"Quail not, woman; there is no one here to harm thee, if thy own conscience condemns thee not. I have heard part of thy story, as I listened at the door, in order to find out how many of the Governor's minions I should have to slay before freeing the boy. Lay thy hand upon the Holy Evangelists, woman," and he drew his clasped Bible from his pouch and extended it across the table to her, "and swear that this boy is not my son, whom I entrusted to thy care." With a trembling hand she touched the holy book, and said as distinctly as her fears would permit, "Before God and upon his word, I testify it as my firm and unwavering belief, that this young man who sits before me, is Nathaniel Bacon, and not your son." "It was indeed my boy, then, whom thou buried upon this lone shore?" And without waiting for an answer he threw himself into one of the rude seats, leaned his head down upon the table, and gave himself up to uncontrolled emotion. Bacon was moved to tears as he saw the stern Recluse thus overwhelmed with grief at the breaking up of the last tie that linked him to earth. He remembered, as he looked upon his agitated frame, how uncompromising had been the frowns of fortune upon this now solitary being. Once he was flushed with the joy of youth, and love, and hope, and fired with a military ardour like himself. But now (as he supposed) he was an outlaw, and an exile from his country--unconsciously abandoned by a doting wife--his only heir, and the sole stay and hope of his declining years dead and buried upon the very spot where he at last found the nurse to whom the child had been committed. He remembered also his unwavering kindness to himself, and his general benevolence and kindness of feeling toward his fellow men, and he unconsciously let fall the words which rose embodied to his tongue, as with swimming eyes he looked upon him, "'Tis a hard and cruel fate!"