Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/635

622 let it be by day or by night that he comes back, there she kneels upon that platform of rock—the first that he sees whin he comes, and the last whin he goes away. God forgive her poor wanderin’ broken sperit, it’s not Christian-like, but shure she knows no better—she asks for her poor lost son—once the pride of the heart that shall never bloom again, the light of the eyes that shall never sparkle more but in madness. Terrible will be the fate of the man that wrongs the widowed and the fatherless! ”fatherless!” [sic]

The old pilot ceased, and I shall do the same, good reader. I tell you the tale as it was told to me; and, for aught I know, the poor maniac mother may still frequent the little pier of L, and Black Will Gardiner may still be prosperous; but, as sure as the old pilot said it, his day will come.

I need hardly say that the names I have introduced are not the real ones. W. C.