University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

The appearance of the refugees, with the fierce
though unavailing contest they had attempted with
the pursuers on the night of the outrage, had spread
the alarm far and wide; and this was not diminished
by the daring assault on the prison, as it
was called, the real character of that enterprise
not having yet generally transpired. One consequence
of the alarm was, to draw to the scene of
commotion the governor, or President as he was
then called, of the commonwealth, who happened
in the neighbourhood upon some tour of duty, and
arrived after nightfall, so that his person was not
generally known before day. One of the first
persons upon whom he laid his eyes, after entering
the hotel, was his old and distinguished acquaintance
Colonel Falconer, with whose unhappy loss
he was already acquainted, as well as with many
incidents of the trial. Upon saluting him by name,
the Colonel became greatly agitated, and besought
him not to repeat the word, if he would not have
him murdered before his eyes; with other expressions

indicative of a disordered mind, which the
dignitary attributed at once to his melancholy bereavement.
He then accompanied him to a private
apartment, where he attempted to soothe him
by condoling with him on his loss, but found him
incapable of listening to argument or entreaty.
The death of his son did not seem to affect him so
deeply as the malice of the murderer, of whom he
spoke with a bitterness and vindictiveness of feeling
that shocked his hearer. It has been seen how
his heart softened over this unhappy youth, when
he met him at the water-fall, and deemed that he
owed a life to his virtue. The death of his son
had, however, converted his feelings into a new
channel; and he saw in the humanity that drove
him from the Hollow, only the evidence of a coldblooded
design to withdraw him from the scene,
that his son might perish unaided; and this design
he contrasted with his own friendly resolutions.
In short, the demon of revenge had entered his
spirit, along with that of fear; for, it seemed, the
repeated discoveries of Oran Gilbert penetrating
even to the haunts of his foes, had infected him
with terror on his own account. The sight of the
governor, in whose hands lay the power of life
and death, seemed to throw him into alarm, lest
he had come with the design of pardoning the
murderer; and he lanched at once into a strain
of vehement complaint, in which he mingled denunciations
against the prisoner with personal calls
upon the governor for justice.

In the midst of this scene, which the magistrate
strove in vain to bring to an end, the door of the
chamber was thrown open, and the figure of Elsie
Bell entered the apartment. She had risen from
a bed of sickness,—it might have been supposed
from a bed of death, for her appearance was more

like that of a moving corse than a living being:
and as she tottered up to Colonel Falconer, who
stood aghast at the spectacle, her bloodless cheeks,
livid lips, and eyes shining, almost without speculation,
through the gray locks that had escaped
from her head-dress, filled even the governor with
awe.

“Where is Richard Falconer?” she cried, “I
heard his voice but now; and it called for justice!”

Her looks wandered from the governor, upon
whom they were first fixed, to the object of her
inquiry; and it is impossible to describe the expression
of mingled triumph and horror with
which she surveyed him. She raised her shrivelled
hands, and shaking them with a fierce but palsied
motion, cried,—

“Yes, Richard Falconer, you called for justice,
and now you have it. It has come, at last, in
blood, and in blood richer than that of your own
bosom. The death-bed curse of a ruined woman
will not be forgotten,—it curses for ever!”

“For God's sake, governor,” cried Falconer,
trembling from head to foot, “leave me, or take
the wretched creature away.”

“Yes, leave us,” said the widow: “let no one
look upon him more, let no one look upon him
now. Away, if you have pity for him who has
none for himself.”

The governor looked at Falconer, and perceiving
that, although incapable of utterance, he made
earnest gestures to him to depart, he left the chamber
without speaking a word, but with a look indicating
amazement and suspicion. He was no
sooner gone than Elsie, stepping up to Falconer,
laid her hand on his arm, now seemingly as palsied
as her own, and said, with accents that sounded
in his ear like the cry of a raven,—

“You asked for justice—ay, I heard the words
with my own ears! you asked for blood,—the
blood of him who has shed that of your son! You
called for justice—it was for justice on your
own head! Richard Falconer,” she continued,
“well may you tremble; the curse of Jessie Gilbert
is now upon your soul, and it will be on it for
ever.”

“Woman,” said Falconer, endeavouring to
shake her off, but in vain, “you will drive me distracted.”

