автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу In the Roar of the Sea
S.Baring-Gould

Оқу

Кітап туралы Қазір оқып жатыр2 Сөрелерде Тегін фрагмент

IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA

BY
S. BARING-GOULD
AUTHOR OF “THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS,” “URITH,” ETC.

NEW YORK
NATIONAL BOOK COMPANY
6 MISSION PLACE

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

OVER AND DONE

II.

A PASSAGE OF ARMS

III.

CAPTAIN CRUEL

IV.

HOP-O’-MY-THUMB

THE BUTTONS

VI.

UNCLE ZACHIE

VII.

A VISIT

VIII.

A PATCHED PEACE

IX.

C. C.

EGO ET REGINA MEA

XI.

JESSAMINE

XII.

THE CAVE

XIII.

IN THE DUSK

XIV.

WARNING OF DANGER

100

XV.

CHAINED

109

XVI.

ON THE SHINGLE

114

XVII.

FOR LIFE OR DEATH

122

XVIII.

UNA

128

XIX.

A GOLDFISH

136

XX.

BOUGHT AND SOLD

144

XXI.

OTHELLO COTTAGE

151

XXII.

JAMIE’S RIDE

158

XXIII.

ALL IS FOR THE BEST IN THE BEST OF WORLDS

166

XXIV.

A NIGHT EXCURSION

175

XXV.

FOUND

182

XXVI.

AN UNWILLING PRISONER

189

XXVII.

A RESCUE

195

XXVIII.

AN EXAMINATION

203

XXIX.

ON A PEACOCK’S FEATHER

211

XXX.

THROUGH THE TAMARISKS

221

XXXI.

AMONG THE SAND-HEAPS

229

XXXII.

A DANGEROUS GIFT

237

XXXIII.

HALF A MARRIAGE

244

XXXIV.

A BREAKFAST

252

XXXV.

JACK O’ LANTERN

259

XXXVI.

THE SEA-WOLVES

269

XXXVII.

BRUISED NOT BROKEN

275

XXXVIII.

A CHANGE OF WIND

282

XXXIX.

A FIRST LIE

290

XL.

THE DIAMOND BUTTERFLY

297

XLI.

A DEAD-LOCK

306

XLII.

TWO LETTERS

313

XLIII.

THE SECOND TIME

320

XLIV.

THE WHIP FALLS

327

XLV.

GONE FROM ITS PLACE

334

XLVI.

A SECOND LIE

341

XLVII.

FAST IN HIS HANDS

349

XLVIII.

TWO ALTERNATIVES

357

XLIX.

NOTHING LIKE GROG

364

PLAYING FORFEITS

372

LI.

SURRENDER

380

LII.

TO JUDITH

387

LIII.

IN THE SMOKE

395

LIV.

SQUAB PIE

403

IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA.

CHAPTER I.

OVER AND DONE.

Sitting in the parsonage garden, in a white frock, with a pale green sash about her waist, leaning back against the red-brick wall, her glowing copper hair lit by the evening sun, was Judith Trevisa.

She was tossing guelder-roses into the air; some dozens were strewn about her feet on the gravel, but one remained of the many she had plucked and thrown and caught, and thrown and caught again for a sunny afternoon hour. As each greenish-white ball of flowers went up into the air it diffused a faint but pleasant fragrance.

“When I have done with you, my beauty, I have done altogether,” said Judith.

“With what?”

Her father spoke. He had come up unperceived by the girl, burdened with a shovel in one hand and a bucket in the other, looking pale, weary, and worn.

“Papa, you nearly spoiled my game. Let me finish, and I will speak.”

“Is it a very serious matter, Judith, and engrossing?”

“Engrossing, but not serious, Je m’amuse.”

The old rector seated himself on the bench beside her, and he also leaned back against the red-brick, gold-and-gray-lichen-spotted wall, and looked into the distance before him, waiting till his daughter was ready to speak, not, perhaps, sorry to have a little rest first, for he was overtired. Had Judith not been absorbed in her ball-play with the guelder-rose bunch she would have noticed his haggard appearance, the green hue about his mouth, the sunken eyes, the beaded brow. But she was counting the rebounds of her ball, bent on sustaining her play as long as was possible to her.

She formed a charming picture, fresh and pure, and had the old man not been overtired, he would have thought so with a throb of parental pride.

She was a child in size, slender in build, delicate in bone, with face and hands of porcelain transparency and whiteness, with, moreover, that incomparable complexion only seen in the British Isles, and then only with red-gold hair.

Her bronze-leather shoes were the hue of some large flies that basked and frisked on the warm wall, only slightly disturbed by the girl’s play, to return again and run and preen themselves again, and glitter jewel-like as studs on that sun-baked, lichen-enamelled wall. Her eyes, moreover, were lustrous as the backs of these flies, iridescent with the changing lights of the declining sun, and the changed direction of her glance following the dancing ball of guelder-rose. Her long fingers might have been of china, but that when raised so that the sun struck their backs they were turned to a translucent rose. There was no color in her cheek, only the faintest suffusion of pink on the temples below where the hair was rolled back in waves of luminous molten copper dashing against the brick wall.

“I have done my work,” said the rector.

“And I my play,” responded the girl, letting the ball drop into her lap and rock there from one knee to the other. “Papa, this fellow is the conqueror; I have made him dance thirty-five great leaps, and he has not yet fallen—wilfully. I let him go down and get breath just now. There lie all my dancers dead about me. They failed very speedily.”

“You cannot be forever playing, Ju.”

“That is why I play now, papa. When playtime is over I shall be in earnest indeed.”

“Indeed?” the old man sighed.

Judith looked round, and was shocked to see how ill her father appeared to be.

“Are you very tired, darling papa?”

“Yes—overtired.”

“Have you been at your usual task?”

“Yes, Ju—an unprofitable task.”

“Oh, papa!”

“Yes, unprofitable. The next wind from the sea that blows—one will blow in an hour—and all my work is undone.”

“But, my dear papa!” Judith stooped and looked into the bucket. “Why!—what has made you bring a load of sand up here? We want none in the garden. And such a distance too!—from the church. No wonder you are tired.”

“Have I brought it?” he asked, without looking at the bucket.

“You have, indeed. That, if you please, is unprofitable work, not the digging of the church out of the sand-heaps that swallow it.”

“My dear, I did not know that I had not emptied the pail outside the church-yard gate. I am very tired; perhaps that explains it.”

“No doubt about it, papa. It was work quite as unprofitable but much more exhausting than my ball-play. Now, papa, while you have been digging your church out of the sand, which will blow over it again to-night, you say, I have been pitching and tossing guelder-roses. We have been both wasting time, one as much as the other.”

“One as much as the other,” repeated the old man. “Yes, dear, one as much as the other, and I have been doing it all my time here—morally, spiritually, as well as materially, digging the church out of the smothering sands, and all in vain—all profitless work. You are right, Ju.”

“Papa,” said Judith hastily, seeing his discouragement and knowing his tendency to depression, “papa, do you hear the sea how it roars? I have stood on the bench, more than once, to look out seaward, and find a reason for it; but there is none—all blue, blue as a larkspur; and not a cloud in the sky—all blue, blue there too. No wind either, and that is why I have done well with my ball-play. Do you hear the roar of the sea, papa?” she repeated.

“Yes, Ju. There will be a storm shortly. The sea is thrown into great swells of rollers, a sure token that something is coming. Before night a gale will be on us.”

Then ensued silence. Judith with one finger trifled with the guelder-rose bunch in her lap musingly, not desirous to resume her play with it. Something in her father’s manner was unusual, and made her uneasy.

“My dear!” he began, after a pause, “one must look out to sea—into the vast mysterious sea of the future—and prepare for what is coming from it. Just now the air is still, and we sit in this sweet, sunny garden, and lean our backs against the warm wall, and smell the fragrance of the flowers; but we hear the beating of the sea, and know that a mighty tempest, with clouds and darkness, is coming. So in other matters we must look out and be ready—count the time till it comes. My dear, when I am gone——”

“Papa!”

“We were looking out to sea and listening. That must come at some time—it may come sooner than you anticipate.” He paused, heaved a sigh, and said, “Oh, Jamie! What are we to do about Jamie?”

“Papa, I will always take care of Jamie.”

“But who will take care of you?”

“Of me? Oh, papa, surely I can take care of myself!”

He shook his head doubtfully.

“Papa, you know how strong I am in will—how firm I can be with Jamie.”

“But all mankind are not Jamies. It is not for you I fear, as much as for you and him together. He is a trouble and a difficulty.”

“Jamie is not so silly and troublesome as you think. All he needs is application. He cannot screw his mind down to his books—to any serious occupation. But that will come. I have heard say that the stupidest children make the sharpest men. Little by little it will come, but it will come certainly. I will set myself as my task to make Jamie apply his mind and become a useful man, and I shall succeed, papa.” She caught her father’s hand between hers, and slapped it joyously, confidently. “How cold your hand is, papa! and yet you look warm.”

“You were always Jamie’s champion,” said her father, not noticing her remark relative to himself.

“He is my twin brother, so of course I am his champion. Who else would be that, were not I?”

“No—no one else. He is mischievous and troublesome—poor, poor fellow. You will always be to Jamie what you are now, Ju—his protector or champion? He is weak and foolish, and if he were to fall into bad hands—I shudder to think what might become of him.”

“Rely on me, dearest father.”

Then he lifted the hand of his daughter, and looked at it with a faint smile. “It is very small, it is very weak, to fight for self alone, let alone yourself encumbered with Jamie.”

“I will do it, papa, do not fear.”

“Judith, I must talk very gravely with you, for the future is very dark to me; and I am unable with hand or brain to provide anything against the evil day. Numbness is on me, and I have been hampered on every side. For one thing, the living has been so poor, and my parishioners so difficult to deal with, that I have been able to lay by but a trifle. I believe I have not a relative in the world—none, at all events, near enough and known to me that I dare ask him to care for you——”

“Papa, there is Aunt Dionysia.”

“Aunt Dionysia,” he repeated, with a hesitating voice. “Yes; but Aunt Dionysia is—is not herself capable of taking charge of you. She has nothing but what she earns, and then—Aunt Dionysia is—is—well—Aunt Dionysia. I don’t think you could be happy with her, even if, in the event of my departure, she were able to take care of you. Then—and that chiefly—she has chosen, against my express wishes—I may say, in defiance of me—to go as housekeeper into the service of the man, of all others, who has been a thorn in my side, a hinderer of God’s work, a—But I will say no more.”

“What! Cruel Coppinger?”

“Yes, Cruel Coppinger. I might have been the means of doing a little good in this place, God knows! I only think I might; but I have been thwarted, defied, insulted by that man. As I have striven to dig my buried church out of the overwhelming sands, so have I striven to lift the souls of my poor parishioners out of the dead engulfing sands of savagery, brutality, very heathenism of their mode of life, and I have been frustrated. The winds have blown the sands back with every gale over my work with spade, and that stormblast Coppinger has devastated every trace of good that I have done, or tried to do, in spiritual matters. The Lord reward him according to his works.”

Judith felt her father’s hand tremble in hers.

“Never mind Coppinger now,” she said, soothingly.

“I must mind him,” said the old man, with severe vehemence. “And—that my own sister should go, go—out of defiance, into his house and serve him! That was too much. I might well say, I have none to whom to look as your protector.” He paused awhile, and wiped his brow. His pale lips were quivering. “I do not mean to say,” said he, “that I acted with judgment, when first I came to S. Enodoc, when I spoke against smuggling. I did not understand it then. I thought with the thoughts of an inlander. Here—the sands sweep over the fields, and agriculture is in a measure impossible. The bays and creeks seem to invite—well—I leave it an open question. But with regard to wrecking—” His voice, which had quavered in feebleness, according with the feebleness of his judgment relative to smuggling, now gained sonorousness. “Wrecking, deliberate wrecking, is quite another matter. I do not say that our people are not justified in gathering the harvest the sea casts up. There always must be, there will be wrecks on this terrible coast; but there has been—I know there has been, though I have not been able to prove it—deliberate provocation of wrecks, and that is the sin of Cain. Had I been able to prove——”

“Never mind that now, dear papa. Neither I nor Jamie are, or will be, wreckers. Talk of something else. You over-excite yourself.”

