Chapter 53

BRUNTSEA DEFIANT

Thus at last--by no direct exertion of my own, but by turn after turn of things to which I blindly gave my little help--the mystery of my life was solved. Many things yet remained to be fetched up to focus and seen round; but the point of points was settled.

Of all concerned, my father alone stood blameless and heroic. What tears of shame and pride I shed, for ever having doubted him!--not doubting his innocence of the crime itself, but his motives for taking it upon him. I had been mean enough to dream that my dear father outraged justice to conceal his own base birth!

That ever such thought should have entered my mind may not make me charitable to the wicked thoughts of the world at large, but, at any rate, it ought to do so. And the man in question, my own father, who had starved himself to save me! Better had I been the most illegal child ever issued into this cold world, than dare to think so of my father, and then find him the model of every thing.

To hide the perjury, avarice, and cowardice of his father, and to appease the bitter wrong, he had even bowed to take the dark suspicion on himself, until his wronged and half-sane brother (to whom, moreover, he owed his life) should have time to fly from England. No doubt he blamed himself as much as he condemned the wretched criminal, because he had left his father so long unwarned and so unguarded, and had thoughtlessly used light words about him, which fell not lightly on a stern, distempered mind. Hence, perhaps, the exclamation which had told against him so.

And then when he broke jail--which also told against him terribly--to revisit his shattered home, it is likely enough that he meant after that to declare the truth, and stand his trial as a man should do. But his wife, perhaps, in her poor weak state, could not endure the thought of it, knowing how often jury is injury, and seeing all the weight against him. She naturally pledged him to pursue his flight, "for her sake," until she should be better able to endure his trial, and until he should have more than his own pure word and character to show. And probably if he had then been tried, with so many things against him, and no production of that poor brother, his tale would have seemed but a flimsy invention, and "Guilty" would have been the verdict. And they could not know that, in such case, the guilty man would have come forward, as we shall see that he meant to do.

When my father heard of his dear wife's death, and believed, no doubt, that I was buried with the rest, the gloom of a broken and fated man, like polar night, settled down on him. What matter to him about public opinion or any thing else in the world just now? The sins of his father were on his head; let them rest there, rather than be trumpeted by him. He had nothing to care for; let him wander about. And so he did for several years, until I became a treasure to