“I will do you no such mercy,” said Elsie:
“Hearken—the last words of Jessie Gilbert were a
curse,—the curse of a broken-hearted woman
upon her betrayer: she died cursing you, and now
the curse you feel, without knowing half its dreadfulness.
Richard Falconer, you ask for the blood
of Henry Falconer's murderer. Miserable man.!”
she added, relaxing her grasp, and clasping her
hands with horror, “it is the blood of your own
son,—the blood of the child of Jessie Gilbert!”

“Hah!” said Falconer,—but said no more. He
gazed in the face of the speaker, and read a dreadful
confirmation of her words, while she continued
to utter, as in a kind of insane exultation,

“Is not this revenge for Jessie Gilbert? The
brother kills the brother, and the father kills the
son!—ay, as he before killed the mother! Now,
Richard Falconer, repent and die—the victim is
avenged! It is true!”

“It is false! false as hell!” said Falconer, recovering
speech; “or what, oh God of heaven!
what am I!”

“The avenger of your own black and heartless
villany,” said the woman. “Hearken, Richard Falconer,
and you shall know all. When Oran Gilbert
knew the shame of his sister, he swore its

miserable fruit should never see the light; and I
knew he would slay it, even out of hatred of the
father. That night! that night! it was a night of
horror. Jessie Gilbert lay dead, with a babe
wailing on her bosom; and the mother, the broken-hearted
step-mother gave to my hands her own untimely
and still-born offspring—the brothers raved
at the door, calling for the child of shame. I had
mercy—mercy on your child,—not because it was
yours, but because it was the babe of Jessie. I
laid it in the arms of the step-mother, and it lived.
She kept the secret, and the father of her you betrayed
kept it also, though he sent it afar from his
sight. Thus was it saved—thus was the child of
sorrow preserved, that he might imbrue his hands
in the blood of his brother, and then perish at the
call of his father!”

“Wretch!” said Falconer, sinking on a seat,
“and this dreadful secret you kept, that I might
be made the most miserable of men? And you
incited on the unhappy Hyland to the murder of
his brother?”

“I did what I could to save him,—not for your
sake, though, Richard Falconer, but for the love
of Jessie. I warned the boy of his danger—nay,
I would have told him of his birth, but that I
knew it would kill him; and I loved him for his
goodness. Why should I have filled him with
shame, staining him who was innocent of his
father's crimes, with the disgrace of his birth?”

“Elsie Bell,” said Falconer rising and advancing
towards her, “I am a villain.—My poor
Harriet! my poor Harriet” he added, and as the
widow looked into his face, she was amazed to
see it streaming with tears. “But for her, but for
her,” he added, “but for her and my wretched
Henry—but for my children, Elsie, I might, I would

have done justice to Jessie's memory. Oh God!
had I but known of this thing before! But why,
now, should it be known? You revenge the murdered
Jessie not on me, Elsie, but on my poor
Harriet. The stain you feared to cast on the
name of Hyland, you fling on the forehead of my
daughter. Elsie Bell, Elsie Bell,” he exclaimed,
in unspeakable agitation, while drops of sweat
rolled from his temples and mingled with his tears,
“if I tell you what you know not, though it show
me to have done worse by Jessie Gilbert than you
dream, it will destroy my remaining child. And
why should I destroy her? Why fling her before
the world as a creature to be scorned, for the sake
of a wretched fratricide? I will not do it,—I will say
no more—what have I said? When they are dead,
—when all are dead, then let me lay bare my baseness,
and think of the memory of Jessie. But
this child,—this wretched, this blood-stained Hyland,—I
will save his life,—the governor shall
grant me his pardon; it cannot be that he will refuse
me—But I will never see him, no, never—
Hah! hear! what is this? They are bringing him
forth! Hark! they are shouting aloud for his condemnation!—Oh
heaven support me! To this
I—I have brought him!”

But we have not the courage to pursue further
the agonies of the wretched father, whom a sudden
commotion in the street, with loud cries of
“To the court! to the court! the jury have made
a verdict!” one of twenty false rumours to which
expectation gave birth,—threw into new transports
of anguish. At last, moved by an irresistible
impulse, he started up and ran into the streets,
through which he made his way to the prison.