Judith was accustomed to hear her father talk in an open manner to her. She had been his sole companion for several years, since his wife’s death, and she had become the confidante of his inmost thoughts, his vacillations, his discouragements, not of his hopes—for he had none, nor of his schemes—for he formed none.

“I do not think I have been of any use in this world,” said the old parson, relapsing into his tone of discouragement, the temporary flame of anger having died away. “My sowing has produced no harvest. I have brought light, help, strength to none. I have dug all day in the vineyard, and not a vine is the better for it; all cankered and fruitless.”

“Papa—and me! Have you done nothing for me!”

“You!”

He had not thought of his child.

“Papa! Do you think that I have gained naught from you? No strength, no resolution from seeing you toil on in your thankless work, without apparent results? If I have any energy and principle to carry me through I owe it to you.”

He was moved, and raised his trembling hand and laid it on her golden head.

He said no more, and was very still.

Presently she spoke. His hands weighed heavily on her head.

“Papa, you are listening to the roar of the sea?”

He made no reply.

“Papa, I felt a cold breath; and see, the sun has a film over it. Surely the sea is roaring louder!”

His hand slipped from her head and struck her shoulder—roughly, she thought. She turned, startled, and looked at him. His eyes were open, he was leaning back, almost fallen against the wall, and was deadly pale.

“Papa, you are listening to the roar?”

Then a thought struck her like a bullet in the heart.

“Papa! Papa! My papa!—speak—speak!”

She sprang from the bench—was before him. Her left guelder-rose had rolled, had bounded from her lap, and had fallen on the sand the old man had listlessly brought up from the church. His work, her play, were forever over.

CHAPTER II.

A PASSAGE OF ARMS.

The stillness preceding the storm had yielded. A gale had broken over the coast, raged against the cliffs of Pentyre, and battered the walls of the parsonage, without disturbing the old rector, whom no storm would trouble again, soon to be laid under the sands of his buried church-yard, his very mound to be heaped over in a few years, and obliterated by waves of additional encroaching sand. Judith had not slept all night. She—she, a mere child, had to consider and arrange everything consequent on the death of the master of the house. The servants—cook and house-maid—had been of little, if any, assistance to her. When Jane, the house-maid, had rushed into the kitchen with the tidings that the old parson was dead, cook, in her agitation, upset the kettle and scalded her foot. The gardener’s wife had come in on hearing the news, and had volunteered help. Judith had given her the closet-key to fetch from the stores something needed; and Jamie, finding access to the closet, had taken possession of a pot of raspberry jam, carried it to bed with him, and spilled it over the sheets, besides making himself ill. The house-maid, Jane, had forgotten in her distraction to shut the best bedroom casement, and the gale during the night had wrenched it from its hinges, flung it into the garden on the roof of the small conservatory, and smashed both. Moreover, the casement being open, the rain had driven into the room unchecked, had swamped the floor, run through and stained the drawing-room ceiling underneath, the drips had fallen on the mahogany table and blistered the veneer. A messenger was sent to Pentyre Glaze for Miss Dionysia Trevisa, and she would probably arrive in an hour or two.

Mr. Trevisa, as he had told Judith, was solitary, singularly so. He was of a good Cornish family, but it was one that had dwindled till it had ceased to have other representative than himself. Once well estated, at Crockadon, in S. Mellion, all the lands of the family had been lost; once with merchants in the family, all the fortunes of these merchants industriously gathered had been dissipated, and nothing had remained to the Reverend Peter Trevisa but his family name and family coat, a garb or, on a field gules. It really seemed as though the tinctures of the shield had been fixed in the crown of splendor that covered the head of Judith. But she did not derive this wealth of red-gold hair from her Cornish ancestors, but from a Scottish mother, a poor governess whom Mr. Peter Trevisa had married, thereby exciting the wrath of his only sister and relative, Miss Dionysia, who had hitherto kept house for him, and vexed his soul with her high-handed proceedings. It was owing to some insolent words used by her to Mrs. Trevisa that Peter had quarrelled with his sister at first. Then when his wife died, she had forced herself on him as housekeeper, but again her presence in the house had become irksome to him, and when she treated his children—his delicate and dearly loved Judith—with roughness, and his timid, silly Jamie with harshness, amounting in his view to cruelty—harsh words had passed between them; sharp is, however, hardly the expression to use for the carefully worded remonstrances of the mild rector, though appropriate enough to her rejoinders. Then she had taken herself off and had become housekeeper to Curll Coppinger, Cruel Coppinger, as he was usually called, who occupied Pentyre Glaze, and was a fairly well-to-do single man.

Mr. Trevisa had not been a person of energy, but one of culture and refinement; a dispirited, timid man. Finding no neighbors of the same mental texture, nor sympathetic, he had been driven to make of Judith, though a child, his companion, and he had poured into her ear all his troubles, which largely concerned the future of his children. In his feebleness he took comfort from her sanguine confidence, though he was well aware that it was bred of ignorance, and he derived a weak satisfaction from the thought that he had prepared her morally, at all events, if in no other fashion, for the crisis that must come when he was withdrawn.

Mr. Peter Trevisa—Peter was a family Christian name—was for twenty-five years rector of S. Enodoc, on the north coast of Cornwall at the mouth of the Camel. The sand dunes had encroached on the church of S. Enodoc, and had enveloped the sacred structure. A hole was broken through a window, through which the interior could be reached, where divine service was performed occasionally in the presence of the church-wardens, so as to establish the right of the rectors, and through this same hole bridal parties entered to be coupled, with their feet ankle-deep in sand that filled the interior to above the pew-tops.

But Mr. Trevisa was not the man to endure such a condition of affairs without a protest and an effort to remedy it. He had endeavored to stimulate the farmers and land-owners of the parish to excavate the buried church, but his endeavors had proved futile. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, and certainly foremost, stood this reason: as long as the church was choked with sand and could not be employed for regular divine service, the tithe-payers could make a grievance of it, and excuse themselves from paying their tithes in full, because, as they argued, “Parson don’t give us sarvice, so us ain’t obliged to pay’n.” They knew their man, that he was tender-conscienced, and would not bring the law to bear upon them; he would see that there was a certain measure of justness in the argument, and would therefore not demand of them a tithe for which he did not give them the quid pro quo. But they had sufficient shrewdness to pay a portion of their tithes, so as not to drive him to extremities and exhaust his patience. It will be seen, therefore, that in the interests of their pockets the tithe-payers did not want to have their parish church excavated. Excavation meant weekly service regularly performed, and weekly service regularly performed would be followed by exaction of the full amount of rent-charge. Then, again, in the second place, should divine service be resumed in the church of S. Enodoc, the parishioners would feel a certain uneasiness in their consciences if they disregarded the summons of the bell; it might not be a very lively uneasiness, but just such an irritation as might be caused by a fly crawling over the face. So long as there was no service they could soothe their consciences with the thought that there was no call to make an effort to pull on Sunday breeches and assume a Sunday hat, and trudge to the church. Therefore, secondly, for the ease of their own consciences, it was undesirable that S. Enodoc should be dug out of the sand.

Then lastly, and thirdly, the engulfment of the church gave them a cherished opportunity for being nasty to the rector, and retailing upon him for his incaution in condemning smuggling and launching out into anathema against wrecking. As he had made matters disagreeable to them—tried, as they put it, to take bread out of their mouths, they saw no reason why they should spend money to please him.

Mr. Trevisa had made very little provision for his children, principally, if not wholly, because he could not. He had received from the farmers and land-owners a portion of tithe, and had been contented with that rather than raise angry feelings by demanding the whole. Out of that portion he was able to put aside but little.

Aunt Dionysia arrived, a tall, bony woman, with hair turning gray, light eyes and an aquiline nose, a hard, self-seeking woman, who congratulated herself that she did not give way to feelings.

“I feel,” said she, “as do others, but I don’t show my feelings as beggars expose their bad legs.”

She went into the kitchen. “Hoity-toity!” she said to the cook, “fine story this—scalding yourself. Mind this, you cook meals or no wage for you.” To Jane, “The mischief you have done shall be valued and deducted from any little trifle my brother may have left you in his will. Where is Jamie? Give me that joint of fishing-rod; I’ll beat him for stealing raspberry jam.”

Jamie, however, on catching a glimpse of his aunt had escaped into the garden and concealed himself. The cook, offended, began to clatter the saucepans.

“Now, then,” said Mrs. Trevisa—she bore the brevet-rank—“in a house of mourning what do you mean by making this noise, it is impertinent to me.”

The house-maid swung out of the kitchen, muttering.

Mrs. Trevisa now betook herself up-stairs in quest of her niece, and found her with red eyes.

“I call it rank felo-de-se,” said Aunt Dionysia. “Every one knew—he knew, that he had a feeble heart, and ought not to be digging and delving in the old church. Who sent the sand upon it? Why, Providence, I presume. Not man. Then it was a flying in the face of Providence to try to dig it out. Who wanted the church? He might have waited till the parishioners asked for it. But there—where is Jamie? I shall teach him a lesson for stealing raspberry jam.”

“Oh, aunt, not now—not now!”

Mrs. Trevisa considered a moment, then laid aside the fishing-rod.

“Perhaps you are right. I am not up to it after my walk from Pentyre Glaze. Now, then, what about mourning? I do not suppose Jamie can be measured by guesswork. You must bring him here. Tell him the whipping is put off till another day. Of course you have seen to black things for yourself. Not? Why, gracious heavens! is everything to be thrown on my shoulders? Am I to be made a beast of burden of? Now, no mewling and pewking. There is no time for that. Whatever your time may be, mine is valuable. I can’t be here forever. Of course every responsibility has been put on me. Just like Peter—no consideration. And what can I do with a set of babies? I have to work hard enough to keep myself. Peter did not want my services at one time; now I am put upon. Have you sent for the undertaker? What about clothing again? I suppose you know that you must have mourning? Bless my heart! what a lot of trouble you give me.”

Mrs. Trevisa was in a very bad temper, which even the knowledge that it was seemly that she should veil it could not make her restrain. She was, no doubt, to a certain extent fond of her brother—not much, because he had not been of any advantage to her; and no doubt she was shocked at his death, but chiefly because it entailed on herself responsibilities and trouble that she grudged. She would be obliged to do something for her nephew and niece; she would have to provide a home for them somewhere. She could not take them with her to Coppinger’s house, as she was there as a salaried servant, and not entitled to invite thither her young relatives. Moreover, she did not want to have them near her. She disliked young people; they gave trouble, they had to be looked after, they entailed expenses. What was she to do with them? Where was she to put them? What would they have to live upon? Would they call on her to part-maintain them? Miss Dionysia had a small sum put away, and she had no intention of breaking into it for them. It was a nest-egg, and was laid by against an evil day that might come on herself. She had put the money away for herself, in her old age, not for the children of her feeble brother and his lack-penny wife to consume as moth and rust. As these thoughts and questions passed through her mind, Aunt Dionysia pulled open drawers, examined cupboards, pried open closets, and searched chests and wardrobes.

“I wonder now what he has put by for them,” she said aloud.

“Do you mean my dear papa?” asked Judith, whose troubled heart and shaken spirits were becoming angry and restless under the behavior of the hard, unfeeling woman.

“Yes, I do,” answered Mrs. Trevisa, facing round, and glaring malevolently at her niece. “It is early days to talk of this, but it must be done sooner or later, and if so, the sooner the better. There is money in the house, I suppose?”

“I do not know.”

“I must know. You will want it—bills must be paid. You will eat and drink, I suppose? You must be clothed. I’ll tell you what: I’ll put the whole case into the hands of Lawyer Jenkyns, and he shall demand arrears of tithes. I know what quixotish conduct Peter——”

“Aunt, I will not allow this.” A light flush came into the girl’s cheek.

