"Here," said he, mentally, placing his hand on the bal.u.s.trade, "has lain my unknown mother's hand; it warmed this senseless iron, which can give me back no warmth in return. Here pressed the foot of my father! Here they parted! How! ah, _how_? Where are they now? Where is he? does he live? Where is she? A fearful thought forces itself upon me that I dare not dwell upon! This strange tale of the sorceress; her wonderful and minute knowledge, that could be only known to the actor; her emotion at different portions of the story; a hundred things, light as air, that have insinuated themselves into my mind, have made me think she might be--fiends! it will out!--my mother! But, then, she told me that she was dead. Well, be it so, yet I can fall no lower! Were my mother living, could her lot be better than this fearful weird woman's? Ha, ha, ha! I have no pride now!" he added, with a hollow laugh of mingled despair and phrensy.

"Ha, ha, ha!" he heard repeated, in tones so unearthly that his heart ceased to beat, and a thrill like ice shot through his veins.

The next moment he was at the top of a flight of steps leading from one side of the hall to an upper room, from which the voice seemed to proceed. A stream of moonlight, falling through a window, showed him a door on the landing-place, which he threw open. He found himself in a small room, lighted by a lattice of crimson-stained gla.s.s looking south towards the sea: into it the moon, in its western circle, had just began to shine, its red-died beams tinting the twilight of the chamber with the hue of blood. Seated high in the recess of the window, he discovered the dark figure of a female; her knees drawn up to her chin, and her hands clasped together around them. As he opened the door she leaped down like a cat and sprang towards him. The sanguinary light of the room had affected his imagination, not untinged with the superst.i.tious fears of his time; but this sudden apparition, though he had prepared himself to see something either human or supernatural, caused him to start back with an exclamation of surprise.

"Come in, Robert of Lester! I welcome you to the room which first welcomed you to the light," said she, in a voice which he at once recognised as that of the sorceress.

The singular information her words conveyed suspended for the moment all other emotions in his mind save curiosity at finding himself so unexpectedly in the chamber where he was born. He gazed about him for a few moments under the influence of the strange thoughts and emotions the circ.u.mstance called up, and then turning towards her, said,

"Why art thou here, wicked woman? Didst thou antic.i.p.ate my presence, and art thou come to mock the misery thou hast wrought?"

"I fled lest thou shouldst do a deed of blood thy hand might rue. I fled not for myself, but for thee."

"You need not fear me now. There exists no longer any motive for secrecy," he said, gloomily.

"How mean you?" she eagerly asked.

"Ere to-morrow's sun, 'twill be in every boor's mouth, from Castle Cor to Kinsale, that I am no longer Lord of Lester!"

"Speak--explain!" she said, hoa.r.s.ely, grasping his arm with both hands, and breathing quick and hard.

"I have told the Lady Lester that he whom she thought her son was not her son," he firmly replied.

"Ha! _thou_--thou hast told thy shame? Speak, Robert More--have you breathed to mortal ear what I have told thee of thy birth?" she demanded, with fearful energy of speech and manner.

"I have. 'Tis known to every servitor from hall to stable!"

"Didst give thy name?"

"Robert, son of Hurtel of the Red-Hand."

"And this did thine own lips, of thine own free will?"

"Never man spoke freer!"

"Then h.e.l.l be thy portion! Accursed be ye, Robert Hurtel! Had I thought thou wouldst have become the trumpeter of thy shame--had I believed thou wouldst have breathed to mortal ear thine infamy, I would have seared my tongue with hot iron ere I would have told thee the secret of thy birth.

The infernal demon has prompted thee to do this! Didst thou not seek to slay me, that thou shouldst be the sole keeper of the foul secret?"

"I did, at the moment, but thought better of it!"

"Base! lowborn! miserable that thou art! Why was not my tongue withered ere I told thee this?"

"Would to G.o.d it had been, woman. What was thy motive in ever letting it go from thy own breast?"

"Love of mischief--hatred of mankind; and to lower thy pride, knowing from what dunghill thou wert sprung. But I did not think thou wouldst use my secret thus; and wreck the gifts that--that thy mother's stratagem had purchased, and after secured to thee by years of absence, privation, and misery."

"How?"

"Did she not, for thy sake, keep the secret of thy birth--coming not even near thee--when, on the ninth day, Hurtel of the Red-Hand being gone over the sea, she might safely have claimed thee of Lady Lester, and given her back her own!" she said, vehemently.

"Rather for her own sake--from maternal pride at having her son sit among n.o.bles," was the stern reply. "And if these were her motives, as I doubt not they were, at what price did she purchase this honour for her child? The price of the deepest guilt, by keeping the true heir from his birthright. I did not view it in this light before. By the cross! I am a well-born! a guilty mother, too! 'Tis well you told me she was no more; I should care little to meet her in my present mood."

As he spoke, the woman sunk her head upon her bosom, and deep groans escaped her, whether of defeated hopes, of sorrow, of shame, or of remorse, he knew not. Suddenly he laid his hand upon her arm, and looked impressively in her face, and said,

"Woman! who is my mother?"

"Thou wilt never know!"

"Art _thou_?"

"Ha, ha, ha! _I?_ Do I look like the gentle maiden that won the love of Hurtel of the Red-Hand? Are these matted locks tresses of gold? Is this complexion like the blended ivory and rose? Is my voice soft and full of love? Are my eyes like the gazelle's, and gentle as the dove's in their expression? Is this hideous form such as would lure youth to embrace it?