In the meanwhile, Hyland strode (for though
securely fettered, he was no longer chained to the

floor,) to and fro in his cell, a changed, we might
almost say, a happy, man. The sight of his pistols
in the court had introduced a new set of associations,
from which he perceived clearly, that,
although he had so long esteemed himself the
author of Falconer's death, that young man had,
in truth, fallen by some other hand. The story
told by Sterling of the exchange of pistols between
him and the prisoner, was, as Hyland had pronounced
it, a sheer fabrication; although he was
unable to devise any reason Sterling could have
for swearing falsely; his original testimony having
made it clear, that he was not actuated by
motives of malice. He remembered that he had
raised a weapon against his rival, which, as others
were, discharged at the same moment, he did not
dream had failed to go off; although he now recalled
to mind that the same one—he had taken it
from the same side of the saddle—had flashed in
his hands, when aimed at the head of Sterling.
Remembering these circumstances in connexion
with Dancy's declaration that he had restored the
pistol, entirely empty, to the holsters, he saw at once,
however others failed to see it, that Providence had
interposed to save him from the crime of bloodshed,
and that he was therefore, save in intent,
wholly innocent. This persuasion was enough to
banish his despair, which was founded chiefly on
remorse; and perhaps, in great measure, also, his
apprehensions; although in a cooler moment, he
would have perceived upon how weak a foundation
he built his hope of escape, so long as the
falsehood of Sterling was not exposed.

Twenty times he endeavoured to throw himself
upon his knees, to thank Heaven for its signal interposition
in his favour; but his devotions were checked
by the tumult of his mind, which increased at

last into such distraction, that although he received
a visit from his jailer, whose errand had no
unimportant bearing upon his interests, he failed
to take any advantage of Lingo's good will, or
even to understand the purport of his communications.
The fact was, the note of hand which he
had drawn from Affidavy's pocket, besides affording
confirmatory evidence of that worthy individual's
connexion with the attempted rescue, had
made a strong impression upon Lingo's cupidity;
and his object in the visit was nothing less than to
intimate his willingness to serve the prisoner in the
same way, and on much more reasonable terms.
But he found the prisoner in no condition to treat
with him on such a delicate subject; and after unmasking
his battery, and uttering several broad
hints in regard to his friendly intentions, he was
forced to give over in despair, resolving, however,
to open negotiations at a more favourable
moment.

In the meanwhile, Hyland still paced to and fro
through his dungeon, till his feeble limbs refused to
support him longer. He then threw himself upon
his couch, and becoming more collected, pondered
bitterly over his situation. He heard the rush of
the people towards the court-house, which was at
no great distance, as well as their shouts `that the
jury had descended!' and he felt at once, with a
thrill of fear, that he still lay hovering on the brink
of a precipice. He started up in an agony of
mind not to be controlled, and throwing himself
upon his knees, began to invoke heaven with wild
exclamations; when the door of his cell was
thrown open, a bright lamp flashed in his face, and
looking up, his eye fell upon that of Colonel Falconer,
who entered the room, followed by the tottering
Elsie. The door was closed behind them,

and Falconer stood rooted to the floor, surveying
his wretched offspring, who seemed petrified at
his appearance, while Elsie stepping up to him,
held the lamp to his face, and bade the father look
upon the features of his son.

“It is Jessie's face over again,” she muttered,
“and as pale, as ghastly, and as distracted as
when she cursed her betrayer. She cursed him,
but do not you, Hyland—the curse has fallen upon
all. Now, Richard Falconer, behold your son,
and remember Jessie Gilbert!”

“His son!” cried Hyland, starting to his feet;
“his son! Are you mad? Oh, Elsie, I am half
distracted myself. Why do you bring that man
to me?”

“Because,” said Elsie; “he claims to see his
offspring.”

“His offspring! Vain old woman!”

“Would that you were not,” said Colonel Falconer,
with clasped hands. “I am now punished
enough. Alas, wretched boy, you have killed
your father's son. Hearken to this woman, and
then add to the crime that already stains you, a
malediction upon your parent.”

“It is true, Hyland, it is true,” said Elsie. “As
there is a heaven above you, you look upon
your own father, and you have killed your half-brother.”

“I have killed nobody,” said the youth, impetuously;
“and if you would have me still innocent,
drive that man away. His son! sooner make me
the way-side beggar's—nay, make me believe myself
a murderer rather. His son!”

“Ay,” said Colonel Falconer, with deep emotion,
“the sinful son of a sinful parent.!”

“Stand away! approach me not!” said Hyland,

for Falconer was approaching. “Your misfortune
has turned your brain. Touch me not, for I remember
my sister!”

“Your mother, boy, your mother!” said Elsie.

“Be it my mother, if you will: what then
have I but more cause to curse the author of her
shame?”

