Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 17
General
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 17
Scottish Borders (Scotland) -- Fiction
beautiful--beautiful as her sainted mother, than whom Italy boasted not a
fairer daughter, (for she was a native of Rome.) Hers was not a beauty that
you may see every day amongst a thousand in the regions of the north--hers
was the rare beauty amongst ten thousand of the daughters of the sunny
south, with a face beaming with as bright a loveliness, and I would say
divinity, as the Medici. Of all the children which that fair being bore
unto me, I had but one, a daughter, left--beautiful as I have
said--beautiful as her mother. I had a garden beneath the castle, and over
it was a terrace, in which the British prisoner, Goldie, was allowed to
walk. They saw each other. They became acquainted with each other. He had
despised all who approached; he had even treated me, who had his life in my
hand, as a dog. But he did not so treat my daughter. I afterwards learned,
when it was too late, that they had been seen exchanging looks, words, and
signs with each other. He had been eighteen months my prisoner; and one
morning when I awoke, I was told that my daughter was not to be found, and
that the English prisoner, Lieutenant Goldie, also had escaped. I cursed
both in my heart; for they had robbed me of my happiness--he had robbed me
of my child; though she only could have accomplished it. Shortly after
this, (and perhaps because of it,) I was again called into active service,
where, in my first engagement, it was my lot to be made a prisoner, and
sent here; and since then I have heard nothing of my daughter--my one, dear
child--the image of her mother; and nothing of him--the villain who seduced
her from me."
"Oh, sir," exclaimed I, "do not call him a villain, for if it be he that I
hope it was, who escaped through the intrumentality of your daughter, and
took her with him, he has not a drop of villain's blood in his whole body.
Sir! sir! I have a son--a Lieutenant Goldie; and he has (as I hope) been a
French prisoner from the time ye speak of. Therefore, tell me, I implore
ye, what was he like. Was he six inches taller than his father, with light
complexion, yellowish hair, an aqualine nose; full blue eyes, a mole upon
his right cheek, and, at the time ye saw him, apparently, perhaps, from
two-and-twenty to three-and-twenty years of age? Oh, sir--Count, or
whatever they call ye--if it be my son that your daughter has liberated and
gone away with, she has fallen upon her feet; she has married a good, a
kind, and a brave lad; and, though I should be the last to say it, the son
of an honest man, who will leave him from five to six thousand pounds,
beside his commission."
By the description which he gave me, I had no doubt but that my poor Robie,
and the laddie who had run away with his daughter, (or, I might say, the
laddie with whom his daughter had run away,) were one and the same person.
I ran into the next room, crying, "Agnes! Agnes! hear, woman! I have got
news of Robie!"
"News o' my bairn!" she cried, before she saw me. "Speak, Roger! speak!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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