“It is all very well talking,” said Aunt Dionysia; “but black is not white, and no power on earth can make me say that it is so. Money must be found. Money must be paid for expenses, and it is hard that I should have to find it; so I think. What money is there in the house for present necessities? I must know.”

Suddenly a loud voice was heard shouting through the house—

“Mother Dunes! old Dunes! I want you.”

Judith turned cold and white. Who was this that dared to bellow in the house of death, when her dear, dear father lay up-stairs with the blinds down, asleep? It was an insult, an outrage. Her nerves had already been thrilled, and her heart roused into angry revolt by the cold, unfeeling conduct of the woman who was her sole relative in the world. And now, as she was thus quivering, there came this boisterous shout.

“It is the master!” said Mrs. Trevisa, in an awestruck voice, lowered as much as was possible to her.

To Coppinger alone she was submissive, cringing, obsequious.

“What does he mean by this—this conduct?” asked Judith, trembling with wrath.

“He wants me.”

Again a shout. “Dunes! old fool! the keys!”

Then Judith started forward, and went through the door to the head of the staircase. At the foot stood a middle-sized, strongly built, firmly knit man, in a dress half belonging to the land and half to the sea, with high boots on his legs, and slouched hat on his head. His complexion was olive, his hair abundant and black, covering cheeks and chin and upper lip. His eyes were hard and dark. He had one brown hand on the banister, and a foot on the first step, as though about to ascend, when arrested by seeing the girl at the head of the stairs before him. The house was low, and the steps led without a break directly from the hall to the landing which gave communication to the bedrooms. There was a skylight in the roof over the staircase, through which a brilliant flood of pure white light fell over Judith, whereas every window had been darkened by drawn blinds. The girl had found no sombre dress suitable to wear, and had been forced to assume the same white gown as the day before, but she had discarded the green sash and had bound a black ribbon about her waist, and another about her abundant hair. A black lace kerchief was drawn over her shoulders across her breast and tied at her back. She wore long, black mittens.

Judith stood motionless, her bosom rising and falling quickly, her lips set, the breath racing through her nostrils, and one hand resting on the banister at the stair-head.

In a moment her eyes met those of Coppinger, and it was at once as though a thrill of electric force had passed between them.

He desisted from his attempt to ascend, and said, without moving his eyes from hers, in a subdued tone, “She has taken the keys,” but he said no more. He drew his foot from the step hesitatingly, and loosened his hand from the banister, down which went a thrill from Judith’s quivering nerves, and he stepped back.

At the same moment she descended a step, still looking steadily into the dark, threatening pupils, without blinking or lowering her orbs. Emboldened by her boiling indignation, she stood on the step she had reached with both feet firmly planted there, and finding that the banister rattled under her hand she withdrew it, and folded her arms. Coppinger raised his hand to his head and took off his hat. He had a profusion of dark, curly, flowing hair, that fell and encircled his saturnine face.

Then Judith descended another step, and as she did so he retreated a step backwards. Behind him was the hall door, open; the light lay wan and white there on the gravel, for no sunshine had succeeded the gale. At every step that Judith took down the stair Coppinger retreated. Neither spoke; the hall was still, save for the sound of their breath, and his came as fast as hers. When Judith had reached the bottom she turned—Coppinger stood in the doorway now—and signed to her aunt to come down with the keys.

“Take them to him—Do not give them here—outside.”

Mrs. Trevisa, surprised, confounded, descended the stair, went by her, and out through the door. Then Judith stepped after her, shut the door to exclude both Aunt Dionysia and that man Coppinger, who had dared, uninvited, on such a day to invade the house.

She turned now to remount the stairs, but her strength failed her, her knees yielded, and she sank upon a step, and burst into a flood of tears and convulsive sobs.

CHAPTER III.

CAPTAIN CRUEL.

Captain Coppinger occupied an old farmhouse, roomy, low-built, granite quoined and mullioned, called Pentyre Glaze, in a slight dip of the hills near the cliffs above the thundering Atlantic. One ash shivered at the end of the house—that was the only tree to be seen near Pentyre Glaze. And—who was Coppinger? That is more than can be told. He had come—no one knew whence. His arrival on the north coast of Cornwall was mysterious. There had been haze over the sea for three days. When it lifted, a strange vessel of foreign rig was seen lying off the coast. Had she got there in the fog, not knowing her course; or had she come there knowingly, and was making for the mouth of the Camel? A boat was seen to leave the ship, and in it a man came ashore; the boat returned to the vessel, that thereupon spread sail and disappeared in the fog that re-descended over the water. The man gave his name as Coppinger—his Christian name, he said, was Curll, and he was a Dane; but though his intonation was not that of the Cornish, it was not foreign. He took up his residence in S. Enodoc at a farm, and suddenly, to the surprise of every one, became by purchase the possessor of Pentyre Glaze, then vacant and for sale. Had he known that the estate was obtainable when he had come suddenly out of the clouds into the place to secure it? Nobody knew, and Coppinger was silent.

Thenceforth Pentyre Glaze became the harbor and den of every lawless character along the coast. All kinds of wild uproar and reckless revelry appalled the neighborhood day and night. It was discovered that an organized band of smugglers, wreckers, and poachers made this house the centre of their operations, and that “Cruel Coppinger” was their captain. There were at that time—just a century ago—no resident magistrates or gentry in the immediate neighborhood. The yeomen were bribed, by kegs of spirits left at their doors, to acquiesce in a traffic in illicit goods, and in the matter of exchange they took their shares. It was said that on one occasion a preventive man named Ewan Wyvill, who had pursued Coppinger in his boat, was taken by him, and his head chopped off by the captain, with his boat axe, on the gunwale. Such was the story. It was never proved. Wyvill had disappeared, and the body was recovered headless on the Doom Bar. That violence had been used was undoubted, but who had committed the crime was not known, though suspicion pointed to Coppinger. Thenceforth none ever called him Curll; by one consent he was named Cruel. In the West of England every one is given his Christian name. An old man is Uncle, and an old woman Aunt, and any one in command is a Captain. So Coppinger was known as Captain Cruel, or as Cruel Coppinger.

Strange vessels were often seen appearing at regular intervals on the coast, and signals were flashed from the one window of Pentyre Glaze that looked out to sea.

Among these vessels, one, a full-rigged schooner, soon became ominously conspicuous. She was for long the terror of the Cornish coast. Her name was The Black Prince. Once, with Coppinger on board, she led a revenue cutter into an intricate channel among the rocks, where, from knowledge of the bearings, The Black Prince escaped scathless, while the king’s vessel perished with all on board.

Immunity increased Coppinger’s daring. There were certain bridle-roads along the fields over which he exercised exclusive control. He issued orders that no man should pass over them by night, and accordingly from that hour none ever did.[A]

[A] Many stories of Cruel Coppinger may be found in Hawker’s Footprints of Former Men in Cornwall. I have also told them in my Vicar of Morwenstow. I have ventured to translate the scene of Coppinger’s activity further west, from Wellcombe to S. Enodoc. But, indeed, he is told of in many places on this coast.

Moreover, if report spoke true—and reports do not arise without cause—Coppinger was not averse from taking advantage, and that unlawful advantage, of a wreck. By “lawful” and “unlawful” two categories of acts are distinguished, not by the laws of the land but by common consent of the Cornish conscience. That same Cornish conscience distinguished wrecking into two classes, as it distinguished then, and distinguishes still, witchcraft into two classes. The one, white witchcraft, is legitimate and profitable, and to be upheld; the other, black witchcraft, is reprehensible, unlawful, and to be put down. So with wrecking. The Bristol Channel teemed with shipping, flights of white sails passed in the offing, and these vessels were, when inward bound, laden with sugars and spices from the Indies, or with spirits and wines from France. If outward bound they were deep in the water with a cargo of the riches of England.

Now, should a gale spring up suddenly and catch any of these vessels, and should the gale be—as it usually is, and to the Cornish folk, favorably is—from the northwest, then there was no harbor of refuge along that rock-bound coast, and a ship that could not make for the open was bound inevitably to be pounded to pieces against the precipitous walls of the peninsula. If such were the case, it was perfectly legitimate for every householder in the district to come down on the wreck and strip it of everything it contained.

But, on the other hand, there was wrecking that was disapproved of, though practised by a few, so rumor said, and that consisted in luring a vessel that was in doubt as to her course, by false signals, upon a reef or bar, and then, having made a wreck of her, to pillage her. When on a morning after a night in which there had been no gale, a ship was found on the rocks, and picked as clean as the carcase of a camel in the desert, it was open to suspicion that this ship had not been driven there by wind or current; and when the survivors, if they reached the shore, told that they had been led to steer in the direction where they had been cast away by certain lights that had wholly deceived them, then it was also open to suspicion that these lights had been purposely exhibited for the sake of bringing that vessel to destruction; and when, further, it was proved that a certain set or gang of men had garnered all the profits, or almost all the profits, that accrued from a wreck, before the countryside was aware that a wreck had occurred, then it was certainly no very random conjecture that the wreck had been contrived in some fashion by those who profited by it. There were atrocious tales of murder of shipwrecked men circulating, but these were probably wholly, or at all events in part, untrue. If when a vessel ran upon the rocks she was deserted by her crew, if they took to the boats and made for shore, then there remained no impediment to the wreckers taking possession; it was only in the event of their finding a skipper on board to maintain right over the grounded vessel, or the mariners still on her engaged in getting her off, that any temptation to violence could arise. But it was improbable that a crew would cling to a ship on such a coast when once she was on the breakers. It was a moral certainty that they would desert her, and leave the wreck to be pillaged by the rats from shore, without offer of resistance. The character of the coast-wreckers was known to seamen, or rather a legend full of horror circulated relative to their remorseless savagery. The fear of wreckers added to the fear of the sea would combine to drive a crew, to the last man, into the boats. Consequently, though it is possible that in some cases murder of castaway men may have occurred, such cases must have been most exceptional. The wreckers were only too glad to build a golden bridge by which the wrecked might escape. Morally, without a question, those who lured a hapless merchantman upon the rocks were guilty of the deaths of those sailors who were upset in their boats in escaping from the vessel, or were dashed against the cliffs in their attempts to land, but there was no direct blood-guiltiness felt in such cases; and those who had reaped a harvest from the sea counted their gains individually, and made no estimate of the misery accruing thereby to others.

CHAPTER IV.

HOP-O’-MY-THUMB.

“Listen to me,” said Judith.

“Yes, Ju!”

The orphans were together in the room that had been their father’s, the room in which for some days he had lain with the blinds down, the atmosphere heavy with the perfume of flowers, and that indescribable, unmistakable scent of death. Often, every day, almost every hour, had Judith stolen into the room while he lay there, to wonder with infinite reverence and admiration at the purity and dignity of the dead face. It was that of the dear, dear father, but sublimed beyond her imagination. All the old vacillation was gone, the expression of distress and discouragement had passed away, and in their place had come a fixity and a calm, such as one sees in the busts of the ancient Roman Cæsars, but with a superadded ethereality, if such a word can be used, that a piece of pagan statuary never reached. Marvellous, past finding out, it is that death, which takes from man the spiritual element, should give to the mere clay a look of angelic spirituality, yet so it is—so it was with the dead Peter Trevisa; and Judith, with eyes filling as fast as dried, stood, her hands folded, looking into his face, felt that she had never loved, never admired him half enough when he was alive. Life had been the simmer in which all the scum of trivialities, of infirmities, of sordidness had come to and shown itself on the surface. Now Death had cleared these all away, and in the peaceful face of the dead was seen the real man, the nobility, sanctity, delicacy that formed the texture of his soul, and which had impressed the very clay wrapped about that volatile essence.

As long as the dear father’s body lay in the house Judith had not realized her utter desolation. But now the funeral was over, and she had returned with her brother to the parsonage, to draw up the blinds, and let the light once more enter, and search out, and revivify the dead rooms.

She was very pale, with reddened eyes, and looking more fragile and transparent than ever she did before, worn and exhausted by tearful, wakeful nights, and by days of alternating gusts of sorrow and busy preparation for the funeral, of painful recollections of joyous days that were past, and of doubtful searchings into a future that was full of cloud.

