"Oh, please not to call me that! How dare you call me that?"

"That is right. I did it on purpose. And yet I am your uncle. Not by the laws of men, but by the laws of G.o.d--if there are such things. Now, have you the strength to hear me?"

"Yes; I am quite recovered now. I can follow every word you say.

But--but I must sit down again."

"Certainly. Sit there, and I will stand. I will not touch or come nearer to you than a story such as mine requires. You know your own side of it; now hear mine.

"More than fifty years ago there was a brave young n.o.bleman, handsome, rich, accomplished, strong, not given to drink or gambling, or any fashionable vices. His faults were few, and chiefly three--he had a headstrong will, loved money, and possessed no heart at all. With chances in his favor, this man might have done as most men do who have such gifts from fortune. But he happened to meet with a maiden far beneath him in this n.o.ble world, and he set his affections--such as they were--upon that poor young damsel.

"This was Winifred Hoyle, the daughter of Thomas Hoyle, a farmer, in a lonely part of Hampshire, and among the moors of Rambledon. The n.o.bleman lost his way, while fishing, and being thirsty, went to ask for milk.

What matter how it came about? He managed to win her heart before she heard of his rank and t.i.tle. He persuaded her even to come and meet him in the valley far from her father's house, where he was wont to angle; and there, on a lonely wooden bridge across a little river, he knelt down (as men used to do) and pledged his solemn truth to her. His solemn lie--his solemn lie!

"Such love as his could not overleap the bars of rank or the pale of wealth--are you listening to me carefully?--or, at any rate, not both of them. If the poor farmer could only have given his Winifred 50,000 pounds, the peer would have dropped his pride, perhaps, so far as to be honest. But farmers in that land are poor, and Mr. Hoyle could give his only child his blessing only. And this he did in London, where his simple mind was all abroad, and he knew not church from chapel. He took his daughter for the wife of a lord, and so she took herself, poor thing! when she was but his concubine. In 1809 such tricks were easily played by villains upon young girls so simple.

"But he gave her attestation and certificate under his own hand; and her poor father signed it, and saw it secured in a costly case, and then went home as proud as need be for the father of a peer, but sworn to keep it three years secret, till the king should give consent. Such foul lies it was the pride of a lord to tell to a farmer.

"You do not exclaim--of course you do not. The instincts of your race are in you, because you are legitimate. Those of the robbed side are in me, because I am of the robbed. I am your father's elder brother. Which is the worse, you proud young womam, the dastard or the b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"You have wrongs, most bitter wrongs," I answered, meeting fierce eyes mildly; "but you should remember that I am guiltless of those wrongs, and so was my father. And I think that if you talk of birth so, you must know that gentlemen speak quietly to ladies."

"What concern is that of mine? A gentleman is some one's son. I am the son of n.o.body. But to you I will speak quietly, for the sake of your poor father. And you must listen quietly. I am not famous for sweet temper. Well, this great lord took his toy to Paris, where he had her at his mercy. She could not speak a word of French; she did not know a single soul. In vain she prayed him to take her to his English home; or, if not that, to restore her to her father. Not to be too long about it--any more than he was--a few months were enough for him. He found fault with her manners, with her speech, her dress, her every thing--all which he had right, perhaps, to do, but should have used it earlier. And she, although not born to the n.o.ble privilege of weariness, had been an old man's darling, and could not put up with harshness. From words they came to worse, until he struck her, told her of her shame, or rather his own infamy, and left her among strangers, helpless, penniless, and brokenhearted, to endure the consequence.

"There and thus I saw the light beneath most n.o.ble auspices. But I need not go on with all that. As long as human rules remain, this happy tale will always be repeated with immense applause. My mother's love was turned to bitter hatred of his lordship, and, when her father died from grief, to eager thirst for vengeance. And for this purpose I was born.

"You see that--for a b.a.s.t.a.r.d--I have been fairly educated; but not a farthing did his lordship ever pay for that, or even to support his casual. My grandfather Hoyle left his little all to his daughter Winifred; and upon that, and my mother's toil and mine, we have kept alive. Losing sight of my mother gladly--for she was full of pride, and hoped no more to trouble him, after getting her father's property--he married again, or rather he married for the first time without perjury, which enables the man to escape from it. She was of his own rank--as you know--the daughter of an earl, and not of a farmer. It would not have been safe to mock her, would it? And there was no temptation.

