‘Weel?’ repeated Peebles. ‘Ay, he’s weel enough. Happy? Ay, he’s as happy as most folk, for it’s a wearyin’ world.’ He paused, looking pityingly at Moya, and then resumed in a hesitating manner: ‘I’ve news for ye that I fear will not be over welcome to ye. ’Twas only yesterday he learned the truth. He found oot that Lord Kilpatrick was his father, and with that, poor lad, he shook the dust from his feet and fled away from his father’s house.’
‘My God!’ cried Moya. ‘But who tould him? Not you, sure?’
‘I?’ cried Peebles--‘I, that hae guarded the secret these eighteen years, and burdened my conscience with endless lees for the poor lad’s sake and yours! No, no, Moya. He was taunted wi’ his birth by a wicked whelp--his cousin, Richard Conseltine’s son, and a’ came oot.’
‘My lord begged him to stay, offered to make him his lawful heir, but he refused the siller and cursed his father in his mother’s name. Ah, don’t greet, woman, or I’ll be greeting too. Your name’s deepest in the lad’s heart, and first upon his lips.’
‘God bless him!’ sobbed the heartbroken mother. ‘But what shall I do? What shall I do?’
‘Let me take ye to him,’ said Peebles. ‘Eh, lass, but the boy’s heart will leap for joy to know ye’re alive.’
‘No!’ said Moya, shrinking back. ‘No, no! Let things be as they are. It’s betther, far betther, that he should think me dead.
Alive, I shall only shame him more. Just let me see him, let me look into his eyes and hear his voice--’tis all I ask of the blessed saints, and I’ll go back to where I came from and never trouble him again.’
At that moment, as if in answer to the impassioned prayer of that lonely heart, a voice rose at a hundred yards’ distance. Peebles started at the sound:
‘Tho’ I lave thee for ever, my darling, and go,
Thine image shall haunt me in sunshine and
Like the light of a star shining over the foam,
Thy face shall go with me wherever I roam.’
‘Lord save us!’ cried Peebles. ‘’Tis himself.’
‘Who?’ cried Moya wildly. ‘Desmond? My son?’
‘Ay! your son Desmond. Wheest, woman! He’s coming this way.’
‘Though waves roll between us, sweet star of my
Desmond’s voice rose again as he spoke, nearer and more distinct.
‘Mr. Peebles!’ he cried, pausing in his song to scrutinize his old friend’s figure in the moonlight. ‘It’s late for you to be out here among the graves. Who’s that with ye?’