Her black frock served to enhance her pallor, and to make her look thinner, smaller than when in white or in color.

She had taken her place in her father’s high-backed leather chair, studded thick with brass nails, the leather dulled and fretted by constant use, but the nail-heads burnished by the same treatment.

Her brother was in the same chair with her; both his arms were round her neck, and his head was on her shoulder. She had her right arm about his waist, her left was bowed, the elbow leaning on the chair arm, her hand folded inward, and her weary head rested on its back.

The fine weather broken in upon by the gale had returned; the sun shone in unhindered at the window, and blazed on the children’s hair; the brass nails, polished by friction, twinkled as little suns, but were naught in lustre to the gorgeous red of the hair of the twins, for the first were but brass, and the other of living gold.

Two more lonely beings could hardly be discovered on the face of the earth—at all events in the peninsula of Cornwall—but the sense of this loneliness was summed in the heart of Judith, and was there articulate; Jamie was but dimly conscious of discomfort and bereavement. She knew what her father’s death entailed on her, or knew in part, and conjectured more. Had she been left absolutely alone in the world her condition would have been less difficult than it was actually, encumbered with her helpless brother. Swimming alone in the tossing sea, she might have struck out with confidence that she could keep her head above water, but it was quite otherwise when clinging to her was a poor, half-witted boy, incapable of doing anything to save himself, and all whose movements tended only to embarrass her. Not that she regretted for an instant having to care for Jamie, for she loved him with sisterly and motherly love combined, intensified in force by fusion; if to her a future seemed inconceivable without Jamie, a future without him would be one without ambition, pleasure, or interest.

The twin brother was very like her, with the same beautiful and abundant hair, delicate in build, and with the same refined face, but without the flashes of alternating mood that lightened and darkened her face. His had a searching, bewildered, distressed expression on it—the only expression it ever bore except when he was out of temper, and then it mirrored on its surface his inward ill-humor. His was an appealing face, a face that told of a spirit infantile, innocent, and ignorant, that would never grow stronger, but which could deteriorate by loss of innocence—the only charge of which it was capable. The boy had no inherent naughtiness in him, but was constantly falling into mischief through thoughtlessness, and he was difficult to manage because incapable of reasoning.

What every one saw—that he never would be other than what he was—Judith would not admit. She acknowledged his inaptitude at his books, his frivolity, his restlessness, but believed that these were infirmities to be overcome, and that when overcome the boy would be as other boys are.

Now these children—they were aged eighteen, but Jamie looked four years younger—sat in their father’s chair, clinging to each other, all in all to one another, for they had no one else to love and who loved them.

“Listen to me, Jamie.”

“Yes, Ju, I be——”

“Don’t say ‘I be’—say ‘I am.’”

“Yes, Ju.”

“Jamie, dear!” she drew her arm tighter about him; her heart was bounding, and every beat caused her pain. “Jamie, dear, you know that, now dear papa is gone, and you will never see him in this world again, that——”

“Yes, Ju.”

“That I have to look to you, my brother, to stand up for me like a man, to think and do for me as well as for yourself—a brave, stout, industrious fellow.”

“Yes, Ju.”

“I am a girl, and you will soon be a man, and must work for both of us. You must earn the money, and I will spend it frugally as we both require it. Then we shall be happy again, and dear papa in Paradise will be glad and smile on us. You will make an effort, will you not, Jamie? Hitherto you have been able to run about and play and squander your time, but now serious days have come upon us, and you must fix your mind on work and determine—Jamie—mind, screw your heart to a strong determination to put away childish things and be a man, and a strength and a comfort to me.”

He put up his lips to kiss her cheek, but could not reach it, as her head was leaning on her hand away from him.

“What are you fidgeting at, my dear?” she asked, without stirring, feeling his body restless under her arm.

“A nail is coming out,” he answered.

It was so; whilst she had been speaking to him he was working at one of the brass studs, and had loosened its bite in the chair.

“Oh, Jamie! you are making work by thus drawing out a nail. Can you not help me a little, and reduce the amount one has to think of and do? You have not been attending to what I said, and I was so much in earnest.” She spoke in a tone of discouragement, and the tone, more than the words, impressed the susceptible heart of the boy. He began to cry.

“You are cross.”

“I am not cross, my pet; I am never cross with you, I love you too dearly; but you try my patience sometimes, and just now I am overstrained—and then I did want to make you understand.”

“Now papa’s dead I’ll do no more lessons, shall I?” asked Jamie, coaxingly.

“You must, indeed, and with me instead of papa.”

“Not rosa, rosæ?”

“Yes, rosa, rosæ.”

Then he sulked.

“I don’t love you a bit. It is not fair. Papa is dead, so I ought not to have any more lessons. I hate rosa, rosæ!” He kicked the legs of the chair peevishly with his heels. As his sister said nothing, seemed to be inattentive—for she was weary and dispirited—he slapped her cheek by raising his hand over his head.

“What, Jamie, strike me, your only friend?”

Then he threw his arms round her again, and kissed her. “I’ll love you; only, Ju, say I am not to do rosa, rosæ!”

“How long have you been working at the first declension in the Latin grammar, Jamie?”

He tried for an instant to think, gave up the effort, laid his head on her shoulder, and said:

“I don’t know and don’t care. Say I am not to do rosa, rosæ!”

“What! not if papa wished it?”

“I hate the Latin grammar!”

For a while both remained silent. Judith felt the tension to which her mind and nerves had been subjected, and lapsed momentarily into a condition of something like unconsciousness, in which she was dimly sensible of a certain satisfaction rising out of the pause in thought and effort. The boy lay quiet, with his head on her shoulder, for a while, then withdrew his arms, folded his hands on his lap, and began to make a noise by compressing the air between the palms.

“There’s a finch out there going ‘chink! chink!’ and listen, Ju, I can make ‘chink! chink!’ too.”

Judith recovered herself from her distraction, and said:

“Never mind the finch now. Think of what I say. We shall have to leave this house.”

“Why?”

“Of course we must, sooner or later, and the sooner the better. It is no more ours.”

“Yes, it is ours. I have my rabbits here.”

“Now that papa is dead it is no longer ours.”

“It’s a wicked shame.”

“Not at all, Jamie. This house was given to papa for his life only; now it will go to a new rector, and Aunt Dunes[B] is going to fetch us away to another house.”

[B] Dunes is the short for Dionysia.

“When?”

“To-day.”

“I won’t go,” said the boy. “I swear I won’t.”

“Hush, hush, Jamie! Don’t use such expressions. I do not know where you have picked them up. We must go.”

“And my rabbits, are they to go too?”

“The rabbits? We’ll see about them. Aunt——”

“I hate Aunt Dunes!”

“You really must not call her that; if she hears you she will be very angry. And consider, she has been taking a great deal of trouble about us.”

“I don’t care.”

“My dear, she is dear papa’s sister.”

“Why didn’t papa get a nicer sister—like you?”

“Because he had to take what God gave him.”

The boy pouted, and began to kick his heels against the chair-legs once more.

“Jamie, we must leave this house to-day. Aunt is coming to take us both away.”

“I won’t go.”

“But, Jamie, I am going, and the cook is going, and so is Jane.”

“Are cook and Jane coming with us?”

“No, dear.”

“Why not?”

“We shall not want them. We cannot afford to keep them any more, to pay their wages; and then we shall not go into a house of our own. You must come with me, and be a joy and rest to me, dear Jamie.”

She turned her head over, and leaned it on his head. The sun glowed in their mingled hair—all of one tinge and lustre. It sparkled in the tears on her cheek.

“Ju, may I have these buttons?”

“What buttons?”

“Look!”

He shook himself free from his sister, slid his feet to the ground, went to a bureau, and brought to his sister a large open basket that had been standing on the top of the bureau. It had been turned out of a closet by Aunt Dionysia, and contained an accumulation of those most profitless of collected remnants—odd buttons, coat buttons, brass, smoked mother-of-pearl, shirt buttons, steel clasps—buttons of all kinds, the gathering together made during twenty-five years. Why the basket, after having been turned out of a lumber closet, had been left in the room of death, or why, if turned out elsewhere, it had been brought there, is more than even the novelist can tell. Suffice it that there it was, and by whom put there could not be said.

“Oh! what a store of pretty buttons!” exclaimed the boy. “Do look, Ju, these great big ones are just like those on Cheap Jack’s red waistcoat. Here is a brass one with a horse on it. Do see! Oh, Ju, please get your needle and thread and sew this one on to my black dress.”

Judith sighed. It was in vain for her to impress the realities of the situation on his wandering mind.

“Hark!” she exclaimed. “There is Aunt Dunes. I hear her voice—how loud she speaks! She has come to fetch us away.”

“Where is she going to take us to?”

“I do not know, Jamie.”

“She will take us into the forest and lose us, like as did Hop-o’-my-Thumb’s father.”

“There are no forests here—hardly any trees.”

“She will leave us in the forest and run away.”

“Nonsense, Jamie!”

“I am sure she will. She doesn’t like us. She wants to get rid of us. I don’t care. May I have the basket of buttons?”

“Yes, Jamie.”

“Then I’ll be Hop-o’-my-Thumb.”

CHAPTER V.

THE BUTTONS.

It was as Judith surmised. Mrs. Dionysia Trevisa had come to remove her nephew and niece from the rectory. She was a woman decided in character, especially in all that concerned her interests. She had made up her mind that the children could not be left unprotected in the parsonage, and she could not be with them. Therefore they must go. The servants must leave; they would be paid their month’s wage, but by dismissing them their keep would be economized. There was a factotum living in a cottage near, who did the gardening, the cinder-sifting, and boot-cleaning for the rectory inmates, he would look after the empty house, and wait on in hopes of being engaged to garden, sift cinders, and clean boots for the new rector.

As it was settled that the children must leave the house, the next thing to consider was where they were to be placed. The aunt could not take them to Pentyre Glaze; that was not to be thought of. They must be disposed of in some other way.

Mrs. Trevisa had determined on a sale of her brother’s effects: his furniture, bedding, curtains, carpets, books, plate, and old sermons. She was anxious to realize as soon as possible, so as to know for certain what she could calculate upon as being left her for the support of Judith and her brother. To herself the rector had left only a ring and five guineas. She had not expected more. His decease was not likely to be a benefit, but, on the contrary, an embarrassment to her. He had left about a thousand pounds, but then Mrs. Trevisa did not yet know how large a bite out of this thousand pounds would be taken by the dilapidations on rectory, glebe, and chancel. The chancel of the church was in that condition that it afforded a wide margin for the adjudication of dilapidations. They might be set down at ten shillings or a thousand pounds, and no one could say which was the fairest sum, as the chancel was deep in sand and invisible. The imagination of the valuer might declare it to be sound or to be rotten, and till dug out no one could impeach his judgment.

In those days, when an incumbent died, the widow and orphans of the deceased appointed a valuer, and the incoming rector nominated his valuer, and these two cormorants looked each other in the eyes—said to each other, “Brother, what pickings?” And as less resistance to being lacerated and cleaned to the bone was to be anticipated from a broken-hearted widow and helpless children than from a robust, red-faced rector, the cormorants contrived to rob the widow and the fatherless. Then that cormorant who had been paid to look after the interest of the widow and children and had not done it said to the other cormorant, “Brother, I’ve done you a turn this time; do me the like when the chance falls to you.” Now, although nominally the money picked off the sufferers was to go to the account of the incomer, it was not allowed to pass till the cormorants had taken toll of it. Moreover, these cormorants were architects, builders, solicitors, or contractors of some sort, and looked to get something further out of the incoming man they favored, whereas they knew they could get nothing at all out of the departed man who was buried. Now we have pretended to change all this; let us persuade ourselves we have made the conduct of these matters more honest and just.

