University of Virginia Library

13. CHAP. XIII.

Henry VI.

On a damp and chilly evening, at the commencement
of November, the peaceful family circle at Mr. Osborne's
was disturbed by a loud and hasty knock at the outer
door. It proved to be John Dudley, evidently agitated,
and out of breath with exertion.

“You will excuse me, sir, for coming upon you in
this way,” said he, bowing to the elder Mr. Osborne;—
“but where there is good to be done, I know you are
always fond of going.”

“Very true, John; and of what service can I be
now?”

“Why, Miss Grace remembers that my good woman
told her about Wilson's daughter, that was coming to
board with us. Well, sure enough, she came with a
young man, who, they say, is her new married husband;
and as comely a couple they are as ever I looked on.
She has a noble way with her, that makes her seem like
a duchess; and he is as rosy and fresh as seventeen.
Howsomever, that's neither here nor there.—They are
are as unhappy now as the oldest and the ugliest. Her
father is dying,—and oh,—such a hard death. The
doctor says he is pisoned; and my Rebecca looks hard
at old Townsend.”

To their brief inquiries, Dudley rapidly answered, that
about half an hour before, Mr. Percival had come in as
pale as ashes, and begged him and his wife to go to Mr.
Townsend's; and that when they arrived there, they
found Mr. Wilson in dreadful fits, crying out for a priest
to whom he might confess. “And so,” continued he,
“I ran off for you, thinking you might speak a word of
comfort to his poor soul.”

Mrs. Dudley was right in her conjecture. The shaft
of death had been winged by the hand of Townsend.
Two or three unsuccessful expeditions to Castle William
had given rise to a suspicion that Wilson had himself
secreted the treasure supposed to be concealed there:
this, together with a daily increasing fear of detection,
induced the old man to remove his guilty associate by
means of poison; but no sooner had the deadly potion
commenced its work, than the poor wretch, rendered
cowardly by wickedness, sought to drown the voice of
conscience in a copious draught of laudanum.

When Mr. Osborne arrived, he was met at the door
by Doctor Willard. “You have come to a terrible
scene, my dear sir,” said he. “Being at my father's,
I was sent for, as the nearest physician; but I assure
you, I would gladly have avoided the task.”

It was indeed a melancholy sight to see two who had
long been supposed companions in guilt, lying on miserable
pallets in the same room of death.

The miser, gasping for breath, seemed insensible to
all around him; yet his right hand clutched a bag of
gold with all his remaining energy, as if he thought the

filthy lucre would assist him beyond the grave. His
nephew stood rubbing his stiffened hand with a look of
mingled distress and compassion.

The sufferings of Wilson were more severe than
those of his murderer. He would shriek and struggle
till his strength was quite exhausted, and then his weak
limbs would quiver with the acuteness of bodily pain,
and his features become convulsed with the violence of
internal emotion. His daughter knelt by his bed-side
in tears; and pale and anxious as she was, Doctor Willard
saw in her exceeding beauty an ample excuse for
Percival's degrading marriage.

She had loosened the rosary from her neck, and she
held the sacred emblem of salvation before the sufferer,
as she said, “Try to pray, dear father.” He gazed on
her for a moment with a dreadful expression of remorse
and terror, and then turned his face the other way without
speaking a word.

Doctor Willard prepared an opiate, and as his child
stooped down to arrange his pillows, and apply the
laudanum to his throbbing temples,—with the frightful,
hollow laugh of insanity, he exclaimed, “Where is your
bloody gown, Gertrude. I have been told that heart's
blood will not wash out in any earthly stream.”

He looked up as he spoke—his expression suddenly
changed; and he shaded his face, as he murmured,
“Oh, how much like Fitzherbert!”

“It's a lie,” squeaked the old miser, in tones hardly
audible, “I never touched Fitzherbert's money.”

“Ha! are you there, old raven?” said his accomplice,
trying to raise himself on his elbow.

