up, if she is not gone to bed.'

"Lady Charlotte Vaughan was a little girl of seven years old, a daughter of the Earl of Kilgarran, who married lady Walladmor's sister, and had been for some months on a visit to her aunt. In a transport of pleasure on receiving this permission, the child ran up before the candles; and, on kissing her, it seemed that lady Walladmor had asked playfully what they would say at Kilgarran if they knew of her keeping such late hours.

"Upon this the child had answered gaily that her little cousins were not yet gone to bed; and that at least she must stay up till after them.

"'Your cousins, my love, I am sorry to say, sleep less in the night than the day. However, they have been in bed for hours.'

"'Oh, no! they were gone out into the park.'

"Lady Walladmor must have thought the child dreaming: she questioned her; and no doubt heard the same account from her which she afterwards repeated to us all;--how far she was impressed by it, cannot be known: but possibly, at this moment, the silence of the adjoining room struck her as remarkable; at any rate, as the ready means of putting an end to all doubts, she went thither--called probably--receiving no answer, felt about in the darkness for her children's cradles; found them; they were empty--they were cold! And instantly, with feelings no doubt such as could not have been remembered if she had ever had it in her power to speak of that moment, lady Walladmor uttered a piercing shriek and fell to the ground.

"Lady Charlotte ran to alarm the family: the servant, whom she met on the stairs with the candles, sent her on to summon a.s.sistance, whilst she herself pressed forwards: in half a minute all lady Walladmor's women were about her: there was no need to make inquiries: the empty cradles told the miserable tale: and circ.u.mstances of confirmation came out at every moment.

"Just at this time Sir Morgan arrived from Dolgelly, where he had been attending a public meeting. With the rapidity of a train of gunpowder the whole course of the transaction, and its devilish purpose, came out: lady Charlotte had met Griffiths in a pa.s.sage which you have perhaps observed to connect the green-house with what was then lady Walladmor's suite of apartments; in this pa.s.sage there was a private door into the park, of which the key hung in the very room where the poor mother was sleeping. As she pa.s.sed, Griffiths said nothing: but, as she came near, one of the children cried; and Griffiths endeavoured to stifle the cry by drawing her cloak closer; in doing which, a sudden motion of her arm caused the cloak to open; and lady Charlotte had distinctly seen both her little cousins. By crossing one corner of the park, which is there sheltered from view of the windows by the battlements, there was a near road to a sort of woodland horse track, not much frequented, which led down to the sea-sh.o.r.e. Here she had been seen hurrying along by a woodman, who observed her from a distance, and described her dress accurately. This was about eight o'clock. Ten minutes later she had been seen in company with another woman traversing the sea-sh.o.r.e. Then all at once it came out in the general confusion that Griffiths was the niece of Gillie G.o.dber. Sir Morgan had himself, about nine o'clock, in coming over the hills from Dolgelly, observed the smuggling ship under sail. The lover of Griffiths was known to be one of the smugglers: all of them, it is certain, would abet any plan of vengeance upon Sir Morgan Walladmor: and, in less time than I have taken to relate it, the whole devilish plot--mode, purpose, and too probable success,--became apparent to every body in the castle.

"Cases, in which hope and fear are brought into fierce struggle with each other, are those which are the worst to support and which bear heavily on the fort.i.tude even of strongest minds. This was shown in Sir Morgan: there was still a chance that the smuggler might be intercepted: and that chance might be defeated in a thousand ways.

Hence it was perhaps that then first during my whole knowledge of him, and then last, I saw Sir Morgan Walladmor lose his self-possession. Now was Gillie G.o.dber avenged: even in his own hall--that hall which had echoed to her maternal groans and rung with the agony of her fruitless supplications, even there--on the very spot where her curse was muttered--had it taken effect: where it was breathed, there had it caught him: just where _she_ stood--_he_ stood: where _she_ was shaken as by fierce convulsions--there was _he_ shaken: where _she_ raved--_he_ raved: and under the very light of that same lamp, which lighted up the ghastly despair of the wretched mother as she heard the decree which sealed for ever the fate of her blooming boy, did I read in Sir Morgan's features too surely a revelation of his foreboding soul, that one night had stripped him bare of comfort and left him a poor forlorn man to a life of self-reproach--of shipwrecked hopes--and blasted affections.