Aunt Dionysia did not know by experience what valuers for dilapidations were, but she had always heard that valuation for dilapidations materially diminished the property of a deceased incumbent. She was consequently uneasy, and anxious to know the worst, and make the best of the circumstances that she could. She saw clearly enough that the sum that would remain when debts and valuation were paid would be insufficient to support the orphans, and she saw also with painful clearness that there would be a necessity for her to supplement their reduced income from her own earnings. This conviction did not sweeten her temper and increase the cordiality with which she treated her nephew and niece.

“Now, hoity-toity!” said Aunt Dionysia; “I’m not one of your mewlers and pewkers. I have my work to do, and can’t afford to waste time in the luxury of tears. You children shall come with me. I will see you settled in, and then Balhachet shall wheel over your boxes and whatever we want for the night. I have been away from my duties longer than I ought, and the maids are running wild, are after every one who comes near the place like horse-flies round the cattle on a sultry day. I will see you to your quarters, and then you must shift for yourselves. Balhachet can come and go between the rectory and Zachie Menaida as much as you want.”

“Are we going to Mr. Menaida’s, aunt?” asked Judith.

“Did I not say Zachie Menaida! If I said Zachie Menaida I suppose I meant what I said, or are you hard of hearing? Come—time to me is precious. Bustle—bustle—don’t keep me waiting while you gape.”

After a while Mrs. Trevisa succeeded in getting her nephew and niece to start. Judith, indeed, was ready at the first suggestion to go with her aunt, glad to get over the pang of leaving the house as quickly as might be. It was to be the rupture of one thread of the tie that bound her to the past, but an important thread. She was to leave the house as a home, though she would return to it again and again to carry away from it such of her possessions as she required and could find a place for at Zachary Menaida’s. But with Jamie it was otherwise. He had run away, and had to be sought, and when found coaxed and cajoled into following his aunt and sister.

Judith had found him, for she knew his nooks and dens. He was seated in a laurel bush playing with the buttons.

“Look, Ju! there is some broken mirror among the buttons. Stand still, and I will make the sun jump into your eyes. Open your mouth, and I will send him down your throat. Won’t it be fun; I’ll tease old Dunes with it.”

“Then come along with me.”

He obeyed.

The distance to Zachary Menaida’s cottage was about a mile and a quarter, partly through parish roads, partly through lanes, the way in parts walled and hedged up against the winds, in others completely exposed to every breath of air where it traversed a down.

Judith walked forward with her aunt, and Jamie lagged. Occasionally his sister turned her head to reassure herself that he had not given them the slip; otherwise she attended as closely as she was able to the instructions and exhortations of her aunt. She and her brother were to be lodged temporarily at Uncle Zachie’s, that is to say, with Mr. Menaida, an elderly, somewhat eccentric man, who occupied a double cottage at the little hamlet of Polzeath. No final arrangement as to the destination of the orphans could be made till Aunt Dunes knew the result of the sale, and how much remained to the children after the father’s trifling debts had been paid, and the considerable slice had been cut out of it by the valuers for dilapidations. Mrs. Trevisa talked fast in her harsh tones, and in a loud voice, without undulation or softness in it, and expected her niece to hear and give account for everything she told her, goading her to attention with a sharp reminder when she deemed that her mind was relaxed, and whipping her thoughts together when she found them wandering. But, indeed, it was not possible to forget for one moment the presence and personality of Dionysia, though the subject of her discourse might be unnoticed.

Every fibre of Judith’s heart was strung and strained to the uttermost, to acutest feeling, and a sympathetic hand drawn across them would have produced a soft, thrilling, musical wail. Her bosom was so full to overflow that a single word of kindness, a look even that told of love, would have sufficed to make the child cast herself in a convulsion of grief into her aunt’s arms, bury her face in her bosom, and weep out her pent-up tears. Then, after perhaps half an hour, she would have looked up through the rain into her aunt’s face, and have smiled, and have loved that aunt passionately, self-sacrificingly, to her dying day. She was disposed to love her—for was not Dionysia the only relative she had; and was she not the very sister of that father who had been to her so much? But Mrs. Trevisa was not the woman to touch the taught cords with a light hand, or to speak or look in love. She was hard, angular, unsympathetic; and her manner, the intonations of her voice, her mode of address, the very movements of her body, acted on the strained nerves as a rasping file, that would fret till it had torn them through.

Suddenly round a corner, where the narrow road turned, two hundred yards ahead, dashed a rider on a black steed, and Judith immediately recognized Coppinger on his famous mare Black Bess; a mare much talked of, named after the horse ridden by Dick Turpin. The recognition was mutual. He knew her instantly; with a jerk of the rein and a set of the brow he showed that he was not indifferent.

Coppinger wore his slouched hat, tied under his chin and beard, a necessary precaution in that gale-swept country; on his feet to his knees were high boots. He wore a blue knitted jersey, and a red kerchief about his throat.

Captain Cruel slightly slackened his pace, as the lane was narrow; and as he rode past his dark brow was knit, and his eyes flashed angrily at Judith. He deigned neither a glance nor a word to his housekeeper, who courtesied and assumed a fawning expression.

When he had passed the two women he dug his spurs into Black Bess and muttered some words they did not hear.

Judith, who had stood aside, now came forward into the midst of the roadway and rejoined her aunt, who began to say something, when her words and Judith’s attention was arrested by shouts, oaths, and cries in their rear.

Judith and her aunt turned to discover the occasion of this disturbance, and saw that Coppinger was off his horse, on his feet, dragging the brute by the rein, and was hurling his crop, or hunting-whip, as he pursued Jamie flying from him with cries of terror. But that he held the horse and could not keep up with the boy, Jamie would have suffered severely, for Coppinger was in a livid fury.

Jamie flew to his sister.

“Save me, Ju! he wants to kill me.”

“What have you done?”

“It is only the buttons.”

“Buttons, dear?”

But the boy was too frightened to explain.

Then Judith drew her brother behind her, took from him the basket he was carrying, and stepped to encounter the angry man, who came on, now struggling with his horse, cursing Bess because she drew back, then plunging forward with his whip above his head brandished menacingly, and by this conduct further alarmed Black Bess.

Judith met Coppinger, and he was forced to stay his forward course.

“What has he done?” asked the girl. “Why do you threaten?”

“The cursed idiot has strewn bits of glass and buttons along the road,” answered the Captain, angrily. “Stand aside that I may lash him, and teach him to frighten horses and endanger men’s lives.”

“I am sorry for what Jamie has done. I will pick up the things he has thrown down.”

Cruel Coppinger’s eyes glistened with wrath. He gathered the lash of his whip into his palm along with the handle, and gripped them passionately.

“Curse the fool! My Bess was frightened, dashed up the bank, and all but rolled over. Do you know he might have killed me?”

“You must excuse him; he is a very child.”

“I will not excuse him. I will cut the flesh off his back if I catch him.”

He put the end of the crop handle into his mouth, and, putting his right hand behind him, gathered the reins up shorter and wound them more securely about his left hand.

Judith walked backward, facing him, and he turned with his horse and went after her. She stooped and gathered up a splinter of glass. The sun striking through the gaps in the hedge had flashed on these scraps of broken mirror and of white bone, or burnished brass buttons, and the horse had been frightened at them. As Judith stooped and took up now a buckle, then a button, and then some other shining trifle, she hardly for an instant withdrew her eyes from Coppinger; they had in them the same dauntless defiance as when she encountered him on the stairs of the rectory. But now it was she who retreated, step by step, and he who advanced, and yet he could not flatter himself that he was repelling her. She maintained her strength and mastery unbroken as she retreated.

“Why do you look at me so? Why do you walk backward?”

“Because I mistrust you. I do not know what you might do were I not to confront you.”

“What I might do? What do you think I would do?”

“I cannot tell. I mistrust you.”

“Do you think me capable of lashing at you with my crop?”

“I think you capable of anything.”

“Flattering that!” he shouted, angrily.

“You would have lashed at Jamie.”

“And why not? He might have killed me.”

“He might have killed you, but you should not have touched him—not have thought of touching him.”

“Indeed! Why not?”

“Why not?” She raised herself upright and looked straight into his eyes, in which fire flickered, flared, then decayed, then flared again.

“You are no Dane, or you would not have asked ‘Why not?’ twice. Nay, you would not have asked it once.”

“Not a Dane?” His beard and mustache were quivering, and he snorted with anger.

“A Dane, I have read in history, is too noble and brave to threaten women and to strike children.”

He uttered an oath and ground his teeth.

“No; a Dane would never have thought of asking why not?—why not lash a poor little silly boy?”

“You insult me! You dare to do it?”

Her blood was surging in her heart. As she looked into this man’s dark and evil face she thought of all the distress he had caused her father, and a wave of loathing swept over her, nerved her to defy him to the uttermost, and to proclaim all the counts she had against him.

“I dare do it,” she said, “because you made my own dear papa’s life full of bitterness and pain——”

“I! I never touched him, hardly spoke to him. I don’t care to have to do with parsons.”

“You made his life one of sorrow through your godless, lawless ways, leading his poor flock astray, and bidding them mock at his warnings and despise his teachings. Almost with his last breath he spoke of you, and the wretchedness of heart you had caused him. And then you dared—yes—you dared—you dared to burst into our house where he lay dead, with shameful insolence to disturb its peace. And now—” she gasped, “and now, ah! you lie when you say you are a Dane, and talk of cutting and lashing the dead father’s little boy on his father’s burial day. You are but one thing I can name—a coward!”

Did he mean it? No! But blinded, stung to madness by her words, especially that last, he raised his right arm with the crop.

Did she mean it? No! But in the instinct of self-preservation, thinking he was about to strike her, she dashed the basket of buttons in his face, and they flew right and left over him, against the head of Black Bess, a rain of fragments of mirror, brass, steel, mother-of-pearl, and bone.

The effect was instantaneous. The mare plunged, reared, threw Coppinger backward from off his feet, dashed him to the ground, dragged him this way, that way, bounded, still drawing him about by the twisted reins, into the hedge, then back, with her hoofs upon him, near, if not on, his head, his chest—then, released by the snap of the rein, or through its becoming disengaged, Bess darted down the lane, was again brought to a standstill by the glittering fragments on the ground, turned, rushed back in the direction whence she had come, and disappeared.

Judith stood panting, paralyzed with fear and dismay. Was he dead, broken to pieces, pounded by those strong hoofs?

He was not dead. He was rolling himself on the ground, struggling clumsily to his knees.

“Are you satisfied?” he shouted, glaring at her like a wild beast through his tangled black hair that had fallen over his face. “I cannot strike you nor your brother now. My arm and the Lord knows what other bones are broken. You have done that—and I owe you something for it.”

CHAPTER VI.

UNCLE ZACHIE.

The astonishment, the consternation of Mrs. Trevisa at what had occurred, which she could not fully comprehend, took from her the power to speak. She had seen her niece in conversation with Cruel Coppinger, and had caught snatches of what had passed between them. All his words had reached her, and some of Judith’s. When, suddenly, she saw the girl dash the basket of buttons in the face of the Captain, saw him thrown to the ground, drawn about by his frantic horse, and left, as she thought, half dead, her dismay was unbounded. It might have been that Coppinger threatened Judith with his whip, but nothing could excuse her temerity in resisting him, in resisting him and protecting herself in the way she did. The consequences of that resistance she could not measure. Coppinger was bruised, bones were broken, and Aunt Dionysia knew the nature of the man too well not to expect his deadly animosity, and to feel sure of implacable revenge against the girl who had injured him—a revenge that would envelop all who belonged to her, and would therefore strike herself.

The elderly spinster had naturally plenty of strength and hardness that would bear her through most shocks without discomposure, but such an incident as that which had just taken place before her eyes entirely unnerved and dismayed her.

Coppinger was conveyed home by men called to the spot, and Mrs. Trevisa walked on with her niece and nephew in silence to the house of Mr. Zachary Menaida. Jamie had escaped over the hedge, to put a stone-and-earth barrier between himself and his assailant directly Judith interposed between him and Coppinger. Now that the latter was gone, he came, laughing, over the hedge again. To him what had occurred was fun.