The exertion was too much for him, and with a deep
groan he fell backward. His spasms were, for a while,
more violent than ever. Percival left the bed-side of
his uncle, where he had long been pouring words of
kindness and consolation into ears that regarded him
not; and when his wretched father-in-law had an interval
of comparative quiet, he took Mr. Osborne's
hand, as he said, “Here is a clergyman come to pray
with you.”

“I know what to say to please him and all his tribe,”
replied the hardened sinner; “but it would do no good.
There is an accusing spirit with a bloody robe, that will
undo all that he or I can do to save me.”

“But there is One who has the power and the will
to save the penitent,” observed Mr. Osborne.

Mr. Wilson scowled deeply. “I have something to
confess,” said he; “but he is not one of the confessing
sort.”

“Is there no holy priest in Boston, who could give
ease to my father's parting spirit?” inquired Gertrude.

“There is no Catholic, God be praised,” replied Mr.
Osborne, with a look that expressed his compassion for
her deluded faith.

“I have much to say, and brief space to say it in,”
rejoined Wilson; “but it touches the life of that old
man. I meant to have reformed from my evil ways, if
the Almighty had given me time—as it is, I must take
my chance.”

A loud groan at that instant directed all eyes toward
Mr. Townsend's couch. Percival instantly sprang forward,—for,
unnoticed by any one, he had fallen into
strong convulsions. Doctor Willard tried to open his
hands; but with strength that seemed almost miraculous,
he clasped the golden treasure, and in broken and
indistinct accents, complained that they were taking
away his last farthing.

“I won't, I won't,” said he, struggling with the physician,
“I say I won't pay a farthing; for I never
wronged her.”

Sinking back as he spoke, his muscles twitched,—his
limbs drew up, and he expired.

The tears coursed each other down the cheeks of his
nephew, as he gazed on the corpse of him who had
lived unbeloved and died unlamented.

It is always melancholy to see a desolate mortal venturing
into the fathomless abyss of eternity, without one
friendly voice on shore to bid him God-speed; and perhaps
the mixture of regret and self-reproach, which we
feel when standing by the death-bed of those whom we
ought to love, yet cannot, has more of anguish in it than
belongs to any other species of sorrow.

Wilson, himself tottering on the verge of the precipice
from which his companion had just dropped, seemed
to be the only one unmoved.

“So he has gone to hell before me, and my story can
do him no harm,” said he.

With a look of unutterable agony Gertrude fell on
her husband's neck, and sobbed out, “Oh, I cannot
hear him talk thus.”

The action seemed to soften the heart of her father;
and, seizing the favourable moment, Mr. Osborne said,
“You are a dying man, Mr. Wilson; and something
seems to weigh heavily on your conscience. Remember
there is One to whom it is never too late to kneel for
pardoning mercy.”

Wilson waved his hand impatiently. “I have something
else to say now,” answered he;—“when I have
done, I will listen to you. Mr. Townsend was executor
to the Fitzherbert estate. He embezzled most of the
property. I broke open the widow's house; I intercepted
her letters, and he paid me for it.”

Before he could say more, his fits again came over
him. He writhed and groaned,—and the sweat stood
on his brow, in the intensity of his pain. With self-command
wonderful in one so young, his daughter leaned
over him, and assisted Doctor Willard in his attempts
to restore him.

When he revived a little, Mr. Osborne, impelled by
his anxiety for Lucretia, asked where the proofs of this
transaction could be found.

“In a small iron box, at John Dudley's house,” answered
Wilson. “I got them from the miser by the
help of false keys; and I held the whip over his back
forever after. There are two other things I would tell
of,—perhaps it may help me through purgatory. There
is a chest of gold buried in the ground, behind the store
No. —, King-street. I meant to have left it to Gertrude,”
continued he, looking at her with earnest affection,
“but she will have enough, if justice has all her
due.”

“Oh, tell the truth—tell all the truth,” said Gertrude,
stooping to kiss his pale face.

Delighted approbation shone in the expressive countenance
of Percival. “She is richer in her husband's
love than gold or silver could make her,” observed
Doctor Willard. “May I ask if this chest of gold is
the same Mr. Townsend dug up on the island last September?”