"What was to be done? All were eager to be in motion; all fretting, I may say, to follow and avenge; but how, or with what hope? One bold fellow offered to man Sir Morgan's pinnace, barge, and all the other small craft he could collect, with sailors and others from the neighbourhood--to pursue the smuggler--and to carry her, if possible, by boarding. But this, considering the strength of the smuggler, was too hopeless an attempt to be countenanced. There were however king's ships cruising or in port all the way between Barmouth and Parkgate: the nearest of these, a sloop called the Falcon, was said to be lying at anchor off Aber, between Bangor and Conway: and in that direction expresses were sent off one upon the heels of the other; some having orders to go on to Parkgate and Liverpool. A favourite groom of Sir Morgan's, on this occasion, rode a thoroughbred horse in two hours and a quarter to Bangor Ferry: between Beddgelart and Carnarvon he had learned that the sloop was anch.o.r.ed off Beaumaris: he turned aside therefore from the Bangor road to the Ferry. There he jumped into a six-oared boat, and made for Beaumaris. Faithfully he did his duty: as you will suppose when I tell you that the castle clock had struck ten when he mounted, and a little after one we that stood on the summits of Arthur's chair--the high peak to the northward--heard a sullen report in the direction of Carnarvon: we all knew that this must be a signal to us from the Falcon--giving notice of her approach. She was now standing through the Menai strait. Twenty minutes after this a second gun was fired; and the prodigious roar of echoes, which it awoke in the mountains, proclaimed that she had pa.s.sed Carnarvon. At two the flashes of her guns became visible, and showed that she had uncovered the point of Llandovery. At a quarter past two there was light enough to make her out distinctly; she carried a press of sail; and a few minutes after that we discovered the smuggler in the offing, about three miles to leeward of the Falcon.

"The same high gale which had carried the Falcon so rapidly through the Menai, had baffled the smuggler in her attempt to go to the northward; for that was obviously her intention; and she still continued to tack in that direction. We expected that, as soon as she descried the Falcon, she would wear and run: but, greatly to our surprize, she took no notice of her--but continued standing on her tack in the evident design of running to the outside of the isle of Anglesea.

"The Falcon, seeing her purpose, fired a shot to bring her to. This the smuggler paid no sort of regard to: and we all began to suspect some mistake: as the light increased, and we could use our gla.s.ses with effect, we found too certainly that there was. The smuggler was painted so as to resemble the Viper; and Sir Morgan had taken her for that vessel on the night before: but we now suspected (and the event proved) that she was her partner, the Rattlesnake--a ship of much greater force with a piratical crew from the South Seas, and strengthened by some of the picked hands from the Viper. She had come round expressly on this service from the West coast of Ireland, where she had been hovering for some time back. The officer, who commanded the Falcon, had no doubt found his mistake before we did: but it seemed that, both for the honor of his flag and on account of the affecting occasion, he resolved to fight her under any odds. The wind moderated at this time: but he kept on his course, and neared her fast.

"At three o'clock the Falcon ranged up within pistol shot. At this moment the Rattlesnake showed her colors--black, striped with horizontal crimson bars, the well-known flag of a rover that had of late years fixed his nest in the Gallapagos, and thence infested the South Seas. Not a shot had yet been exchanged: and just before the action commenced we could distinguish Griffiths making her way across the decks from the cabin to the c.o.c.k-pit. Oh! what a moment of suspense for us!--Oh! for some arm from heaven to strengthen the righteous cause! Some angel to intercept the oppressor's triumph; or some darkness to hide it from the oppressed!

"Never again may the innocent light of early dawn, when visiting our quiet seas, and these peaceful valleys of Merionethshire, ascend upon such a spectacle of human crime and woe as lay before me at that moment of that sweet summer morning. There in front, upon the tranquil sea, began the b.l.o.o.d.y strife--the thunder and the carnage:----On my right hand stood the unhappy father, praying for some merciful shot to dismiss his children from the evil to come:----In a gloomy fir-grove on my left hand stood the guilty, but most miserable, mother--Gillie G.o.dber, spectatress of Sir Morgan's agonies, writhing with exultation that her vengeance had reached his heart, and laughing like a fell hyaena as she surveyed her work upon the sea.

"But why should I dwell upon these hideous remembrances? Let a few words tell the issue: the Rattlesnake was greatly superior to her antagonist in number of men, and those picked men, three parts of them English and Irish: consequently there was no chance of boarding with success. She had also the advantage in number of guns, but much more advantage in weight of metal. Hence, and from the fatal effect of one broadside upon the rudder and rigging of the Falcon--within half an hour from the commencement of the action, and just as the sun rose--the Rattlesnake beheld her enemy lying unmanageable on the water, and unable to bring a gun to bear. In this condition the Falcon would have lain at the pirate's mercy, but for the appearance of two sail which now hove in sight from the southward: the wind had shifted two or three points and was freshening; the Rattlesnake crowded sail; was out of sight before the strangers came up; and the end of that scene was, that our brave champion was towed into Carnarvon--crippled, helpless, dismantled, all but a wreck, and with the third part of her crew slaughtered.

