CHAPTER XVII.

_Alonzo._ "I long To hear the story of your life, which must Take the ear strangely."--_Tempest._

"And this, my comrade, is that very one Who was an infant then."--_Sophocles_, translated.

"To begin, then, at the commencement I must sail back many years. I am an old man now, and have had a rough cruise through life. I was then a young lad just ready to be launched out on the sea of life; it is forty years gone by now, but I remember all as if it had happened yesterday. The Earl of Wentworth, your father, was then but just of age, and had been celebrating his majority with great merry-making. On his estates the chief retainer was a man named Hermiston, the bailiff of the Dun Edin farm; he was a stout, well-to-do sort of man, and had one only son and two daughters: that son was me--my name was William Hermiston. My mother had died in giving me birth, and my father and sisters spoiled me,--never contradicting me in anything, and letting me grow up as wild a young scapegrace as was in all the country round. I got into bad company when I was about eighteen; idleness is the mother of all mischief, and so it was with me. I drank, betted, swore, and as I had plenty of the rhino, and was hail fellow well met with every companion that knew me, I grew worse and worse. My old father used often to say a word: he would shake his head and tell me he feared I would come to no good with such companions, but I heeded not what the old man said, and went on the same. In the publics I became acquainted with some horse-racing fellows, and was soon at home in the betting way, and could make a book with any man. I ran into debt--or as we say at sea, outstripped the constable--they were debts of honour, and had to be paid. My father steadily refused to refund me any more; I applied to your father, he helped me out easily, but warned me not to expect any future aid. Again I got head over ears--money must be got, and I became acquainted with a set of wild fellows--smugglers. I had always been fond of the sea, and took to the trade readily. Full of risk and danger, it was exactly what I liked; I rapidly made headway, paid my score, and rose to be one of the leading men.

"By the time I was five-and-twenty, or thereabout, I was captain of a lugger craft, and well known as a desperate fellow. When my old father heard of my evil doings he sternly reprimanded me for the first time in my life. I was not able to brook censure, and told him so; he tried entreaty, all was vain. I left him and brought down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. My voyages were never very far, Holland was the extent of them at that time, and I had a magnet at home which kept me ever coming back; this was a young and pretty girl, who lived near Musselburgh; her name was Agnes Macgregor, and a finer lass I never saw. I had known her for years, and she had long been my sweetheart; she had no father or mother, and her grandmother was an old, decrepit, blind woman of seventy, so the girl was under little restraint. Many's the time I have walked and talked with her for hours in the evenings when I was ashore; she did not care a straw about the illicit course of life I led, nay, I think she thought all the better of me for it. I left her, as I was to go to Flushing first before our marriage, and promised to bring home lace enough to deck her out like a queen. I remember well how she waved her kerchief to me as our craft put off at moonlight. I thought on her all the way over the rough German Ocean--it was winter time, and a bitter nor'-easter blew in our teeth, with driving sleet and hail. I reached Holland; I got the very finest lace for Agnes. I left again with a rich cargo, and landed in the old country. I had been absent some three months, winter had changed and spring set in; more than winter had changed, too--I found woman as variable as the seasons. I went to seek her at the old house--it was empty. I inquired--they had removed to a cottage near the Towers. I followed, I found her out--the hussy would have nought to say to me. In vain I argued, in vain I tried to get back her heart, it was all no go. I tried to find a reason for the change; she only gave one I would not receive--my manner of life, my being a smuggler. I loved that girl as I loved my own life; I offered to give up all, and seek an honest livelihood; all to no purpose, the wench had no more to say to me, and I was miserable.