“The old fool never dug it up,” said Wilson, with a
hideous laugh. “Did he think I'd know where treasure
was, and not get it myself?—I kept it as a sort of
lure for him; but it was dug up in August, and a smooth
stone placed in its stead.

“And what,” inquired Doctor Willard, “was the
meaning of the noise, and of that struggling in the
sand?”

A slight smile of contempt curled the lips of the dying
man, as he asked, “Had you not a favourite dog?”

“I had.”

“And did you ever see him after you left Castle
William?”

I never did;—though I have offered large rewards
for him.”

“How superstition blinds itself,” replied Wilson.
“The men were startled by the voice of Doctor Byles;
they suffered the stone to slip, and your dog was crushed
beneath it.”

“To whom does this gold belong?” asked Percival.

“Some accursed fatality has always joined my fortunes
with Fitzherbert's,” said he. “The box was his.

There is that within it will explain all. There is one
thing more. In Mr. Townsend's third drawer, you will
find a book of bank notes belonging to Governor Hutchinson.”

“Why did you not tell all this before?” inquired
Percival. “I could have persuaded my poor uncle to
restore all to the rightful owners.”

“No such easy matter that,” replied Wilson. “Beside,
to tell the truth, I could not bear that Gertrude
should lose a penny, until death began to stare me in
the face. I knew your romantic generosity would betray
all. I respect you for it; and in a moment of
weakness I once trusted a fearful secret to it—a secret
which you alone of all the world are privy to.”

“Is he?” cried a voice, startling in its shrillness.

The eyes of all present were directed to the quarter
whence the sound proceeded. A tall, gaunt figure, in
a bright red cardinal, stood near the door. A wrinkled,
smoke-coloured arm was thrust forth from the cloak, and
her hand rested on a cane covered with snake-skin. A
rusty black bonnet had fallen back on her shoulders, and
gave a full view of her countenance, gleaming with expression
perfectly satanic. “Where should your crime
be so faithfully recorded as on the heart you have
crushed?” said she. “I told you a violent death was
not far distant. You call me Molly Bradstreet,—but I
am the mother of the murdered Gertrude May!”

A piercing shriek came from Wilson's inmost soul.

Her eyes seemed to flash with infernal fire, as she
exclaimed,—“You did kill her, then? Own it, wretch!
—own it!”

“I did stab her,” said Wilson; “but you do not know
the cause.”

The frenzied mother threw her cane upon the floor,
and springing to the bed, shook the dying man with the
strength and fury of an Amazon.

“Take her away from him—take her away,” cried
Gertrude, in a voice suffocated with emotion.

Her husband and Doctor Willard forced her from the
apartment; but as they retreated, she fixed her withering
gaze upon Wilson, and shook her bony fist in impotent
rage, as she exclaimed, “A mother's curse go with
you; and the torments of the damned be your portion,
—murderer as you are.”

“The pains of death are coming over me, thanks to the
hand that hurried them,” said Mr. Wilson. “Stoop down
and kiss me, while I have my senses; for bad as I am,
I love you, my child.”

“Oh, my father,—my poor father,—would I had
never known all this,” said Gertrude; and as she covered
her face with her trembling hands, the scalding tears
forced their way between her slender fingers.

The dying parent gave her one fervent kiss,—and
would have clasped her to his aching heart, but the paroxysms
came on more violently than ever. In the terrible
contest, reason was forever hurled from her throne.
He seemed to wrestle with some imaginary being, and
screamed and struggled, as he said, “Let me go! let
me go! She is standing there to heap red hot coals upon
my head. Oh, save me! save me!” This dreadful

conflict could not last long. Life yielded to the torturing
fiend; and he expired amid shrieks and agony.

The distressing scene came upon the innocent heart
of Gertrude with double power; for till now she had
been ignorant that a shadow of crime could be imputed
to her father; and she was carried from the room in a
state of insensibility.

Delicacy prevented any one from alluding to the
shocking causes of the deaths they had just witnessed;
though none doubted the distressing truth.