"But from this scene Sir Morgan was now summoned hastily away to another which, too ruefully he augured, must await him. A second lesson he was now to have upon the sanct.i.ty of human affections. For I will maintain, Mr. Bertram,--that however the poor may, upon matters of taste, delicacy, or refinement, seem coa.r.s.er in their feelings, and less sensitive than the rich (from which aspect it is that many people take their estimate of poor people's sensibilities),--yet in all that regards the primary affections I will maintain, I say, that the distinctions of rich and poor--high and low--are lighter than dew or the dust which is in the balance. The ties, which cement the great elementary relations of human life, are equally strong in every rank; alike sacred in the eyes of G.o.d; and in the lowest as in the highest, the anguish of their dissolution as perfect. Now did Sir Morgan learn what that anguish was: the next half hour taught him to estimate the torments of a final parting from the being in whom the whole heart's love lies treasured.--Lady Walladmor had pa.s.sed the night in convulsions, falling out of one fit into another with intervals of only a few moments. Towards sun-rise the intervals grew longer, but she was evidently sinking fast; she was sensible; and, as she recovered the use of speech, she asked for Sir Morgan.

"I entered the room with Sir Morgan: lady Walladmor was sitting on a sopha propped up by cushions and surrounded by her women. All of us staid in the room; for some could not be spared; and the presence of strangers is distressing only when they are neutral spectators and not partic.i.p.ators in the emotion witnessed--as we were in the very deepest degree, and by an interest which far transcended the possibility of any vulgar interest of curiosity.--There is no doubt that lady Walladmor had recollected some circ.u.mstance in the application made to her on behalf of Winifred Griffiths--not understood or suspected at that time--but suddenly interpreted to her by the event of the preceding night and too sadly interpreting that event. This was plain: for she asked no information from us: she saw by our countenances that we had none to give her which could shed a comfort on her dying moments: and even to turn her thoughts that way was too terrific a trial for her exhausted nature. She moved her head mournfully with a world of sad meaning: twice she raised and dropped her hand, as if in supplication or internal prayer: a third time she raised it, and the hand fell into that of Sir Morgan's: her lips moved; and at last she said--and the solemnity of her utterance for a moment checked our tears--'That for her sake, and as he hoped for comfort to visit him in his afflictions, she made it her last request that, if ever' (even then she was too tender to say 'ever' _again_) 'if ever any poor suffering human creature, sinking under trials too great for human fort.i.tude, should lay down the burthen of wretchedness at his feet, he would not close his heart or turn away his ear from the pet.i.tion.' Saying this, she hid her face in Sir Morgan's arms; strong convulsions again came on: and, before the morning dew was exhaled, she was once more at peace;

'And Nature rested from her work in death.'

"Thus did one night wither Sir Morgan's 'palmy state' of prosperity: thus were his children torn away: thus died lady Walladmor: and with her died all Sir Morgan's happiness, and upon this earth all his prospects of consolation. He was now left with no companion; none to comfort him, or support him. After this, for some years he shut up himself from all society, except upon public occasions where he appeared but as an official or ceremonial person: but gradually the intreaties of his friends, and the claims of his rank, drew him back into the world: and then came his lovely niece, Miss Walladmor; and with her again came something like joy to Walladmor; though but for a season; for _that_ joy also was overcast."

"But did Sir Morgan," asked Bertram, "never recover any traces of the pirates or his lost children?"

"There again his unhappy fate denied him the last medicine to his grief. Next to the joy of recapturing his children, would have been the consolation of knowing that they had perished. But, though that was probable, it could never finally be ascertained. The express, sent on to Liverpool, found a frigate of 36 guns--the Nemesis--lying in Hoylake. The Nemesis slipped her cables, and went after the enemy. Her hope was to intercept him before he reached the Isle of Man: but the Rattlesnake was an excellent sailer, and had the lead. However on the second evening, off the c.u.mberland coast, between Ravengla.s.s and Whitehaven, the Nemesis got a sight of her about two leagues ahead. A chace of two hours more would have put her into the possession of the frigate: but within that time came on the great storm of June 13th, which strewed the whole channel with wrecks. The Nemesis was herself obliged to run into Maryport: and, as nothing more was ever heard of the Rattlesnake, it was presumed that she had foundered in that memorable storm which was fatal to so many ships better acquainted with those seas. This was a point which Sir Morgan would have given a king's ransom to establish. But unfortunately it was never put beyond doubt: there was still a possibility that she might have executed her intention of going north about. There was once a rumor afloat that she had got into the Baltic: you may be sure that every means, which Sir Morgan's vast wealth and influence could command, was put in motion to trace her in that region: but all to no purpose: and perhaps Sir Morgan would have been satisfied (as others were) that the rumor had no foundation, but for the hints and ambiguous expressions dropped at times by Gillie G.o.dber."

"You remind me seasonably," said Bertram, "of a question which I had nearly overlooked: why was not this fiendish woman apprehended, and brought to trial?"

"Of what service would _that_ have been? Suppose that she had been convicted, and transported--_that_ would only have removed her from the knowledge of all who were on the watch to take advantage of any discoveries she might make from carelessness or craziness, or which she yet may make from repentance on her death-bed."