CHAPTER LVII.

TRUTH WILL OUT.

Disguise! I see thou art a wickedness!

SHAKSPEARE.

Eventful day! how hast thou changed my state!

DOUGLAS.

THE reader may possibly remember the strange adventure which befel Mr. Lindsay in the Grisons, where, but for his timely justification by the extraordinary man who had originally been the means of bringing him into suspicion, he would inevitably have been convicted as a murderer, by the obstinate and precipitate justice of the thick-headed Baillie. On the very evening of his acquittal, it may also be remembered, that under the influence of an infatuation which he could neither account for nor resist, he sought once more that mysterious personage, who had awakened in his mind an interest so intense,-and returned alone to the ruined tower.

It was deserted. The shades of evening, which were falling fast, increased its usual obscurity, and rendered it so gloomy that he could scarcely see around; but having ascertained that no one was there, he paused but for a moment to look out upon the grey lake which washed the base of the cliff on which it stood, when the ponderous door of the tower was clapped to with sudden violence..

He rushed to it, but too late; it was barred against him, and almost at the same moment, the mysterious stranger, who seemed to have risen from the earth, stood before him, and with the help of his mute attendant, instantly disarmed him, and hurried him down to a dungeon beneath the ruin.

Previous to leaving the village, Lindsay had put a bag of gold in his pocket, as if purposely to tempt the cupidity of robbers; but really with the view of giving it to this very man, whom he judged fitted for better things than the desperate mode of life he seemed to pursue.

'You now take by force, that which I meant voluntarily to have given you,' said Lindsay to him ; and excepting that,-my life is all you can get, and it is not worth your taking. Liberate me, and name my ransom! You cannot surely mean to murder the man at night, whose life you preserved in the morning?'

Your life!' said the stranger, with a sarcastic laugh; and for what do you think I preserved your life?'

For the sake of justice and humanity.'

No! As for justice, if justice were executed on all men, I should like to know who would escape hanging? And as for humanity, it would have been humanity to have killed you at once, and not have saved you only to undergo lingering sufferings.'

And pray for what end then did you save my life?'

To suffer, I tell you;' he replied: for what else is life ever given? Is not man born only to suffer ? Is not existence-that accursed doom-given to him as a foretaste of hell? Is not life unvaried wretchedness ?'

6

'No,' said Lindsay;

life is a scene of chequer

ed good and evil. There exists no being who tastes not of joy.'

'Yes, enough of joy to make misery be feltjust as darkness would not be apparent were there no glimpse of light. Young man!' he continued, had any one destroyed my life at your age,aye, by the most cruel and torturing of deaths, it would have been a deed of mercy. All are wretched; but I am singled out from mankind. as a mark for the arrows of misfortune.'-He paused a moment, then, without attending to what Lindsay said to him, he continued:-The heir of ancient titles and honour, I am sunk in the lowest scale of degradation. The rightful Lord of thousands, I am ground down by abject poverty. The leader through fighting fields of glory, I am now covered with ignominy, and hunted like a wild beast from the abodes of men. Yes;I, who have been the companion of Kings, am now the outcast of society.' He paused a moment, then continued in a tone of desperation-' But this-this is nothing. This might have been borne, -had one tie of nature, or humanity, or affection been left to me: but all are torn from me. My father and my brother fell in the field of battle. My wife was cut off in the flower of her youth. My mother died, an aged unprotected wanderer,—I know not where, nor when, nor how. She disappeared from the earth,-and with her disappeared my boy.-O! that thought is madness! My innocent child-my lovely boy--was lost to me for ever, and mystery involves his fate !--I know not -I never shall know his end. Perhaps he perished in lingering misery, from slow pining neglect and abandonment :-perhaps he died of cold and

hunger, a helpless outcast ;--with none to cheer his little heart, none to minister to his innocent wants!-- Torturing, distracting thought!—the Scourge of my life,-that still fires my burning brain to madness, and stings my withered heart!-Years pass over me in vain. Time cannot sear that incurable wound that still bleeds afresh, at the thought of my lost, my loved, my only boy!"

'You say he was lost,' replied Lindsay, pitying his despairing wretchedness, 'why then may you not as well suppose that he found some kind friend and protector? Who would harm helpless infancy? Perhaps he is yet alive and happy; perhaps you may even yet live to see him!'

‘O never, never!' he exclaimed, 'twenty long years of misery have passed, and I have sought him through the earth in vain. Never shall I see him more! Never know his fate!--That-that is the pang.-O had he died with his sainted mother, -from what a life of lingering wretchedness should I have been saved, and how happily should I have laid my head beside them in the peaceful grave! But I know not even where his little bones

lie.'

Lindsay sought to give him hope and comfort, but he shook his head as one that felt not his words, and said, 'O! you know not yet, how dear beyond all the fondest ties of love, to a parent's heart, is his only child! You cannot know,-how, through years of exile and imprisonment, and degradation and slavery, the thoughts of my wife and darling child, supported life and gave me hope;-how often their images were the visions of my nightly cell !'

'You, then, have been a prisoner ?' asked Lind

Yes; a captive in Algiers; a menial slave to infidel barbarians. I was taken by an Algerine pirate, in leaving Corsica. Three years I endured that bondage. My soul thirsted for my home,-and at last, maddened by despair, I denied my God, -I renounced my faith,--I pawned my soul for liberty, I bought it at the price of my salvation. I escaped--and when, at last, the long-sought hour of deliverance had arrived—when I flew back to̟ those beloved objects, for whom I had sacrificed all my pride on earth--my hopes of heaven;-all, all were swept away;--no trace left of any that I loved. The blessed wife of my bosom was in the cold grave;-my venerable mother, my innocent child-gone, none knew whither;-vanished from the earth;— —and I myself left alone! Long, long ago, would death have ended my sufferings, had not the wild hope of learning some tidings of my boy, still kept me in this miserable world!

He paused, and Lindsay expressed the sincere pity he felt for his misfortunes.

The stranger looked as if he heard, or at least understood him not, and abruptly interrupting him, he said, But this is not what I meant to say. These are idle words. But it is you, young man, who are in fault. You are so like my mother, and so very like my poor brother, that, gazing upon you, has drawn from me the weakness of dwelling on sorrows which no other ear has ever heard. thought, when I first saw you-I almost thought you were MY SON ! God forgive my madness!' he exclaimed, bursting into an agonizing laugh of horrid mockery.

Lindsay was greatly shocked at the wildness and reckless desperation apparent in his countenance and manner; at last he observed,-- But you said,

I