At Menaida’s the aunt departed, leaving her nephew and niece with the old man, that she might hurry to Pentyre Glaze and provide what was needed for Coppinger. She took no leave of Judith. In the haze of apprehension that enveloped her mind glowed anger against the girl for having increased her difficulties and jeopardized her position with Coppinger.

Mr. Zachary Menaida was an old man, or rather a man who had passed middle age, with grizzled hair that stood up above his brow, projecting like the beak of a ship or the horn of an unicorn. He had a big nose inclined to redness, and kindly, watery eyes, was close shaven, and had lips that, whenever he was in perplexity, or worried with work or thought, he thrust forward and curled. He was a middle-statured man, inclined to stoop.

Uncle Zachie, as he was commonly called behind his back, was a gentleman by birth. In the Roman Catholic Church there is a religious order called that of Minims. In England we have, perhaps, the most widely-diffused of orders, not confined to religion—it is that of Crotchets. To this order Mr. Menaida certainly belonged. He was made up of hobbies and prejudices that might bore, but never hurt others.

Probably the most difficult achievement one can conceive for a man to execute is to stand in his own light; yet Mr. Menaida had succeeded in doing this all through his life. In the first place, he had been bred up for the law, but had never applied himself to the duties of the profession to which he had been articled. As he had manifested as a boy a love of music, his mother and sister had endeavored to make him learn to play on an instrument; but, because so urged, he had refused to qualify himself to play on pianoforte, violin, or flute, till his fingers had stiffened, whereupon he set to work zealously to practise, when it was no longer possible for him to acquire even tolerable proficiency.

As he had been set by his father to work on skins of parchment, he turned his mind to skins of another sort, and became an eager naturalist and taxidermist.

That he had genius, or rather a few scattered sparks of talent in his muddled brain, was certain. Every one who knew him said he was clever, but pitied his inability to turn his cleverness to purpose. But one must take into consideration, before accepting the general verdict that he was clever, the intellectual abilities of those who formed this judgment. When we do this, we doubt much whether their opinion is worth much. Mr. Menaida was not clever. He had flashes of wit, no steady light of understanding. Above all, he had no application, a little of which might have made him a useful member of society.

When his articleship was over he set up as a solicitor, but what business was offered him he neglected or mismanaged, till business ceased to be offered. He would have starved had not a small annuity of fifty pounds been left him to keep the wolf from the door, and that he was able to supplement this small income with money made by the sale of his stuffed specimens of sea-fowl. Taxidermy was the only art in which he was able to do anything profitable. He loved to observe the birds, to wander on the cliffs listening to their cries, watching their flight, their positions when at rest, the undulations in their feathers under the movement of the muscles as they turned their heads or raised their feet; and when he set himself to stuff the skins he was able to imitate the postures and appearance of living birds with rare fidelity. Consequently his specimens were in request, and ornithologists and country gentlemen whose game-keepers had shot rare birds desired to have the skins dealt with, and set in cases, by the dexterous fingers of Mr. Zachary Menaida. He might have done more work of the same kind, but that his ingrained inactivity and distaste for work limited his output. In certain cases Mr. Menaida would not do what was desired of him till coaxed and flattered, and then he did it grumblingly and with sighs at being subjected to killing toil.

Mr. Menaida was a widower; his married life had not been long; he had been left with a son, now grown to manhood, who was no longer at home. He was abroad, in Portugal, in the service of a Bristol merchant, an importer of wines.

As already said, Uncle Zachie did not begin the drudgery of music till it was too late for him to acquire skill on any instrument. His passion for music grew with his inability to give himself pleasure from it. He occupied a double cottage at Polzeath, and a hole knocked through the wall that had separated the lower rooms enabled him to keep his piano in one room and his bird-stuffing apparatus in the other, and to run from one to the other in his favorite desultory way, that never permitted him to stick to one thing at a time.

Into this house Judith and her brother were introduced. Mr. Menaida had been attached to the late rector, the only other gentleman in culture, as in birth, that lived in the place, and when he was told by Miss—or, as she was usually called, Mrs.—Trevisa that the children must leave the parsonage and be put temporarily with some one suitable, and that no other suitable house was available, he consented without making much objection to receive them into his cottage. He was a kindly man, gentle at heart, and he was touched at the bereavement of the children whom he had known since they were infants.

After the first salutation Mr. Menaida led Judith and the boy into his parlor, the room opening out of his workshop.

“Look here,” said he, “what is that?” He pointed to his piano.

“A piano, sir,” answered Judith.

“Yes—and mind you, I hate strumming, though I love music. When I am in, engaged at my labors, no strumming. I come in here now and then as relaxation, and run over this and that; then, refreshed, go back to my work, but, if there is any strumming, I shall be put out. I shall run my knife or needle into my hand, and it will upset me for the day. You understand—no strumming. When I am out, then you may touch the keys, but only when I am out. You understand clearly? Say the words after me: ‘I allow no strumming.’”

Judith did as required. The same was exacted of Jamie. Then Mr. Menaida said—

“Very well; now we shall have a dish of tea. I daresay you are tired. Dear me, you look so. Goodness bless me! indeed you do. What has tired you has been the trial you have gone through. Poor things, poor things! There, go to your rooms; my maid, Jump, will show you where they are, and I will see about making tea. It will do you good. You want it. I see it.”

The kind-hearted man ran about.

“Bless my soul! where have I put the key of the caddy? And—really—my fingers are all over arsenical soap. I think I will leave Jump to make the tea. Jump, have you seen where I put the key? Bless my soul! where did I have it last? Never mind; I will break open the caddy.”

“Please, Mr. Menaida, do not do that for us. We can very well wait till the key is found.”

“Oh! I don’t know when that will be. I shall have forgotten about it if I do not find the key at once, or break open the caddy. But, if you prefer it, I have some cherry-brandy, or I would give you some milk-punch.”

“No—no, indeed, Mr. Menaida.”

“But Jamie—I am sure he looks tired. A little cherry-brandy to draw the threads in him together. And suffer me, though not a doctor, to recommend it to you. Bless my soul! my fingers are all over arsenical soap. If I don’t have some cherry-brandy myself I shall have the arsenic get into my system. I hope you have no cuts or scratches on your hand. I forgot the arsenic when I shook hands with you. Now, look here, Jump, bring in the saffron cake, and I will cut them each a good hunch. It will do you good, on my word it will. I have not spared either figs or saffron, and then—I will help you, as I love you. Come and see my birds. That is a cormorant—a splendid fellow—looks as if run out of metal, all his plumage, you know, and in the attitude as if swallowing a fish. Do you see!—the morsel is going down his throat. And—how much luggage have you? Jump! show the young lady where she can put away her gowns and all that sort of thing. Oh, not come yet? All right—a lady and her dresses are not long parted. They will be here soon. Now, then. What will you have?—some cold beef—and cider? Upon my soul!—you must excuse me. I was just wiring that kittiwake. Excuse me—I shall be ready in a moment. In the meantime there are books—Rollin’s ‘Ancient History,’ a very reliable book. No—upon my word, my mind is distracted. I cannot get that kittiwake right without a glass of port. I have some good port. Oliver guarantees it—from Portugal, you know. He is there—first-rate business, and will make his fortune, which is more than his father ever did.”

Mr. Menaida went to a closet, and produced a bottle.

“Come here, Jamie. I know what is good for you.”

“No—please, Mr. Menaida, do not. He has not been accustomed to anything of the sort. Please not, sir.”

“Fudge!” said Uncle Zachie, holding up a glass and pouring cherry-brandy into it. “What is your age?—seventeen or eighteen, and I am fifty-two. I have over thirty years’ more experience of the world than you. Jamie, don’t be tied to your sister’s apron-string. I know what is best for you. Girls drink water, men something better. Come here, Jamie!”

“No, sir—I beseech you.”

“Bless my soul! I know what is good for him. Come to me, Jamie. Look the other way, Judith, if I cannot persuade you.”

Judith sighed, and covered her face with her hands. There was to be no help, no support in Uncle Zachie. On the contrary, he would break down her power over Jamie.

“Jamie,” she said, “if you love me, go up-stairs.”

“Presently, Ju. I want that first.” And he took it, ran to his sister, and said:

“It is good, Ju!”

“You have disobeyed me, Jamie—that is bad.”

She stood on the threshold of further trouble, and she knew it.

CHAPTER VII.

A VISIT.

No sleep visited Judith’s eyes that night till the first streaks of dawn appeared, though she was weary, and her frail body and over-exerted brain needed the refreshment of sleep. But sleep she could not, for cares were gathering upon her.

She had often heard her father, when speaking of Mr. Menaida, lament that he was not a little more self-controlled in his drinking. It was not that the old fellow ever became inebriated, but that he hankered after the bottle, and was wont to take a nip continually to strengthen his nerves, steady his hand, or clear his brain. There was ever ready some excuse satisfactory to his own conscience; and it was due to these incessant applications to the bottle that his hand shook, his eyes became watery, and his nose red. It was a danger Judith must guard against, lest this trick should be picked up by the childish Jamie, always apt to imitate what he should not, and acquire habits easily gained, hardly broken, that were harmful to himself. Uncle Zachie, in his good-nature, would lead the boy after him into the same habits that marred his own life.

This was one thought that worked like a mole all night in Judith’s brain; but she had other troubles as well to keep her awake. She was alarmed at the consequences of her conduct in the lane. She wondered whether Coppinger were more seriously hurt than had at first appeared. She asked herself whether she had not acted wrongly when she acted inconsiderately, whether in her precipitation to protect herself she had not misjudged Coppinger, whether, if he had attempted to strike her, it would not have been a lesser evil to receive the blow, than to ward it off in such a manner as to break his bones. Knowing by report the character of the man, she feared that she had incurred his deadly animosity. He could not, that she could see, hurt herself in the execution of his resentment, but he might turn her aunt out of his house. That she had affronted her aunt she was aware; Mrs. Trevisa’s manner in parting with her had shown that with sufficient plainness.

A strange jumble of sounds on the piano startled Judith. Her first thought and fear were that her brother had gone to the instrument, and was amusing himself on the keys. But on listening attentively she was aware that there was sufficient sequence in the notes to make it certain that the performer was a musician, though lacking in facility of execution. She descended the stairs and entered the little sitting-room. Uncle Zachie was seated on the music-stool, and was endeavoring to play a sonata of Beethoven that was vastly beyond the capacity of his stiff-jointed fingers. Whenever he made a false note he uttered a little grunt and screwed up his eyes, endeavored to play the bar again, and perhaps accomplish it only to break down in the next.

Judith did not venture to interrupt him. She took up some knitting, and seated herself near the piano, where he might see her without her disturbing him. He raised his brows, grunted, floundered into false harmony, and exclaimed, “Bless me! how badly they do print music nowadays. Who, without the miraculous powers of a prophet, could tell that B should be natural?” Then, turning his head over his shoulder, addressed Judith, “Good-morning, missie. Are you fond of music?”

“Yes, sir, very.”

“So you think. Everyone says he or she is fond of music, because that person can hammer out a psalm tune or play the ‘Rogue’s March.’ I hate to hear those who call themselves musical strum on a piano. They can’t feel, they only execute.”

“But they can play their notes correctly,” said Judith, and then flushed with vexation at having made this pointed and cutting remark. But it did not cause Mr. Menaida to wince.

“What of that? I give not a thank-you for mere literal music-reading. Call Jump, set ‘Shakespeare’ before her, and she will hammer out a scene—correctly as to words; but where is the sense? Where the life? You must play with the spirit and play with the understanding also, as you must read with the spirit and read with the understanding also. It is the same thing with bird-stuffing. Any fool can ram tow into a skin and thrust wires into the neck, but what is the result? You must stuff birds with the spirit and stuff with the understanding also—or it is naught.”

“I suppose it is the same with everything one does—one must do it heartily and intelligently.”

“Exactly! Now you should see my boy, Oliver. Have you ever met him?”

“I think I have; but, to be truthful, I do not recollect him, sir.”

“I will bring you his likeness—in miniature. It is in the next room.” Up jumped Mr. Menaida, and ran through the opening in the wall, and returned in another moment with the portrait, and gave it into Judith’s hands.

