Then Captain Pendleton arose and beckoned Miss Tabby Winterose to come
towards him. That lady came forward, whimpering as usual, but with an
immeasurably greater cause than she had ever possessed before.
"Close her eyes, straighten her limbs, arrange her dress. She is quite
dead," said the Captain.
Miss Tabby's voice was lifted up in weeping.
But wilder yet arose the sound of wailing, as the Scotch girl, with the
child in her arms, broke through the crowd and cast herself down beside
her dead mistress, crying: "Oh! and is it gone ye are, my bonny leddy? Dead and gone fra us, a' sae
suddenly! Oh, bairnie! look down on your puir mither, wham they have
murthered--the born deevils."
The poor child, frightened as much by the wild wailing of the nurse as
by the sight of his mother's ghastly form, began to scream and to hide
his head on Janet's bosom.
"Woman, this is barbarous. Take the boy away from this sight," exclaimed
Captain Pendleton, imperatively.
But Janet kept her ground, and continued to weep and wail and
apostrophize the dead mother, or appeal to the orphan child. And all the
women in the crowd whose tongues had hitherto been paralyzed with
horror, now broke forth in tears and sobs, and cries of sympathy and
compassion, and-"Oh, poor murdered young mother! Oh, poor orphaned babe!" or
lamentations to the same effect, broke forth on all sides.
"Mr. Berners, you are master of the house. I earnestly exhort you to
clear the room of all here, except Miss Winterose and ourselves," said
Captain Pendleton in an almost commanding tone.
"Friends and neighbors," cried Lyon Berners, lifting up his voice, so
that it could be heard all over the room, "I implore you to withdraw to
your own apartments. Your presence here only serves to distress
yourselves and embarrass us. And we have a duty to do to the dead."
The crowd began to disperse and move toward the doors when suddenly
Sybil Berners lifted her hand on high and called, in a commanding tone: "STOP!"
And all stopped and turned their eyes on her.
She was still very pale, but now also very calm; the most self-collected
one in that room of death.
"I have somewhat to say to you," she continued. "You all heard the dying
words of that poor dead woman, in which she accused me of having
murdered her; and your own averted eyes accuse me quite as strongly, and
my own aspect, perhaps, more strongly than either."
She paused and glanced at her crimsoned hand, and then looked around and
saw that her nearest neighbors and oldest friends, who had known her
longest and loved her best, now turned away their heads, or dropped
their eyes. She resumed: "The dead woman was mistaken; you are misled; and my very appearance is
deceptive. I will not deny that the woman was my enemy. Driven to
desperation, and in boiling blood, I might have been capable of doing
her a deadly mischief, but bravely and openly, as the sons and daughters
of my fiery race have done such things before this. But to go to her
chamber in the dead of night, and in darkness and secrecy--! No! I could
not have done that, if she had been ten times the enemy she was. Is
there one here who believes that the daughter of Bertram Berners could
be guilty of that or any other base deed?" she demanded, as her proud
glance swept around upon the faces of her assembled friends and
neighbors.