Wilt thou acknowledge thyself the son of 'the witch'--'the sorceress'--'the beldame Elpsy' (such were thy gentle terms)--the beleagued with demons--the familiar of the evil one--the--"

"No, no! Avaunt!" he shouted, with a furious gesture; "thank G.o.d! I am not sunk so low as that!"

"Ha, ha! Thy pride is fallen far indeed when it can enter thy thoughts, and even go from thy lips, that Elpsy of the Tower gave thee birth. Oh, ho! I am well avenged in this for thy mad folly in throwing away thy earldom. Oh, how I do hate thee for that act! for it thou shalt never know peace in body or soul!"

"I defy thee, woman, and all thy arts!"

"Yet the tales of my deeds have made thy human soul to shrink! Beware how thou speakest lightly of what thou knowest naught, and which is hid from mortal ken!" she added, with mysterious and solemn earnestness.

"Whither turn thy footsteps now, Lord of Lester?" she asked, with chilling irony. "Doubtless thou hast come to take possession of thy fair lands here. They are not so broad, indeed, as the domains of Castle More, and thy castle needs some furnishing and repair. Doubtless thou wouldst like to fit it up ere thou bringest home to be its mistress the fair Kate of Bellamont!"

"Breathe that name again, woman, and I will take thy life!"

"Thou art now thy very father's image!" she said, with derision. "Even in this moonlight I can see that devilish shape of the eyes that his were wont to a.s.sume when he meditated murder! Ho! I dare to say thou wilt be like him in more than the glance of the eye. Dost mean to follow in his footsteps, and head a band of lawless insurgents; or wilt thou, as 'tis said his brother did--"

"His brother?"

"Thou didst not know before thou hadst once an uncle? So: thou shalt no longer be kept in ignorance. He was a bold, bad man, and therein true to his race; was called Black Hurtel, and roved the Danish seas a daring bucanier. 'Twas said he could float his ship in the blood of the men he had slain! He was killed on the French coast in a fierce fight; but his vessel was captured, and his dead body, with his living crew (for the captors would not leave one alive to blacken the face of the earth), were sunk in the deep sea. Perhaps, like him, thou wilt take to the wave, and carve thy fortune in blood! Blood is sweet, and there is music to the ear in its gurgle where it is shed with a free hand! Look you,"

she said, pointing through the window; "the sea is spread wide before you, and seems to invite thee with its glancing waves. It knows not of thy disgrace, nor has it voices to whisper thy infamy; while every bird, tree, and stone will nod and gossip to one another as thou pa.s.sest by--

"'There goes he who _was_ the Lord of Lester!'"

"Woman, you madden me!"

"Perhaps," she continued, in the same cutting tone, while he paced the little chamber with a phrensied step, "thou wilt rather come and share my tower i'the ruin, if the new Lord of Lester will give thee leave; doubtless he will honour thee by asking thee to hold his stirrup on occasion. But, if thou wilt rather habit in this tower, I will be thy seneschal. I love its old gray walls! many is the moonlight night I've sat in the window and looked on the sea, as it danced, and glimmered, and seemed to beck and nod, and laugh when I laughed. Ha, ha! I have had brave times here, gossipping with the sea!"

As she said this she looked from the window, and suddenly her eye seemed to be arrested by some unexpected sight. She gazed for a moment eagerly, and then said, in the enthusiastic tone and manner of a sibyl, skilfully a.s.sumed with the tact of one accustomed to turn to her own purpose every pa.s.sing circ.u.mstance,

"Look thou, Robert Hurtel! I have had pity on thy state, and have, by the art thou hast dared to scorn, brought from many a far league away, to thy tower's foot, a ship to waft thee and thy fortunes! See how proudly it stands in towards the land, looking like a great white spirit, with the moon glancing on its canva.s.s wings. Oh, 'tis a brave bark!"

The young man (her words taunting, malicious, and hateful as they were, not having been without some effect in influencing him in determining on his future course) sprang alertly to the window and gazed with interest on the approaching vessel. It was about a third of a mile from the land, standing directly towards the tower before a light breeze. It was apparently about seventy tons burden, short and heavily built, rising very high out of the water, with a very lofty stern. It had three masts, each consisting of one entire stick, tapering to a slender point, and terminated by a little triangular flag. On each mast was hoisted a huge, square lugger's sail, which, with a short jib, stretched from the head of the foremast to a stunted bowsprit, and a sort of tri-sail or spanker aft worked without a boom, was all the canva.s.s she carried or that belonged to her peculiar cla.s.s of craft.

He watched it with eager attention as it came bounding landward, flinging the glittering spray from its round bows, its wet sides shining in the moonlight as if sheathed with plates of silver. A chaos of hopes, wishes, and conflicting resolutions agitated his mind as it approached; after a short struggle, he resolved to throw himself on board if her master would receive him, and depart with her wherever the winds should waft her. Having come to this determination, he watched her motions with additional interest; and when, after coming in so close to the sh.o.r.e that he could discern that her decks were crowded with men, she wore round and stood northward, his heart sank within him; and, dashing his hand through the crimson gla.s.s, he was about to hail, when Elpsy checked him:

"Hold! see you not they are only coming up to wind to lie to! Look! they are already swinging round their clumsy sails."

The vessel came up slowly and heavily to the wind, and, by means of her mainsail, lay as still as if at anchor. In a few moments afterward, as they eagerly watched, they saw a boat let down, and several men descend over the side into it. He uttered a joyful exclamation when he saw this movement; and, without reflecting upon the character of the vessel, or the object it could have in view in landing on so retired a coast at such a time, he only thought of it as a means of bearing him from the hateful sh.o.r.e, and perhaps opening for him some path to action and mental excitement.