"The history of my mother and myself does not concern you. Such people are of no account until they grow dangerous to the great. We lived in cheap places and wandered about, caring for no one, and cared for by the same. Mrs. Hoyle and Thomas Hoyle we called ourselves when we wanted names; and I did not even know the story of our wrongs till the heat and fury of youth were past. Both for her own sake and mine my mother concealed it from me. Pride and habit, perhaps, had dulled her just desire for vengeance; and, knowing what I was, she feared--the thing which has befallen me. But when I was close upon thirty years old, and my mother eight-and-forty--for she was betrayed in her teens--a sudden illness seized her. Believing her death to be near, she told me, as calmly as possible, every thing, with all those large, quiet views of the past, which at such a time seem the regular thing, but make the wrong tenfold blacker. She did not die; if she had, it might have been better both for her and me, and many other people. Are you tired of my tale? Or do you want to hear the rest?"

"You can not be asking me in earnest," I replied, while I watched his wild eyes carefully. "Tell me the rest, if you are not afraid."

"Afraid, indeed! Then, for want of that proper tendance and comfort which a few pounds would have brought her, although she survived, she survived as a wreck, the mere relic and ruin of her poor unhappy self.

I sank my pride for her sake, and even deigned to write to him, in rank and wealth so far above me, in every thing else such a clot below my heel. He did the most arrogant thing a sn.o.b can do--he never answered my letter.

"I sc.r.a.ped together a little money, and made my way to England, and came to that house--which you now call yours--and bearded that n.o.ble n.o.bleman--that father to be so proud of! He was getting on now in years, and growing, perhaps, a little nervous, and my first appearance scared him. He got no obeisance from me, you may be certain, but still I did not revile him. I told him of my mother's state of mind, and the great care she required, and demanded that, in common justice, he, having brought her to this, should help her. But nothing would he promise, not a sixpence even, in the way of regular allowance. Any thing of that sort could only be arranged by means of his solicitors. He had so expensive a son, with a very large and growing family, that he could not be pledged to any yearly sum. But if I would take a draft for 100 pounds, and sign an acquittance in full of all claims, I might have it, upon proving my ident.i.ty.

"What ident.i.ty had I to prove? He had taken good care of that. I turned my back on him and left the house, without even asking for his curse, though as precious as a good man's blessing.

"It was a wild and windy night, but with a bright moon rising, and going across this park--or whatever it is called--I met my brother. At a crest of the road we met face to face, with the moon across our foreheads. We had never met till now, nor even heard of one another; at least he had never heard of me. He started back as if at his own ghost; but I had nothing to be startled at, in this world or the other.

"I made his acquaintance, with deference, of course, and we got on very well together. At one time it seemed good luck for him to have illegitimate kindred; for I saved his life when he was tangled in the weeds of this river while bathing. You owe me no thanks. I thought twice about it, and if the name would have ended with him, I would never have used my basket-knife. By trade I am a basket-maker, like many another 'love-child.'

"However, he was grateful, if ever any body was, for I ran some risk in doing it; and he always did his very best for me, and encouraged me to visit him. Not at his home--of course that would never do--but when he was with his regiment. Short of money as he always was, through his father's nature and his own, which in some points were the very opposite, he was even desirous to give me some of that; but I never took a farthing from him. If I had it at all, I would have it from the proper one. And from him I resolved to have it.

"How terrified you look! I am coming to it now. Are you sure that you can bear it? It is nothing very harrowing; but still, young ladies--"

"I feel a little faint," I could not help saying; "but that is nothing.

I must hear the whole of it. Please to go on without minding me."

"For my own sake I will not, as well as for yours. I can not have you fainting, and bringing people here. Go to the house and take food, and recover your strength, and then come here again. I promise to be here, and your father's daughter will not take advantage of my kindness."

Though his eyes were fierce (instead of being sad) and full of strange tempestuous light, they bore some likeness to my father's, and a.s.serted power over me. Reluctant as I was, I obeyed this man, and left him there, and went slowly to the house, walking as if in a troubled dream.

