"Keep quiet, all of you," he exclaimed, raising his arm with a spirit of
authority and power; "keep quiet, I say, and don't disturb the dead. I
am not done."
"I must interrupt you a moment," said Lord Dunroe. "I thought the
person--the unfortunate young man here--was the son of Sir Thomas's
brother?"
"And so did he," replied Corbet; "but I will make the whole thing
simple at wanst. When he was big enough to be grown out of his father's
recollection, I brought back his own son to him as the son of his
brother. And while the black villain was huggin' himself with delight
that all the sufferings, and tortures, and hellish scourgings, and
chains, and cells, and darkness, and damp, and cruelty of all shapes,
were breakin' down the son of his brother to death--the heir that
stood between himself and his unlawful title, and his unlawful
property--instead of that, they were all inflicted upon his own lawfully
begotten son, who now lies there--dead!"
"What is the matter with Sir Thomas Gourlay?" said his lordship; "what
is wrong?"
Sir Thomas's conduct, whilst old Corbet was proceeding to detail these
frightful and harrowing developments, gave once or twice strong symptoms
of incoherency, more, indeed, by his action than his language.
Pages:
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248