Roving Jack, The Pirate Hunter — page 278: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

298 EEE her arms and clasped hands encircled her knees, The faint likeness of the human form, under the garb of mourning she wore, was hardly discernible at first sight. But the ray entering at the window presently disclosed the tenant of this living tomb, and exhibited her as one of those spectres seen in dreams cowering upon a grave, or before the grat- ing of a dungeon. Without covering, in a habitation which admitted the winter’s blast, but not the cheering sun, this poor creature seemed not to suffer—not even to feel. At the sound occasioned by the rabble on the eventful morning of the criminal’s execution, the apparently inanimate frame quitted its inert and lethargic nature. The recluse shook all over, sprang upon her feet, and bounded to the opening of her cell. Her eyes flashed fire. And her haggard face pressed against the iron framing of the window, “ Aha!” she cried, with a Horrid laugh, as she beheld Jack Sheppard. “Dis he! hecalls me! I knew it would come to this, and fortwo years have tarried at this spot to mest him on the road to death,”’ Her brow wrinkled'with horror. She stretched her- skeleton arms out of her cell and beckoned to the cavalcade to stop. At the earnest request of Jack Sheppard the summons was answered. _ He was little prepared for the dreadful shock that positively froze the blood in his every vein. Tn the appalling object that advanced from the noisome cell the highwayman beheld his own mother, whom report had given out had been num- bered with the dead. She was a complete wreck of what she once was. A shapeless figure, a sort of vision m whieh the real and fantastic were contrasted with heht and shade, Scarcely could there be distinguished under her streaming hair the forbidding profile of an at- tenuated face. Her arms and feet entirely un- covered were semblant to those of a corpse. Her features ghastly white, and of the consistency of parchment, and stamped with that most fearful malady human flesh is heir to—insanity. The poor maniac, tutored by an instinct peculiar to her affliction, had been seized of a dreamy idea that her wretched son would perish at Tyburn. And for two years had incessantly watched ‘the approach of the calamity from the window of her solitary abode almost night and day. “Oh God!” exclaimed Jack Sheppard, “my crimes are fearfully punished, and it wanted but this to comple my misery.” His mother’s scream of anguish seemed to petrify and turn him to the stone of the cell from which she had frantically issued. His livid lips opened for the purpose of breath- ing, and quivered. But he looked as dead, and ag will-less as leaves driven by the wind, The recluse, as she stood before her son, suddenly paused. Her hands remained clasped. Her tongue mute, ‘And her fixed glance awed each spectator into a death-like silence, At léngth Jack Sheppard, having overcome his in- tense sorrow, addressed his mother in hopes of making her speak to him for the last time, At the sound of his voice the recluse started, Her long attenuated fingers drew back the hair from her brow. And she darted her sad, astonished, distracted eyes upon her boy, ROVING JACK, THE PIRATE HUNTER. The gaze was transient as lightning. “Oh, power of mercy!” she exclaimed, burying her face in her lap, and it appeared as if her hard voice was wrenched from her chest, “at least keep this one from my sight.” This shock, however, had, as it were, awakened the slumbering and distraught reason of the maniac, A long shudder thrilled through her whole frame as she passed her hand across Jack Sheppard’s fore- head. ‘“‘T had once a son like you,”’ she ejaculated, “ but he is dead.” ‘Poor creature,” said the highwayman, “it is better that she deem me so.” ‘No, no,’’? she rejoined, in a whisper; ‘he was not hanged; they would have hanged him, but I poisoned him and Jonathan Wild. Shall I tell you how ET didit? They said l was mad. Fools! they themselves were so. Ha!ha!ha! With my own hands I dug my boy’s grave, and upon it planted wild flowers. I Bave daily visited the rude tomb, and held conversations with the sainted spirit. “T feel pleasure in my loneliness when I am seated on the emerald turf that covers poor Jack’s remains, “ Dreams, joyous dreams,” continued the recluse, “throng round my heart when I visit the lost one, for the picture is real, and I live over years of bliss.” “ Mother ! mother !” interrupted Jack, agonised and unable to endure the scene longer, ‘“ Do you not recognise your son ? “ He comes,” he continued, “ to take his last fare- well on earth,” Like the sun bursting from an ebon rack, did a momentary beam of consciousness dart across the brain of the maniac, Clasping Jack Sheppard in her fond embrace, she shouted im a voice of intense and celestial rapture— “Yes, ’tis my boy ; my brave boy |” ‘Thank heaven she knows me,” responded the highwayman, The mother retained the son firm in her clutch.. She spoke not a word, but fastened her lip to his. She stood absorbed in that kiss, and gave no sign of life, but a sigh which from time to time heaved her bosom. Tears gushed from her eyes in silence like a mid- ~ night shower. Suddenly the maniac raised her head, released her hold, and beckoned to Jack Sheppard to follow her into the cell. “Come,” she murmured, “let me drag thee from this abyss.” . “My boy, my dear boy,” once more she cried, ‘ I have got thee; the gracious God has restored im. “ “You all see, I have my son again ; how beauti- ful and noble he is, ‘‘ Kiss me Jack. I do love thee. , “What care I whether other mother have chil- ren, ‘““T can Jaugh at them now. . “Hal ha! ha!” In such a strain the crazed woman ran on, while her son could repeat only in grief, at intervals, “My dear mother !” _ “How I shall love you,” continued the recluse, interrupting herself almost at every word with a - kiss, ‘*We will leave this place ; I have some pro- perty belonging to the Trenchard family in France, You will go, Jack, with me, will you not ?” ‘‘O, mother !”” said Jack Sheppard, at length comicoooks. col