“A fine fellow is Oliver! Look at his nose how straight it is. Not like mine—that is a pump-handle. He got his good looks from his mother, not from me. Ah!” He reseated himself at the piano, and ran—incorrectly—over a scale. “It is all the pleasure I have in life, to think of my boy, and to look at his picture, and read his letters, and drink the port he sends me—first-rate stuff. He writes admirable letters, and never a month passes but I receive one. It would come expensive if he wrote direct, so his letter is enclosed in the business papers sent to the house at Bristol, and they forward it to me. You shall read his last—out loud. It will give me a pleasure to hear it read by you.”

“If I read properly, Mr. Menaida—with the spirit and with the understanding.”

“Exactly! But you could not fail to do that looking at the cheerful face in the miniature, and reading his words—pleasant and bright as himself. Pity you have not seen him; well, that makes something to live for. He has dark hair and blue eyes—not often met together, and when associated, very refreshing. Wait! I’ll go after the letter: only, bless my soul! where is it? What coat did I have on when I read it? I’ll call Jump. She may remember. Wait! do you recall this?”

He stumbled over something on the keys which might have been anything.

“It is Haydn. I will tell you what I think: Mozart I delight in as a companion; Beethoven I revere as a master; but Haydn I love as a friend. You were about to say something?”

Judith had set an elbow on the piano and put her hand to her head, her fingers through the hair, and was looking into Uncle Zachie’s face with an earnestness he could not mistake. She did desire to say something to him; but if she waited till he gave her an opportunity she might wait a long time. He jumped from one subject to another with alacrity, and with rapid forgetfulness of what he was last speaking about.

“Oh, sir, I am so very, very grateful to you for having received us into your snug little house——”

“You like it? Well, I only pay seven pounds for it. Cheap, is it not? Two cottages—laborers’ cottages—thrown together. Well, I might go farther and fare worse.”

“And, Mr. Menaida, I venture to ask you another favor, which, if you will grant me, you will lay me under an eternal obligation.”

“You may command me, my dear.”

“It is only this: not to let Jamie have anything stronger than a glass of cider. I do not mind his having that; but a boy like him does not need what is, no doubt, wanted by you who are getting old. I am so afraid of the habit growing on him of looking for and liking what is too strong for him. He is such a child, so easily led, and so unable to control himself. It may be a fancy, a prejudice of mine”—she passed her nervous hand over her face—“I do hope I am not offending you, dear Mr. Menaida; but I know Jamie so well, and I know how carefully he must be watched and checked. If it be a silly fancy of mine—and perhaps it is only a silly fancy—yet,” she put on a pleading tone, “you will humor me in this, will you not, Mr. Menaida?”

“Bless my soul! you have only to express a wish and I will fulfil it. For myself, you must know, I am a little weak; I feel a chill when the wind turns north or east, and am always relaxed when it is in the south or west; that forces me to take something just to save me from serious inconvenience, you understand.”

“Oh quite, sir.”

“And then—confound it!—I am goaded on to work when disinclined. Why, there’s a letter come to me now from Plymouth—a naturalist there, asking for more birds; and what can I do? I slave, I am at it all day, half the night; I have no time to eat or sleep. I was not born to stuff birds. I take it as an amusement, a pastime, and it is converted into a toil. I must brace up my exhausted frame; it is necessary to my health, you understand!”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Menaida. And you really will humor my childish whim?”

“Certainly, you may rely on me.”

“That is one thing I wanted to say. You see, sir, we have but just come into your house, and already, last night, Jamie was tempted to disobey me, and take what I thought unadvisable, so—I have been turning it over and over in my head—I thought I would like to come to a clear understanding with you, Mr. Menaida. It seems ungracious in me, but you must pity me. I have now all responsibility for Jamie on my head, and I have to do what my conscience tells me I should do; only, I pray you, do not take offence at what I have said.”

“Fudge! my dear; you are right, I dare say.”

“And now that I have your promise—I have that, have I not?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Now I want your opinion, if you will kindly give it me. I have no father, no mother, to go to for advice; and so I venture to appeal to you—it is about Captain Coppinger.”

“Captain Coppinger!” repeated Uncle Zachie, screwing up his brows and mouth. “Umph! He is a bold man who can give help against Captain Coppinger, and a strong man as well as bold. How has he wronged you?”

“Oh! he has not wronged me. It is I who have hurt him.”

“You—you!” Uncle Zachie laughed. “A little creature such as you could not hurt Captain Cruel!”

“But, indeed, I have; I have thrown him down and broken his arms and some of his bones.”

“You—you?” Uncle Zachie’s face of astonishment and dismay was so comical that Judith, in spite of her anxiety and exhaustion, smiled; but the smile was without brightness.

“And pray, how in the name of wonder did you do that? Upon my word, you will deserve the thanks of the Preventive men. They have no love for him; they have old scores they would gladly wipe off with a broken arm, or, better still, a cracked skull. And pray how did you do this? With the flour-roller?”

“No, sir, I will tell you the whole story.”

Then, in its true sequence, with great clearness, she related the entire narrative of events. She told how her father, even with his last breath, had spoken of Coppinger as the man who had troubled his life by marring his work; how that the Captain had entered the parsonage without ceremony when her dear father was lying dead up-stairs, and how he had called there boisterously for Aunt Dionysia because he wanted something of her. She told the old man how that her own feelings had been wrought, by this affront, into anger against Coppinger. Then she related the incident in the lane, and how that, when he raised his arm against her, she had dashed the buttons into his face, frightened his horse, and so produced an accident that might have cost the Captain his life.

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Menaida, “and what do you want? Is it an assault? I will run to my law-books and find out; I don’t know that it can quite be made out a case of misadventure.”

“It is not that, sir.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I have been racking my head to think what I ought to do under the circumstances. There can be no doubt that I aggravated him. I was very angry, both because he had been a trouble to my darling papa, and then because he had been so insolent as to enter our house and shout for Aunt Dunes; but there was something more—he had tried to beat Jamie, and it was my father’s day of burial. All that roused a bad spirit in me, and I did say very bad words to him—words a man of metal would not bear from even a child, and I suppose I really did lash him to madness, and he would have struck me—but perhaps not, he might have thought better of it. I provoked him, and then I brought about what happened. I have been considering what I ought to do. If I remain here and take no notice, then he will think me very unfeeling, and that I do not care that I have hurt him in mind and body. It came into my head last night that I would ask aunt to apologize to him for what I had done, or, better still, should aunt not come here to-day, which is very likely, that I might walk with Jamie to Pentyre and inquire how Captain Coppinger is, and send in word by my aunt that I am sorry—very sorry.”

“Upon my soul, I don’t know what to say. I could not have done this to Coppinger myself for a good deal of money. I think if I had, I would get out of the place as quickly as possible, while he was crippled by his broken bones. But then, you are a girl, and he may take it better from you than from me. Well—yes; I think it would be advisable to allay his anger if you can. Upon my word, you have put yourself into a difficult position. I’ll go and look at my law-books, just for my own satisfaction.”

A heavy blow on the door, and without waiting for a response and invitation to enter, it was thrown open, and there entered Cruel Coppinger, his arm bandaged, tied in splints, and bound to his body, with his heavy walking-stick brandished by the uninjured hand. He stood for a moment glowering in, searching the room with his keen eyes till they rested on Judith. Then he made an attempt to raise his hand to his head, but ineffectually.

“Curse it!” said he, “I cannot do it; don’t tear it off my head with your eyes, girl. Here, you Menaida, come here and take my hat off. Come instantly, or she—she will do—the devil knows what she will not do to me.”

He turned, and with his stick beat the door back, that it slammed behind him.

[B] Dunes is the short for Dionysia.

“Not at all, Jamie. This house was given to papa for his life only; now it will go to a new rector, and Aunt Dunes[B] is going to fetch us away to another house.”

CHAPTER VIII.

A PATCHED PEACE.

“Look at her!” cried Coppinger, with his back against the house door, and pointing to Judith with his stick.

She was standing near the piano, with one hand on it, and was half turned toward him. She was in black, but had a white kerchief about her neck. The absence of all color in her dress heightened the lustre of her abundant and glowing hair.

Coppinger remained for a moment, pointing with a half sneer on his dark face. Mr. Menaida had nervously complied with his demand, and had removed the hat from the smuggler, and his dark hair fell about his face. That face was livid and pale; he had evidently suffered much, and now every movement was attended with pain. Not only had some of his bones been broken, but he was bruised and strained.

“Look at her!” he shouted again, in his deep commanding tones, and he fixed his fierce eyes on her and knitted his brows. She remained immovable, awaiting what he had to say. Though there was a flutter in her bosom, her hand on the piano did not shake.

“I am very sorry, Captain Coppinger,” said Judith, in a low, sweet voice, in which there was but a slight tremulousness. “I profess that I believe I acted wrongly yesterday, and I repeat that I am sorry—very sorry, Captain Coppinger.”

He made no reply. He lowered the stick that had been pointed at her, and leaned on it. His hand shook because he was in pain.

“I acted wrongly yesterday,” continued Judith, “but I acted under provocation that, if it does not justify what I did, palliates the wrong. I can say no more—that is the exact truth.”

“Is that all?”

“I am sorry for what was wrong in my conduct—frankly sorry that you are hurt.”

“You hear her?” laughed Coppinger, bitterly. “A little chit like that to speak to me thus”—then, turning sharply on her, “Are you not afraid?”

“No, I am not afraid; why should I be?”

“Why? Ask any one in S. Enodoc—any one in Cornwall—who has heard my name.”

“I beg your pardon. I do not want to ask any one else in S. Enodoc, any one else in Cornwall. I ask you.”

“Me? You ask me why you should be afraid of me?” He paused, drew his thick brows together till they formed a band across his forehead. “I tell you that none has ever wronged me by a blade of grass or a flock of wool but has paid for it a thousand-fold. And none has ever hurt me as you have done—none has ever dared to attempt it.”

“I have said that I am sorry.”

“You talk like one cold as a mermaid. I do not believe in your fearlessness. Why do you lean on the piano. There, touch the wires with the very tips of your fingers, and let me hear if they give a sound—and sound they will if you tremble.”

Judith exposed some of the wires by raising the top of the piano. Then she smiled, and stood with the tips of her delicate fingers just touching the chords. Coppinger listened, so did Uncle Zachie, and not a vibration could they detect.

Presently she withdrew her hand, and said, “Is not that enough? When a girl says, ‘I am sorry,’ I supposed the chapter was done and the book closed.”

“You have strange ideas.”

“I have those in which I was brought up by the best of fathers.”

Coppinger thrust his stick along the floor.

“Is it due to the ideas in which you have been brought up that you are not afraid—when you have reduced me to a wreck?”

“And you?—are you afraid of the wreck that you have made?”

The dark blood sprang into and suffused his whole face. Uncle Zachie drew back against the wall and made signs to Judith not to provoke their self-invited visitor; but she was looking steadily at the Captain, and did not observe the signals. In Coppinger’s presence she felt nerved to stand on the defensive, and more, to attack. A threat in his whole bearing, in his manner of addressing her, roused every energy she possessed.

“I tell you,” said he, harshly, “if any man had used the word you threw at me yesterday, I would have murdered him; I would have split his skull with the handle of my crop.”

“You raised your hand to do it to me,” said Judith.

“No!” he exclaimed, violently. “It is false; come here, and let me see if you have the courage, the fearlessness you affect. You women are past-masters of dissembling. Come here; kneel before me and let me raise my stick over you. See; there is lead in the handle, and with one blow I can split your skull and dash the brains over the floor.”

Judith remained immovable.

“I thought it—you are afraid.”

She shook her head.

He let himself, with some pain, slowly into a chair.

“You are afraid. You know what to expect. Ah! I could fell you and trample on you and break your bones, as I was cast down, trampled on, and broken in my bones yesterday—by you, or through you. Are you afraid?”