“The author of her death, not shame,” said Falconer,
with a smothered voice. “Murderer of
your brother, even for your sake I will take that
veil of disgrace from your mother's memory that
must be hung round the brows of my daughter. Do
not curse me, my son—Elsie Bell, I deceived you
all, and it was the deceit that killed my poor Jessie.
This boy was born in wedlock,—the child of the
abandoned and broken-hearted, yet wedded, wife
of her destroyer.”

“Your wife! gracious heaven, your wife!” said
Elsie, on whom these words produced as strong an
effect as upon the bewildered Hyland. “Now,
Richard Falconer, if you have spoken the truth,
you are indeed a blacker villain than ever men
believed you.”

“I am,” said Falconer; “for with the lie I killed
my wife and laid her in a grave of dishonour.
You were made to believe it was but a mock ceremony
that united us: it was a legal and honourable
tie, and broken only by the death of Jessie.
And for what purpose? You know, Elsie Bell, you
know very well, yes, surely you know,” he added,
with much agitation, and as if afraid to speak further.
But Elsie sternly affirming her ignorance of any
cause he had for destroying the peace and good name
of her whom he acknowledged his lawful wife, and
Hyland now regarding him with a look of mingled
fear and entreaty, he essayed to speak; and again
the sweat-drops, oozing from his temples, betrayed

the anguish and shame of mind with which he exposed
an act of unexampled duplicity and baseness.
His confession was indeed one which no light remorse
could have wrung from his spirit; but it
was made, and made without concealment or attempted
extenuation, although it undoubtedly revealed
a strong if not just reason for his failure to
rescue from shame the memory of his betrayed
wife. He had begun the world as a needy adventurer;
but was early patronized by a gentleman of
great wealth, with whose daughter, an only child,
he soon presumed to fall deeply in love; the consequence
of which was the withdrawal of his patron's
favour, and immediate expulsion from his
house. It appeared, that he had not failed to make
some impression upon the lady's heart; but she
was a spoiled child and coquette, and he left her
with but little hope of ever deriving any advantage
from her tenderness. He betook himself to the
army, was transferred, in course of time, to the
frontiers, and in less than two years after his departure,
found himself recovering from the wounds
he had received at the Moravian town, under the
roof of Gilbert's Folly. The youth and beauty of
Jessie, his gratitude for her kindness, and still
more, perhaps, for her affection, which the simplehearted
maiden gave him almost at first sight,
and had not the power to conceal, touched
his imagination, if not his feelings; and in a
moment of excitement, and folly, he proffered
her his hand, and was married. The marriage
was secret—it might be added, accidental; for
the freedom of manners, at that day, and in that
country, allowing such license, he often, as he recovered,
found himself galloping with the merry
maiden on visits among the settlements a dozen
or more miles distant; and it was upon one of
these occasions that he gave his love and faith together
to the thoughtless maiden. The knot was,
however, no sooner tied, than he was seized with
fears and regrets: he had already received overtures
towards a reconciliation by his old patron,
and without well conceiving in what manner he
could profit by a return of friendship in such quarter,
he persuaded himself, and his bride also, that
his interest demanded some temporary concealment
of their union. To this Jessie was easily induced
to accede; for having no distrust in her
lover, she saw in such concealment only an additional
frolic, such as she esteemed her marriage to
be. She feared no censure from her parent, who
had indeed long since signified the pleasure with
which he would receive so gallant a gentleman for
his son-in-law; and she looked forward with merry
anticipation to the hour when she should present
herself to him as a bride of a month's standing.
She consented therefore, not merely with readiness,
but alacrity, to preserve the wedding a strict
secret; and in that fatal consent paved the way for
her own ruin and untimely end. We will speak the
remainder of the mournful story in a word. The
overtures from the patron were renewed, and
were accompanied by the smiles of his daughter.
Falconer looked upon Jessie with anger, perhaps
with abhorrence,—she stood in the way of his fortune.
The old love smiled again, and forgetting
that now the smile came too late, he yielded to the
intoxication of his original passion, threw himself
at her feet, and became, even with her father's
consent, an accepted lover. The state of his mind
can be now better imagined than described; love,
avarice, and ambition together, as well as a consciousness
that he had involved himself beyond all
retreat, urged him to persevere in a suit both dishonourable
and criminal; and Jessie was now
thought of only to be hated. Months passed by, and
the jest of the frolic was over; yet the marriage
was not divulged; the young bride begged to disclose
the secret, and every entreaty filled him with
new alarm and anger; until the accidental death
of the regimental chaplain by whom they had been
united, and the previous decease of the only witnesses
to the ceremony, put him upon a scheme
for relieving himself from his bonds worthy rather
of a fiend than a human being. His witnesses were
two soldiers of his company, whom he had bribed
to silence so liberally, that they quarrelled together
in their cups, and fought, and that with such fury,
that one was killed on the spot, and the other died
before he could be brought to a trial. The chaplain
was drowned five months after in attempting
to cross a flooded river. There remained therefore
no witness of the union, and the only testimony
remaining, to wit, the certificate signed by
the unfortunate chaplain, was already in Falconer's
hands. Opportunity—the devil that seduces
beyond all other fiends—destroyed every vestige
of honour and humanity in his bosom; he fled from
his betrayed wife, leaving her to believe that the
ceremony of marriage between them had been
only a brutal mockery, contrived by a villain for
her ruin. He left her to believe this, to madden,
and to die; and before she had drawn her last
sigh,—nay, upon the morning of that dreadful
midnight that saw her expire,—he had yielded to
the fate he had encouraged, and taken a second
wife to his bosom.