“I sincerely thank you for your kind exertions,
though they have been so fruitless,” said Percival to the
worthy clergyman. “It is but lately that my father-in-law
made a firm resolution that a virtuous old age should
atone, as far as possible, for his early sins; but late reformations
are always dangerous.”

“The stains of evil are indeed washed out with difficulty
when they have long been drying and deepening
beneath the scorching heat of the passions,” replied
Mr. Osborne. “Such instances should teach us all an
impressive lesson. They serve too well to confirm the
awful truth, that the threshold of hell is paved with
good resolutions.”

“I trust the fearful warning will not be lost upon us,”
rejoined the young man. “A priest of our own persuasion
would be more pleasant to myself and Mrs.
Percival; but as this is not altogether practicable at
this time, will you, my good sir, attend these funerals
the day after to-morrow?”

Mr. Osborne readily assented; and after Doctor Willard

had generously offered his services in any way they
might be required, the young husband retired to console
Gertrude with all the arguments that good sense or tenderness
could suggest.

Grace and Lucretia spent the ensuing day in the
house of mourning; and their ready kindness and unaffected
sensibility rapidly made their way to the heart
of the fair mourner,—while the guileless simplicity of
her ideas, aided by the witchery of foreign accent, made
a claim on their affections equally powerful.

They were all at that happy age, when the heart,
elastic and pliable, bounds forward to receive an impression,
and gives back its image in lines broad, deep,
and distinct.

When they parted, Percival smiled, as he said, “You
have taken the heart of my Gertrude by a coup de
main; had you been nine years in the St. Vallier's convent,
I think you could hardly have been greater
friends.”

In no point of view could the death of the two unhappy
men be considered a misfortune;—yet the funeral
was a crowded one.

The novel and exciting circumstances attending their
decease, the handsome Canadian stranger, and the desire
to explore a house which they had never been allowed
to visit during the life time of its owner, led the
populace thither in throngs.

When every thing was arranged for the procession,
the sexton, according to custom, announced that any
one had liberty to view the bodies. The crowd rushed

in with eagerness. Every one that looked on their convulsed
and blackened features, turned away with an expression
of horror; and others, with redoubled eagerness,
pressed forward to ascertain the cause of such
obvious emotion. He must have indeed been ingenious
in torture who first devised this cruel custom, still common
in the interior of our country. Oh, how the mother
is thrilled with anguish, when the blessed little face,
that has so often nestled to her heart in cherub playfulness,
is exposed to the view of the rude and unfeeling;
and how the husband's heart swells almost to bursting,
when the loved countenance, once all radiant with affection,
is given in its cold and lifeless beauty, to the heartless
gaze of a multitude.

There were no such feelings to be aroused on this
occasion; but Gertrude was oppressed with a deep and
distressing sense of shame, that the violent death of her
father should thus needlessly be made public. Her
husband sympathized with her feelings, and beckoned
to Doctor Willard, who in a low voice requested the
sexton to screw down the lids of the coffins, and dispense
with further ceremony.

`Not till I have looked my last,” said a discordant
voice. The crowd made way for some one, and presently
the grandmother of Gertrude stood by the coffin,
eyeing the lifeless remains of her son-in-law with the
malignant triumph of a vindictive fiend. “I told him
it would end thus; but he little thought how much more
I could have told him,” murmured she, as she seated
herself among the mourners.

“Who is she? who is she?” was whispered among
the crowd; but those who were able to give the information
did not choose to impart it, and no further notice
was taken of the interruption.

In a long and fervent prayer, Mr. Osborne alluded to
the insufficiency of wealth, and dwelt much on the
never failing mercies of the Saviour. What he said
was so exactly appropriate, and what he forbore to say,
evinced so much delicacy and tenderness, that Gertrude
half forgot her Catholic prejudices; though she internally
resolved that mass for her father's soul should be
said for three months in the convent of St. Vallier.

When the procession formed, Mr. and Mrs. Percival
rose and led the way. With a sudden and rapid stride
the grandmother approached Lucretia, and seizing her
arm attempted to follow. Lucretia shrank from the
contact with loathing and terror; but the singular woman
held her in a strong grasp, as she said, “Thus,
thus it should be. I am no mourner,—neither are you;
nevertheless our place is here.”