"My Lord, you may look at my old weather-beaten features, and wonder any woman would look at me, but I was a well-favoured youngster then. I could put the stone, toss the caber, leap, run, and vault against any young fellow in the county. I was not the sour-faced, hard-featured seaman I am now, and I knew the girl once did love me, and dearly, and I resolved to wait and see what the cause of quarrel really was. But I had to put again to sea. I was away from home nearly a year and a half, but when I came home my ears were assailed right and left with the very thing I had feared--the girl I had promised myself for a wife had been deceived by one in the upper ranks of life; she had fallen, unable to resist the temptation of following one rich, handsome, and with a proud name--he was to be preferred as a lover, before William Hermiston as a husband. He gave her money, handsome dresses, jewels, everything but an honest name and fame, but she could well afford to want them if she had all the conceits a girl's head runs on. In a word she was the dupe of a nobleman. I sought the cottage where I had seen her last: the old woman was there, not the granddaughter; from her I learned who her beguiler had been, and where she then lived. My Lord, it was your father, the young Earl of Wentworth; and he had given her well-furnished apartments near Edinburgh. The Earl had been married more than three years, and he had two children, a little girl and a boy about two years: he visited Agnes on the sly, and only occasionally.

"When I learned all this I almost died with passion. I felt a very devil of vengeance enter into my heart. The pride of my soul, the light of my eyes, my love, my destined wife, had been tempted, betrayed, and was now living in guilty splendour. My Lord, see the misery that light loves in high rank bring on the lower class. Your father was rich, powerful, noble by birth and name, possessed of lands, wife, children,--and his evil conduct robbed the poor man of all; surely this was a case of the rich man who took the poor man's lamb--the tale I used to hear of sometimes when I was a boy. And mark the consequences--ah! you great people little think the pretty and innocent girl you pick up, and deck out in finery, is perhaps the only love of some honest, poor man, whose whole life is altered by their crime. Such was the case with me. Owing to your father's choice, I was made a very demon, and the cause of misery untold, not only to the hapless girl herself, but to your own family. Oh! I loved that girl as I once loved heaven. I lost my heaven in her, and lose Heaven by her."

The old man here paused to rub away the unbidden tear with his rough sleeve. The Earl, deeply interested, and feeling a home thrust in the narrative of his father's folly, bent forward, but spoke not.

"When I found out the true reason of her change, I hurried to see her. Your father had rented a cottage a short way from Edinburgh for her home; I went there,--it was a Saturday night, I remember; I watched and saw the Earl's carriage drive from the door. I did no more that night,--her guilt was now sure, and her deceiver too. On Sunday morning, when her servant was at church, I called: she opened the door, and when she saw me would have shut it in my face, but I pressed in. Her room was elegantly furnished; she was splendidly dressed; her dress enhanced her beauty; she never looked more lovely; and when I thought she might have been mine a demon rose in my breast. I know not what I said, save that I called her every vile name I could think of, and she bandied high words too, and bade me begone and leave her to mind herself and her baby. I had not dreamed of that. I turned and saw a cradle, and therein her firstborn child; it was a fair boy, but the devil was in me. The house was lone, every one at church, no human being near. I rushed to the cradle, and seizing the hapless babe, I dashed its infant brains out against the grate."

He paused: the Earl's face grew pale as he exclaimed, "Inhuman monster! you avow such a deed!"

"Ay, my Lord, reproach me, I deserve it; but see what came of stolen affections. I shall never forget the harrowing scream of Agnes, it was the most awful shriek of heartbroken agony I ever heard, it rings in my ears still. She then fell in a senseless swoon on the floor. The foul fiend prompted me--I heard him speak as though he was beside me--I looked for a weapon--the first I saw was a carving-knife on the sideboard. I whetted it against the fender in diabolical rage--I knew not what I did--I rushed on my prostrate victim, and--"

The wretched old sinner paused again, the drops stood on his brow, his face was contorted with evil passions as he thought on the deed.

"You cruelly murdered her, you bloodthirsty villain," said the Earl.

"I did; I nigh severed her head from her body. Ah! that was sweet revenge. When I had done the deed of hell I rushed from the spot as if all the fiends chased me. There was no need--no mortal saw me, and ere the double murder was found out I was miles away. I ran for the Towers, intending to go and tell your father what I had done, and give myself up to the gallows. Life had nothing more endurable. I reached the Towers about three in the afternoon; I asked to see the Earl on important business. He was at church; I said I would stroll about the grounds till he came home. I wandered by the dell at the side of the park, and, sitting down on a fallen log, began to think on my cruel deed, and its inevitable result--the gallows. Presently I heard voices, and saw a servant-girl leading a little boy, of perhaps two years old, by the hand. She came on till she was nearly opposite me, when I heard a whistle, and saw the girl leave the child, and run to speak with a young forester some hundred yards off, who had given the signal. A plan of terrible revenge entered my head. I knew it was the little Viscount, the only son of him who had wrought my misery: it was the work of a second, the thought suggested by the Evil One, and putting it into prompt action, like a boa I rushed on my prey, seized the child up in my arms, choked its cries with my kerchief, and dived into the copse-wood towards the burn, which was then swollen with flood: I then--"

"Hold!" said the Earl, "you were then the murderer of my eldest brother, and despite the consequences, you die for it."