“I lived, I prospered,” he cried, when he had
brought his dark confession to a close; “and two
fair infants sat upon my knee; but their looks were
curses to me—their birth was infamous; and I
myself, though men knew it not, was in the eye of

God and the law, a felon!—Now, Hyland, son of
the wronged Jessie, I have defended your mother's
memory; but I am not less a villain. Expose me
to the world, curse me, for I deserve it—yes!” he
added, with wildness, and even falling upon his
knees before the horror-struck son,—“expose me
and curse me, but have pity upon my child,—have
mercy upon your sister,—the sister of the brother
you slew,—my poor, wretched, dishonoured Harriet.”

“God forgive you, sir,” said Hyland, with tears.
“Leave me—I cannot call you father: but I will
not disgrace your daughter. No, I will not—but
my mother—And she was my mother then?—
my mother's name must rest no longer in infamy.
Go, sir; I forgive you—that is, I will not upbraid
you; but I cannot, I cannot call you father. I am
innocent of Henry's—of my brother's death—
Yes, I will call him brother, for surely he never
wronged my poor mother. Take this much comfort—
my hand never fired the pistol that killed
him; and, whether I live or die, it will soon be
seen that I am innocent of his blood.”

“God grant it,” said Colonel Falconer, but with
an accent showing how vaguely the thought of
Henry now sat on his bosom. “God grant it—
but—hark! what is that? They cry again! It is
the descent of the jury! Oh Heaven, I am punished
indeed for that act of baseness! Farewell, my
son: I do not ask you for forgiveness—but touch
my hand, grasp my hand but once”—

“I cannot,” said Hyland, recoiling with such
horror, that the unhappy father bowed his head
with shame. He then snatched up the light, unconscious
of what he did, and moved towards the
door, as if to depart; but a louder cry from the
street striking his ear, he again turned round, and
looked Hyland in the face.

“They are calling for your blood,” he said,
“but they do not know you killed your brother!—
What! not touch my hand? Well, it is but justice,—I
will not trouble you more.”

With these words, he turned to depart, still
holding the lamp; but had scarce moved his foot,
before there was heard, at a little distance without,
the sound, as it seemed, of a rifle, or other small
arms.

“Oh Heaven! my father!” cried Hyland, starting
up, with a voice that thrilled Elsie to the brain,—
“I have killed my father!”

The lamp fell from Colonel Falconer's hands,
and all was in darkness. As Hyland rushed to
where he had stood, his foot struck against a prostrate
body; and reaching down, he found his hand
slipping in a puddle of warm blood.

“Elsie! Elsie!” cried the distracted youth, “a
light for God's sake! It was meant for me, but it
has struck my father! Why did I forget? Oh, I
thought not of my folly.—Help me, Elsie—he
groans.”

“Enough,--let me lie where I am,” said Falconer,
with a voice almost inaudible. “There is retribution
for all.”

“Call the jailer!—Quick, jailer, quick!” cried
Hyland, as the door opened, disclosing the broad
and wondering visage of Hanschen: “help me to
place him upon the bed; and then, oh for God's
sake, quick for a surgeon!”

But Hanschen answered only by slapping to the
door, without uttering a word; and making his
way as fast as he could towards the cell of Sterling,
in which was, at that moment, presented a
scene of not less fearful character than that which
had passed before Hyland's eyes.