CHAPTER LII

FOR LIFE, DEATH

Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers of browning fern, dark s.h.a.gs of ling, and podded spurs of broom and furze, and wisps of gra.s.s. With great relief (of which I felt ashamed while even breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid to tell the rest of his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice had much time for self-congratulation a tall figure rose from the ground, and fear compelled me into courage. For throughout this long interview more and more I felt an extremely unpleasant conviction. That stranger might not be a downright madman, nor even what is called a lunatic; but still it was clear that upon certain points--the laws of this country, for instance, and the value of rank and station--his opinions were so outrageous that his reason must be affected. And, even without such proofs as these, his eyes and his manner were quite enough. Therefore I had need of no small caution, not only concerning my words and gestures, but as to my looks and even thoughts, for he seemed to divine these last as quickly as they flashed across me. I never had learned to conceal my thoughts, and this first lesson was an awkward one.

"I hope you are better," he said, as kindly as it was possible for him to speak. "Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you. I will not sham any admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind; but as for harming you--why, your father was almost the only kind heart I ever met!"

"Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father was dead in the desert?"

"I never did any thing of the sort. It was done in my name, but not by me; I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a score to settle with the man who did it."

"But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the true Lord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America. I never saw truth more plainly stamped on a new situation--the face of a rogue--than I saw it then on the face of Mr. Goad."

"You are quite right; he spoke the truth--to the utmost of his knowledge. I never saw Goad, and he never saw me. I never even dreamed of pretending to the t.i.tle. I was personated by a mean, low friend of Sir Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never stoop to such a trick. You will find out the meaning of that by-and-by. I have taken the law into my own hands--it is the only way to work such laws--I have committed what is called a crime. But, compared with Sir Montague Hockin, I am whiter than yonder shearling on his way to the river for his evening drink."

I gazed at his face, and could well believe it. The setting sun shone upon his chin and forehead--good, resolute, well-marked features; his nose and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt and pale (though they would have been better for being a trifle cleaner). There was nothing suggestive of falsehood or fraud, and but for the wildness of the eyes and flashes of cold ferocity, it might have been called a handsome face.

"Very well," he began again, with one of those jerks which had frightened me, "your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but he knew the old lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf. On the other hand, he gave no warning of my manifest resolve; perhaps he thought it a woman's threat, and me no better than a woman! And partly for his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my mother's, I made the short work which I made; for he was horribly straitened--and in his free, light way he told me so--by his hard curmudgeon of a father.

"To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and plenty of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and he thought scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weakness longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered for the Moonstock Inn.

"That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so forsworn himself! I resolved that there he should pay justice, either with his life or death. And I went to your father's place to tell him to prepare for disturbances; but he was gone to see his wife, and I simply borrowed a pistol.

"Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like that.

I was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets forth on circuit; and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge affords to the guilty--the chance of leading a better life. I had brought my mother to England, and she was in a poor place in London; her mind was failing more and more, and reverting to her love-time, the one short happiness of her life. 'If I could but see him, if I could but see him, and show him his tall and clever son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinking ever to be his wife. Oh, Thomas! I was too young to know it. If I could but see him once, just once!'

"How all this drove me no tongue can tell. But I never let her know it; I only said, 'Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever sees any body more!' And she trusted me and was satisfied. She only said, 'Take my picture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy time, and his pledge to me inside of it.' And she gave me what she had kept for years in a bag of chamois leather, the case of which I spoke before, which even in our hardest times she would never send to the p.a.w.n-shop.

"The rest is simple enough. I swore by the G.o.d, or the Devil, who made me, that this black-hearted man should yield either his arrogance or his life. I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate ordained that I should meet him where he forswore himself to my mother; on that very plank where he had breathed his deadly lies he breathed his last. Would you like to hear all about it?"

For answer I only bowed my head. His calm, methodical way of telling his tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more shocking than any fury.

"Then it was this. I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house in the village, where he dined with company; and I did not even know that it was the house of his son, your father--so great a gulf is fixed between the legitimate and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d! He had crossed the wooden bridge in going, and was sure to cross it in coming back. How he could tread those planks without contrition and horror--but never mind. I resolved to bring him to a quiet parley there, and I waited in the valley.

"The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood closed in; and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the moon was on the uplands. Time and place alike were fit for our little explanation.

The path wound down the meadow toward me, and I knew that he must come.

My firm intention was to spare him, if he gave me a chance of it; but he never had the manners to do that.

"Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I heard a firm, slow step coming down the narrow path. Then a figure appeared in a stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a staff. Perhaps his lordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty years, to times when he told pretty stories here; and perhaps he laughed to himself to think how well he had got out of it. Whatever his meditations were, I let him have them out, and waited.

"If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him; but he only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I clearly heard him say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did I drink port-wine for!' He struck the ground with his stick and came onward, thinking far more of his feet than heart.