It was the voice of Barbara Moor. The young man's arms fell by his side as if a palsy had smitten them. He remembered the voice of the sibyl.
"What say ye!" cried the agonised old man--"who is my son?--how shall I know him?" For he, too, remembered her and well.
"He whose hand has been raised against your life," she cried, "and on whose bosom ye will remember and find the mark of a berry! Farewell!--farewell!" she added--"I am childless--ye are not." She had been wounded in the conflict as she rushed forward, and she sank down and died. We might lengthen our story with details; but it would be fruitless. In young Patrick old Cunningham found his long lost son; with her last breath Barbara Moor acknowledged how she had decoyed him from the tent, at the fair, where his father had left him; and how, when she saw Sandy Reed asleep upon the moor, she had administered to the child a sleeping draught, and laid him upon his breast. Vain would it be to describe the joy of the old man, and as vain would it be to speak of the double chagrin of the nephew, who lost not only his laurels during the day, but also his hope of riches. Anne sorrowed many days for her father; but gave her hand to him who, in compliance with her request, his father continued to call Patrick; the fountain by the side of which her father fell is still known in the village of Whitsome by the name of _Reed's Well_; and, on account of the life lost, and the blood shed on that occasion, Whitsome fair has been prohibited unto this day.
[1] The wooden quegh, used as a drinking vessel in those days, contained rather more than would fill a wine glass.
I have witnessed various states of the mind and body of the wonderfully constructed creature, man; and have written down those cases where the two mutually operate upon each other, in such a manner as to bring out startling characteristics, which, by many, are scarcely believed to belong to our nature. I am now to exhibit a case, where an extreme love of mental excitement produced by extraordinary sights and positions, gave rise to a species of disease, which we have no name for in our nosology. The individual was a Mr. Y----, a gentleman of fortune, who came to reside in the town where I practise. When I first visited him, I found him a poor emaciated creature, sick of the world, dying of _ennui_, thirsting after morbid excitements, yet shuddering at the recollection of what he had witnessed. I saw at once that he was a victim of some engrossing master passion, that had fed upon the natural feelings and sentiments, till his whole soul was under the power and operation of the presiding demon; and got him to give me an account of the manner in which he became enthralled.