Dallas, to the effect that both the
mother and child were buried together.
"Never drew breath, you say, nurse!" resumed Mr. White, with an air of
astonishment; "why, I have been given to understand, not only that the
child was born alive, but that it is actually living now."
"Weel," replied the nurse, "maybe St. Cuthbert has wrought a miracle,
and brought the child out o' the grave by the West Church; but he has
wrought nae miracle on me, to mak' me forget what my een saw, and my
hands did, that day when I helped to place the dead body o' the innocent
on the breast o' its dead mother; ay, and bent her stiff arms sae as to
bring them ower her bairn, just as if she had been faulding it to her
bosom. And sae in this fashion were they buried."
"And you would swear to that, Mrs. Temple?" said the writer.
"Ay, upon fifty Bibles, ane after anither," was the reply, in something
like a tone of triumph.
Nor could the woman be induced to swerve from these assertions,
notwithstanding repeated interrogations; and the writer was left to the
conclusion--which he preferred, rather than place any confidence in the
funeral letter--that the nurse's statement was in some mysterious way
connected with the visit of Isabel Napier; and yet, not so very
mysterious, after all, when we are to consider that her brother was
preparing to claim Eastleys, as well as the valuable furniture of the
house in Meggat's Land, as the nearest lawful heir of his deceased
uncle.
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