He sprung up as if to wrestle with his foe. The old man moved not a muscle of his face, but exclaimed, "Are you mad? A cry from me brings a score of ruffians. Are you crazed? I did _not_ murder your brother, I harmed not a hair of his head."

"Then, in God's name, what did you do?"

"Patience and you shall hear; interrupt me no more."

"I could listen for ever--it rivets me. Go on--I am breathless."

"I then plunged into the burn with my burden, and waded for a hundred paces or so; then I hid in a hollow tree and awaited the result. I heard the nurse cry, and saw her and the youth seek everywhere in vain. They passed and repassed my hiding-place, and then sought down the opposite way. I came forth and again proceeded a quarter of a mile, when I reached an old ruin, where I stayed till gloaming came on, and then hurried to a ken where my smuggling friends lurked. I told them nought of the murder, but said the child was only the son of a nobleman who wished me to get rid of it. That evening I started with the boy, and was taken on board a privateer, then in Leith Roads. My character was well known, and I got a place as master on board. The vessel's name was the 'Black Mail.' We weighed anchor and sailed for America. It was then the time of the French Revolution, and all the countries of Europe were leagued against France. We kept up a half privateering, half smuggling business for some years, in which I gradually rose to become the captain of the 'Black Mail.'

"About that time our country declared war against Spain, and we had a rare time of it. I cared neither for my own life nor the lives of my men; and under the name of Mad Helder--for I changed my name--I gained a bloody notoriety amongst the privateering gentlemen. Our vessel was well named; she was a smart little schooner, with raking masts and heavy ordnance, and exacted black mail on friend and foe for seven years. Then our vessel grew a common nuisance; we were a set of desperadoes. Young Viscount de Vere, under the name of Dick Foundling, grew up amongst such a set a proper young rascal; he lisped oaths ere he could speak plainly; he drank gin when he should have drunk milk. He was the pet of all the crew, had a deal of pluck in him, and learned to use knife and pistol, ere he could have reached the age of eight, as if he had been an old hand! When he was nine, one evening we were running down for Cuba under full sail, a British frigate, the 'Arethusa,' hove in sight, and immediately gave chase. The 'Black Mail,' had the wind continued steady, would have laughed at her, but the breeze failed us, and the 'Arethusa' being a taller rigged vessel, caught it later than we did, and soon bore down on us. She fired a round shot across our bows, and ordered us to show our colours. Up went our black flag, and we gave them a dose of black shot with it; but she was game at that, my Lord; and shot and shell she poured into us till we began to settle down. Knowing we should get no quarter, we stuck out, and determined to die to a man. They boarded us, and a terrible hand-to-hand fight we had of it. I got the slash whose scar you see across my figure head there; it stunned me; I fell as they thought dead, and remember no more till I awoke from my swoon, found myself in the water, struck out, and soon ran foul of a piece of the wreck of the 'Black Mail,' and dragged myself aboard of it. It was a dark night, but I saw the lights of the 'Arethusa' half a league to leeward; they had not seen me, and I had drifted away. There was a strong current there.

