“Follow,” said he, to those who looked
on, wondering.
And he began to descend. Lord Braithwaite saw
him disappear, then frantically followed, the Warden
next, and old Omskirk took his place in the rear,
like a man following his inevitable destiny. At
the bottom of a winding descent, that seemed deep
and remote, and far within, they came to a door, which
the pensioner pressed with a spring; and, passing
through the space that disclosed itself, the whole
party followed, and found themselves in a small, gloomy
room. On one side of it was a couch, on which
sat Redclyffe; face to face with him was a white-haired
figure in a chair.
“You are come!” said Redclyffe, solemnly.
“But too late!”
“And yonder is the coffer,” said the pensioner.
“Open but that; and our quest is ended.”
“That, if I mistake not, I can do,” said
Redclyffe.
He drew forth—what he had kept all this
time, as something that might yet reveal to him the
mystery of his birth—the silver key that
had been found by the grave in far New England; and
applying it to the lock, he slowly turned it on the
hinges, that had not been turned for two hundred years.
All—even Lord Braithwaite, guilty and shame-stricken
as he felt—pressed forward to look upon
what was about to be disclosed. What were the
wondrous contents? The entire, mysterious coffer
was full of golden ringlets, abundant, clustering through
the whole coffer, and living with elasticity, so as
immediately, as it were, to flow over the sides of
the coffer, and rise in large abundance from the long
compression. Into this—by a miracle
of natural production which was known likewise in
other cases—into this had been resolved
the whole bodily substance of that fair and unfortunate
being, known so long in the legends of the family
as the Beauty of the Golden Locks. As the pensioner
looked at this strange sight,—the lustre
of the precious and miraculous hair gleaming and glistening,
and seeming to add light to the gloomy room,—he
took from his breast pocket another lock of hair,
in a locket, and compared it, before their faces,
with that which brimmed over from the coffer.
“It is the same!” said he.
“And who are you that know it?” asked
Redclyffe, surprised.
“He whose ancestors taught him the secret,—who
has had it handed down to him these two centuries,
and now only with regret yields to the necessity of
making it known.”
“You are the heir!” said Redclyffe.
In that gloomy room, beside the dead old man, they
looked at him, and saw a dignity beaming on him, covering
his whole figure, that broke out like a lustre at
the close of day.
Note 1. The Ms. gives the following alternative
openings: “Early in the present century”;
“Soon after the Revolution”; “Many
years ago.”