Fearing her violence would create confusion, Lucretia
passively yielded to her guidance,—though partly
from fear, and partly from the inequality of their stature,
she found it nearly impossible to keep pace with her.
Nothing was said till they arrived at the burial ground.
The harsh, grating cords lowered the coffins into the
earth; the heavy clods were heaped upon them, and
slowly and with measured tread the mourners left the
melancholy spot. “Lucretia Fitzherbert,” said the old
woman, stepping aside from her companions, and warmly

clasping her hand, “You'll may-be never see me
again; or if ye do, I'll may-be bring you unwelcome
tidings. I am sometimes strongly moved to make reparation
for all I have done; but it will not come out.
A good name will do much for you; but when you come
to your rich relations, and your heaps of silver, do not
forget a poor, half-crazed creature, that has watched for
ye, wept for ye, and kept an eye on ye,—but never for
evil. You are the only one left to pray for her now.”

Her chin quivered, her lips moved convulsively, and
the pressure of her hand was painful in its desperate
fervour.

With mingled surprise and pity, Miss Fitzherbert
answered, “If there is any thing I can do for you, poor
woman—”

“Your love and your prayers,” interrupted she;—
“oh, if I had them, I could tread my wearisome pilgrimage
in peace.”

“My grandmother,” said Gertrude, who had often
looked back, and now timidly approached them, “is
there nothing you will allow us to do for you before we
go back to Canada?”

“You! you!” replied she, with a vacant laugh.
“You owe me nothing; but your painted outside has
done well for you.”

Without waiting for an answer, she suddenly struck
into a little winding path, and was soon seen towering
among the distant bushes.

“It is very strange,” said Gertrude; “we invited her
to this funeral, and offered her a suit of mourning; but

she refused to come. My husband voluntarily promised
her a house and a pension for life, but she treated it all
with the bitterest scorn.”

On their way homeward, it was agreed that her grandchildren,
accompanied by Lucretia, should seek her
dwelling the ensuing day. They did so accordingly;
but no traces of the unhappy creature could be found.
An old woman who lived a few rods from her wretched
hut, said that, “Molly had gone off the day before, bag
and baggage; and that it was borne in upon her mind,
that she meant to lay violent hands on herself; but then
there was no telling,—for she always had a rambling
way with her.”

There were but few affairs left for Mr. Percival to
arrange before he left New England. Four thousand
pounds, the amount proved to have been sequestrated
from the Fitzherbert estate, was paid into the hands of
Governor Hutchinson. The chest of gold was found
where Wilson had directed, and its contents were precisely
what he stated in his conversation with Mr. Townsend.
At the bottom of the silver was a letter, worn
and blackened by the metal, but still enough of it legible
to make out, with slight assistance from imagination,

“I was induced to collect my property, lest the settlement
should trouble you in case of my death. Ever your loving husband,
Edmund Fitzherbert.”

Lucretia kissed the precious document, and steeped
it in her tears. “How well it is,” said she, “that we
never know the event of what we undertake. Could

my poor father have foreseen that his dear wife would
have died of a broken heart, without ever being aware
of the kind provision he had made for her comfort, how
wretched he would have been.”

The identical handwriting of Captain Fitzherbert was
immediately sent to England, together with an account
of Wilson's confession; and Mr. and Mrs. Percival returned
home, blessed by the numerous friends whom
their integrity and kindness had procured for them.

A few days after their departure, Doctor Byles entered
the breakfast parlour before Governor Hutchinson
had arisen from the table.

“I have made you an early call,” said he; “for since
there are no moles stirring, and since the talk about
Wilson and Townsend begins to die away, I think you
must be in need of excitement.”

“That was a gloomy business,” replied the Governor.
“Those who were witnesses of it will not speedily forget
it. With all Mr. Osborne's abhorrence of Wilson's
superstitious creed, he said it made him feel melancholy
to see a poor, dying sinner, craving the only spiritual
consolation in which he had the least faith, and yet unable
to procure it.”