"All night I sat on the wreck; it was a warm night, and I took off part of my soaked clothes and spread them to dry. Morning came, the frigate's top-gallants just peeped over the horizon. The sun rose hot; the blood clotted on my brow; I was hungry, faint, parched with thirst. I drank the salt water, it only made me worse. I strained my eyes in vain to catch a sail. I picked up a spar during the day, and had sufficient strength to set it up on the part of the stern on which I was left. I spread my sailor's coat for a sail, and soon began to move! I knew nor cared not where, so I drifted ashore or bore down in sight of a vessel. All that day and the next night I was left without food or water: the thirst was like fire. I began to think all was up, and I should have to give in, and actually thought of drowning myself. I had almost despaired when a vessel appeared; I had just strength to take off my shirt and hang it up as a signal of distress, and attracted their attention. They picked me up in the last extremity of existence. She proved a British ship, a merchantman, bound from Vera Cruz to India. I told a tale of having been a captain of an English ship knocked to pieces by a Spaniard, and was believed. My wound and wants were attended to, and as the master had lately died of Yellow Jack, I got his place, for my knowledge of seamanship was great, and I knew all the currents and pilotage of the West Indian isles well, and this was what they needed then.

"It was an evil day they took me aboard. Wild at the loss of my ship and men, specially of young Dick Foundling, I burned to revenge it on British ships. I could not abide too being under orders, and I soon stirred up the sailors to mutiny. I got nearly the whole crew on my side, and we murdered the captain, officers, and all who would not join us. Some we hung, some we tossed to the sharks, some we made walk the plank, and we pelted the skipper to death with glass bottles! I was unanimously chosen captain. I put in at a French port under French colours, sold the cargo, and in return got aboard guns, cutlasses, and all kinds of warlike gear. Terribly did I revenge my loss. Many a noble vessel went to the bottom. We led a wild life of it for fourteen years, and then all was lost by shipwreck.

"War with America had again broken out, and I was trying to cut off English vessels going up the St. Lawrence. We were chased by a man-of-war, and overtaken in one of those dense fogs. It was near winter, and the icebergs were frequent; the cold was awful! every sea that broke over us turned to ice; the decks were like glass. The man-of-war sheered off, and we were tossed amidst the ice-fields, and wrecked on Labrador. We made a fire of drift-wood, and got what provisions we could from the wreck, but my men were frozen at the fire; a hurricane of wind almost blew away the very embers, and we commenced a march over the frozen plains. The wolves and the frost thinned our numbers, and I and another man only reached civilized country. The devil seemed to uphold me through everything for his own purposes, and my strong frame seemed invincible. We, the sad relics of a crew of two hundred brave fellows, reached Nain, a small settlement, where we stayed out the dreadful winter. There was a small English man-of-war wintering there. One of the sailors happened to have been a lad on board the 'Arethusa:' we got great chums, and amongst other yarns he told me the fight they had had with the 'Black Mail,' little knowing I had been its captain. I did not undeceive him, but I learned what I least expected, and that was the boy, your brother, had been picked up. 'He fought,' he said, 'like a fiend incarnate;' but by-and-by was tamed and kindly treated by our Captain, who took a great fancy to him, and adopted him for his own son, giving him the name of Edward L'Estrange."

"Impossible!" cried the Earl. "Edward L'Estrange my lost brother? I know his history now. Ha! that accounts for the singular resemblance he had to the Captain. Heaven above! this is indeed wonderful. But go on."

"Well," said Bill, "I determined to find the youngster out; for my mate could tell me no more, as he had been drafted to another ship. So I set off as soon as I could to Canada, intending to take a passage home, and find if he still lived. I reached Quebec; several regiments were then wintering there, and I thought perhaps I might learn something about him. There was also another reason I had for going thither. Many years before I had overhauled a Spanish ship; there was on board a rich Don, Ramond, a passenger, and he had an only child with him, Carlotta, a pretty, black-eyed little wench of five years old or so. The old Don, when dying,--for he got mortally wounded,--commended this girl with his dying breath to me, the captain of the enemy that had conquered his ship. I had a liking to the girl, and took her to America when I next sailed there, and left her to be brought up by a sister of mine, who was living there with her husband. I had not seen this girl for twelve years, and I was anxious to see if she had grown up handsome. I was then known by the name of Bill Stacy, or Dare-devil Bill, and the girl had been called Antonia Stacy.

