What at that moment was raging in Brandon's heart, it is in vain to
guess. He doubted not for a moment that he beheld before him his long
lost, his anxiously demanded son! Every fibre, every corner of his
complex and gloomy soul, that certainly reached, and blasted with a
hideous and irresistible glare. The earliest, perhaps the strongest,
though often the least acknowledged principle of his mind was the desire
to rebuild the fallen honours of his house; its last scion he now beheld
before him, covered with the darkest ignominies of the law! He had
coveted worldly honours; he beheld their legitimate successor in a
convicted felon! He had garnered the few affections he had spared from
the objects of pride and ambition, in his son. That son he was about to
adjudge to the gibbet and the hangman! Of late he had increased the
hopes of regaining his lost treasure, even to an exultant certainty. Lo!
the hopes were accomplished! How? With these thoughts warring, in what
manner we dare not even by an epithet express, within him, we may cast
one hasty glance on the horror of aggravation they endured, when he heard
the prisoner accuse Him as the cause of his present doom, and felt
himself at once the murderer and the judge of his son!

Minutes had elapsed since the voice of the prisoner ceased; and Brandon
now drew forth the black cap. As he placed it slowly over his brows, the
increasing and corpse-like whiteness of his face became more glaringly
visible, by the contrast which this dread head-gear presented. Twice as
he essayed to speak his voice failed him, and an indistinct murmur came
forth from his hueless lips, and died away like a fitful and feeble wind.
But with the third effort the resolution and long self-tyranny of the man
conquered, and his voice went clear and unfaltering through the crowd,
although the severe sweetness of its wonted tones was gone, and it
sounded strange and hollow on the ears that drank it.