“It is a pity that brother Osborne had not as much
political charity as he has religious,” answered the Doctor.
“That these two wicked mortals went to the bar
of an offended God with all their unrepented sins upon
their heads, is melancholy enough; but as to the Catholic
priest, I am much of the opinion of `the ever memorable
Hales.' `Pliny somewhere tells you,' says this

bold and witty writer, `that he that is stricken by a
scorpion, if he go immediately and whisper it in the ear
of an ass, shall find himself immediately eased. That
sin is a scorpion, and bites deadly, I have always believed;
but that to cure the bite of it, it was a sovereign
remedy to whisper it into the ear of a—priest, I do as
well believe, as I do that of Pliny.”'

“Probably Mr. Osborne's faith is about tantamount
to yours and `the ever memorable Hales',”' said Lucretia;
“but it is not surprising his feelings were touched.
What news do you bring to excite us?”

“What would you give to know?” said Doctor Byles,
drawing a package from his pocket with the most tantalizing
moderation.

“Only tell me one thing,—is it from England?” inquired
Lucretia.

“It is.”

“Nay, then, you must not keep us one moment in
suspense,” said Governor Hutchinson.

“Oh, if a letter from Mr. Fitzherbert has arrived!”
exclaimed Miss Sandford.

With a most provoking air, the clergyman replaced
the letters in his pocket, as he observed, “Self-denial
is a very necessary virtue, madam Sandford. Women
in particular should learn it well.”

“Small danger of their lacking lessons, as long as
society affords such lordly and tyrannic beings as yourself,”
she replied.

“This is too bad,” said the Governor, half angry and
half amused at his friend's childishness. “In the name

of his most christian majesty, George the Third, Defender
of the Faith, and by the grace of God, King of
Great Britain, Ireland, and the American Colonies, I
command you to deliver up the sealed parcel wherewith
you have been entrusted.”

“Prove your credentials, and I yield to royal authority,”
answered Doctor Byles.

“Might makes right,” replied his antagonist, and
making a sudden plunge, he snatched the package from
its hiding place.

“Since you have it,” observed the Doctor, “I will
give an account how I came by it. I walked unusually
early this morning, and perceiving the Queen Caroline
at the wharf, I went on board to search for letters; and
finding two parcels, one for yourself, and one for me, I
took charge of both.”

Two epistles in the well known hands of the Lords
Hillsborough and North, were laid aside to be read at
leisure. The third, though directed to his Excellency
Governor Hutchinson, began:

This laconic letter was in a fair Italian hand; and the
upright, heavy signature, was evidently the only part
written by the rich old bachelor. A few hours after, a
small box, directed to Lucretia, was brought from the
newly arrived vessel.

It contained a superb work-box mounted on golden
claws, and ornamented with a lion couchant, of the
same precious material, designed for Madam Sandford;
a gold repeater, of splendid workmanship, bore the
family arms of Hutchinson, marked with the initials,
T. H. A miniature, richly studded with rubies and
pearl, gave to Lucretia's view the bluff, sun-burnt features
of her wealthy uncle; and last of all, appeared a
draft on the bank of England, to the amount of one thousand
pounds.

Again and again was the transaction talked over, and
the munificent presents were examined and re-examined.
In the course of the day, the Osbornes called to
congratulate their young friend on her good fortune, of
the prospect of which they had, till within a week, been
entirely ignorant.

“Joy, joy!” cried Miss Sandford; “Lucretia goes
to England early in the spring, and she can have the
retinue of a duchess, if she chooses.”

Grace said but little, but her eloquent looks spoke
satisfaction without the slightest tinge of envy.

Mr. Osborne folded his hands over her in paternal
benediction, as he said, “Your brain must be steady,
indeed, if you can stand on this dizzy height unmoved.
Pray that you may be strengthened for the trial, my
child.”

Henry gave her hand a lingering pressure, as he
whispered, “I rejoice that I was kept in ignorance of
all this. Wherever Miss Fitzherbert goes, and whatever
may be her fortune, she will at least remember that
Henry Osborne was a friend, sincere and disinterested.”