"Part of the Rifle Brigade was then at Quebec, and I heard there was an officer, Lieutenant L'Estrange, there. On inquiries I found out it was the same one I was seeking. He had been educated by the Commodore L'Estrange, who had bought him a commission in the army; and he had already fought in the Peninsula. I found Antonia grown a handsome girl of seventeen; and I thought I should like to bring about a marriage between them. I enlisted in the same regiment, and in two years had risen to be a serjeant. I told L'Estrange so much of my history as to let him know I only was able to give him a clue to his early life, wrapt in mystery; and I introduced him to Antonia. But the two did not cotton together. There was another young man in the same regiment, named George Ravensworth, who greatly admired my protégée. He had picked her out of the St. Lawrence when her boat couped one evening. I told him she was of the very best blood in Spain; and, as I was anxious to get a good husband for her, and the two loved each other so well, I should not have minded their getting spliced. But our battalion was ordered to New Orleans, where we made an unsuccessful attempt to take the place; and there young Ravensworth took Yellow Jack and died. He and L'Estrange were the greatest chums possible; and his death nigh broke two hearts. He begged L'Estrange to carry a few relics to his bereaved family; and he said he would.

"War was then over; peace with America declared; and our men reached Europe in time for the grand final success of Wellington at Waterloo. After the Peace of Paris we came home. I got my discharge and settled near Brighton. I got to my old ways, and Bill Stacy's cabin was as well known as the Pavilion. L'Estrange had exchanged into the 7th Hussars before Waterloo; they were quartered at Edinburgh. He took the sword of George Ravensworth to his sister, a fine girl of sixteen. By-and-by they were engaged to marry; but your Lordship best knows why that marriage never came off! Part of the 7th were at Brighton. Amongst other officers, whom my tobacco, wines, or Antonia magnetized, was John de Vere, who now lies dead beside us. He met me in a row in Brighton, in which Sir Richard Musgrave joined, and used to get wines and tobacco to a great extent from the cabin.

"When L'Estrange found Ellen Ravensworth had jilted him for your Lordship, he was very miserable, and came one night to ask my counsel on his best proceedings. That night Captain de Vere was with me, and I could have laughed in my sleeve to see the brothers sitting so near, and yet not knowing their relationship. They were so like that it was a joke in the regiment; but the Captain was the firmest in character, and soon overcame L'Estrange's scruples, and we made our first plot to prevent your Lordship's union with the present Countess. Our plan was to set Antonia in your way; we knew your weakness for the other sex, and determined to storm you on the salient angle. Your marriage was gall and wormwood to your brother De Vere; and this was his reason for combating it. Antonia was dressed, and taught her part; apartments opposite your house chosen; and the Captain drew your attention to her. You know the rest. Under the name of Juana Ferraras she was imposed on you. It was a double cheat; she was assured she would become a Countess, or would never have submitted; and we hoped your Lordship would take such a fancy to her as to take her with you to Scotland, when we would threaten to prove a Scotch marriage; and we knew you would rather remain unwed than acknowledge it; so that Ellen Ravensworth would be free to return to L'Estrange, and the Captain would have no family to cut him out of the title. We then put a paragraph in the papers, stating your marriage would soon take place with Lady Alice Claremont, the Marquis's sister, thinking it would disgust Miss Ravensworth. The bait took; and she nearly died, as you know; but, unluckily for us, she met the Marchioness abroad, and all the murder came out. Your Lordship, too, grew tired of Juana, and the first plot proved a total failure. But the Captain had more than one string to his bow, and we began a second one."

The old man paused, and again had recourse to the pigskin of wine. The Earl hid his face in his hands to conceal his emotions, at thus finding out what a system of deceit, treachery, espionage had been carried on by those he had loved, and did not even dream capable of such duplicity! The mystery was gradually being cleared up; the complications unravelled; and he saw things in a new light. He felt angry at having been made, as it were, a catspaw; sorry that he had given zest to their wickedness by his own weakness; and a feeling of uncontrollable disgust at the narrator was only veiled by his interest in the story, and his desire to know how all would end. He dared not speak his suspicions, and yet he felt sure they would all be verified; so he determined to listen, but ask no questions.

After a slight pause, as if to rest, the old man resumed his story; but as his yarn is altogether too long for one chapter, we must divide it into two, being well aware, from personal experience, that long chapters weary the reader, whilst the same amount of narrative, subdivided with discretion, is less apt to pall, or become tedious to the peruser.