She took a step toward him. Then Uncle Zachie waved her back, in great alarm. He caught Judith’s attention, and she answered him, “I am not afraid. I gave him a word I should not have given him yesterday. I will show him that I retract it fully.” Then she stepped up to Coppinger and sank on her knees before him. He raised his whip, with the loaded handle, brandishing it over her.

“Now I am here,” she said, “I again ask your forgiveness, but I protest an apology is due to me.”

He threw his stick away. “By heaven, it is!” Then in an altered tone, “Take it so, that I ask your forgiveness. Get up; do not kneel to me. I could not have struck you down had I willed, my arm is stiff. Perhaps you knew it.”

He rose with effort to his feet again. Judith drew back to her former position by the piano, two hectic spots of flame were in her cheek, and her eyes were preternaturally bright.

Coppinger looked steadily at her for a while, then he said, “Are you ill? You look as if you were.”

“I have had much to go through of late.”

“True.”

He remained looking at her, brooding over something in his mind. She perplexed him; he wondered at her. He could not comprehend the spirit that was in her, that sustained a delicate little frame, and made her defy him.

His eyes wandered round the room, and he signed to Uncle Zachie to give him his stick again.

“What is that?” said he, pointing to the miniature on the stand for music, where Mr. Menaida had put it, over a sheet of the music he had been playing, or attempting to play.

“It is my son, Oliver,” said Uncle Zachie.

“Why is it there? Has she been looking at it? Let me see it.”

Mr. Menaida hesitated, but presently handed it to the redoubted Captain, with nervous twitches in his face. “I value it highly—my only child.”

Coppinger looked at it, with a curl of his lips; then handed it back to Mr. Menaida.

“Why is it here?”

“I brought it here to show it her. I am very proud of my son,” said Uncle Zachie.

Coppinger was in an irritable mood, captious about trifles. Why did he ask questions about this little picture? Why look suspiciously at Judith as he did so—suspiciously and threateningly?

“Do you play on the piano?” asked Coppinger. “When the evil spirit was on Saul, David struck the harp and sent the spirit away. Let me hear how you can touch the notes. It may do me good. Heaven knows it is not often I have the leisure, or the occasion, or am in the humor for music. I would hear what you can do.”

Judith looked at Uncle Zachie.

“I cannot play,” she said; “that is to say, I can play, but not now, and on this piano.”

But Mr. Menaida interfered and urged her to play. He was afraid of Coppinger.

She seated herself on the music-stool and considered for a moment. The miniature was again on the stand. Coppinger put out his stick and thrust it off, and it would have fallen had not Judith caught it. She gave it to Mr. Menaida, who hastily carried it into the adjoining room, where the sight of it might no longer irritate the Captain.

“What shall I play? I mean, strum?” asked Judith, looking at Uncle Zachie. “Beethoven! No—Haydn. Here are his ‘Seasons.’ I can play ‘Spring.’”

She had a light, but firm touch. Her father had been a man of great musical taste, and he had instructed her. But she had, moreover, the musical faculty in her, and she played with the spirit and with the understanding also. Wondrous is the power of music, passing that of fabled necromancy. It takes a man up out of his most sordid surroundings, and sets him in heavenly places. It touches fibres of the inner nature, lost, forgotten, ignored, and makes them thrill with a new life. It seals the eyes to outward sights, and unfurls new vistas full of transcendental beauty; it breathes over hot wounds and heals them; it calls to the surface springs of pure delight, and bids them gush forth in an arid desert.

It was so now, as, under the sympathetic fingers of Judith, Haydn’s song of the “Spring” was sung. A May world arose in that little dingy room; the walls fell back and disclosed green woods thick with red robin and bursting bluebells, fields golden with buttercups, hawthorns clothed in flower, from which sang the blackbird, thrush, the finch, and the ouzel. The low ceiling rose and overarched as the speed-well blue vault of heaven, the close atmosphere was dispelled by a waft of crisp, pure air; shepherds piped, Boy Blue blew his horn, and milkmaids rattled their pails and danced a ballet on the turf; and over all, down into every corner of the soul, streamed the glorious, golden sun, filling the heart with gladness.

Uncle Zachie had been standing at the door leading into his workshop, hesitating whether to remain, with a pish! and a pshaw! or to fly away beyond hearing. But he was arrested, then drawn lightly, irresistibly, step by step, toward the piano, and he noiselessly sank upon a chair, with his eyes fixed on Judith’s fingers as they danced over the keys. His features assumed a more refined character as he listened; the water rose into his eyes, his lips quivered, and when, before reaching the end of the piece, Judith faltered and stopped, he laid his hand on her wrist and said: “My dear—you play, you do not strum. Play when you will—never can it be too long, too much for me. It may steady my hand, it may dispel the chill and the damp better than—but never mind—never mind.”

Why had Judith failed to accomplish the piece? Whilst engaged on the notes she had felt that the searching, beaming eyes of the smuggler were on her, fixed with fierce intensity. She could meet them, looking straight at him, without shrinking, and without confusion, but to be searched by them whilst off her guard, her attention engaged on her music, was what she could not endure.

Coppinger made no remark on what he had heard, but his face gave token that the music had not swept across him without stirring and softening his hard nature.

“How long is she to be here with you?” he asked, turning to Uncle Zachie.

“Captain, I cannot tell. She and her brother had to leave the rectory. They could not remain in that house alone. Mrs. Trevisa asked me to lodge them here, and I consented. I knew their father.”

“She did not ask me. I would have taken them in.”

“Perhaps she was diffident of doing that,” said Uncle Zachie. “But really, on my word, it is no inconvenience to me. I have room in this house, and my maid, Jump, has not enough to do to attend on me.”

“When you are tired of them send them to me.”

“I am not likely to be tired of Judith, now that I have heard her play.”

“Judith—is that her name?”

“Yes—Judith.”

“Judith!” he repeated, and thrust his stick along the floor, meditatively. “Judith!” Then, after a pause, with his eyes on the ground, “Why did not your aunt speak to me! Why does she not love you?—she does not, I know. Why did she not go to see you when your father was alive! Why did you not come to the Glaze?”

“My dear papa did not wish me to go to your house,” said Judith, answering one of his many questions, the last, and perhaps the easiest to reply to.

“Why not?” he glanced up at her, then down on the floor again.

“Papa was not very pleased with Aunt Dunes—it was no fault on either side, only a misunderstanding,” said Judith.

“Why did he not let you come to my house to salute your aunt?”

Judith hesitated. He again looked up at her searchingly.

“If you really must know the truth, Captain Coppinger, papa thought your house was hardly one to which to send two children—it was said to harbor such wild folk.”

“And he did not know how fiercely and successfully you could defend yourself against wild folk,” said Coppinger, with a harsh laugh. “It is we wild men that must fear you, for you dash us about and bruise and break us when displeased with our ways. We are not so bad at the Glaze as we are painted, not by a half—here is my hand on it.”

Judith was still seated on the music-stool, her hands resting in her lap. Coppinger came toward her, walking stiffly, and extending his palm.

She looked down in her lap. What did this fierce, strange man, mean?

“Will you give me your hand?” he asked. “Is there peace between us?”

She was doubtful what to say. He remained, awaiting her answer.

“I really do not know what reply to make,” she said, after awhile. “Of course, so far as I’m concerned, it is peace. I have myself no quarrel with you, and you are good enough to say that you forgive me.”

“Then why not peace?”

Again she let him wait before answering. She was uneasy and unhappy. She wanted neither his goodwill nor his hostility.

“In all that affects me, I bear you no ill-will,” she said, in a low, tremulous voice; “but in that you were a grief to my dear, dear father, discouraging his heart, I cannot be forgetful, and so full of charity as to blot it out as though it had not been.”

“Then let it be a patched peace—a peace with evasions and reservations. Better that than none. Give me your hand.”

“On that understanding,” said Judith, and laid her hand in his. His iron fingers closed round it, and he drew her up from the stool on which she sat, drew her forward near the window, and thrust her in front of him. Then he raised her hand, held it by the wrist, and looked at it.

“It is very small, very weak,” he said, musingly.

Then there rushed over her mind the recollection of her last conversation with her father. He, too, had taken and looked at her hand, and had made the same remark.

Coppinger lowered her hand and his, and, looking at her, said:

“You are very wonderful to me.”

“I—why so?”

He did not answer, but let go his hold of her, and turned away to the door.

Judith saw that he was leaving, and she hastened to bring him his stick, and she opened the door for him.

“I thank you,” he said, turned, pointed his stick at her, and added, “It is peace—though a patched one.”

CHAPTER IX.

C. C.

Days ensued, not of rest to body, but of relaxation to mind. Judith’s overstrained nerves had now given them a period of numbness, a sleep of sensibility with occasional turnings and wakenings, in which they recovered their strength. She and Jamie were settled into their rooms at Mr. Menaida’s, and the hours were spent in going to and from the rectory removing their little treasures to the new home—if a temporary place of lodging could be called a home—and in arranging them there.

There were a good many farewells to be taken, and Judith marvelled sometimes at the insensibility with which she said them—farewells to a thousand nooks and corners of the house and garden, the shrubbery, and the glebe farm, all endeared by happy recollections, now having their brightness dashed with rain.

To Judith this was a first revelation of the mutability of things on earth. Hitherto, as a child, with a child’s eyes and a child’s confidence, she had regarded the rectory, the glebe, the contents of the house, the flowers in the garden, as belonging inalienably to her father and brother and herself. They belonged to them together. There was nothing that was her father’s that did not belong to Jamie and to her, nothing of her brother’s or her own that was not likewise the property of papa. There was no mine or thine in that little family of love—save only a few birthday presents given from one to the other, and these only special property by a playful concession. But now the dear father was gone, and every right seemed to dissolve. From the moment that he leaned back against the brick, lichen-stained wall, and sighed—and was dead, house and land had been snatched from them. And though the contents of the rectory, the books, and the furniture, and the china belonged to them, it was but for a little while; these things must be parted with also, turned into silver.

Not because the money was needed, but because Judith had no settled home, and no prospect of one. Therefore she must not encumber herself with many belongings. For a little while she would lodge with Mr. Menaida, but she could not live there forever; she must remove elsewhere, and she must consider, in the first place, that there was not room in Uncle Zachie’s cottage for accumulations of furniture, and that, in the next place, she would probably have to part with them on her next remove, even if she did retain them for a while.

If these things were to be parted with, it would be advisable to part with them at once. But to this determination Judith could not bring herself at first. Though she had put aside, to be kept, things too sacred to her, too much part of her past life, to be allowed to go into the sale, after a few days she relinquished even these. Those six delightful old colored prints, in frames, of a fox-hunt—how Jamie had laughed at them, and followed the incidents in them, and never wearied of them—must they go—perhaps for a song? It must be so. That work-table of her mother’s, of dark rosewood, with a crimson bag beneath it to contain wools and silks, one of the few remembrances she had of that mother whom she but dimly recalled—must that go?—what, and all those skeins in it of colored floss silk, and the piece of embroidery half finished? the work of her mother, broken off by death—that also? It must be so. And that rusty leather chair in which papa had sat, with one golden-headed child on each knee cuddled into his breast, with the flaps of his coat drawn over their heads, which listened to the tick-tick of his great watch, and to the tale of Little Snowflake, or Gracieuse and Percinet?—must that go also? It must be so.

Every day showed to Judith some fresh link that had to be broken. She could not bear to think that the mother’s work-table should be contended for at a vulgar auction, and struck down to a blousy farmer’s wife; that her father’s chair should go to some village inn to be occupied by sots. She would rather have seen them destroyed; but to destroy them would not be right.

After a while she longed for the sale; she desired to have it over, that an entirely new page of life might be opened, and her thoughts might not be carried back to the past by everything she saw.

Of Coppinger nothing further was seen. Nor did Aunt Dionysia appear at the rectory to superintend the assortment of the furniture, nor at Mr. Menaida’s to inquire into the welfare of her nephew and niece. To Judith it was a relief not to have her aunt in the parsonage while she was there; that hard voice and unsympathetic manner would have kept her nerves on the quiver. It was best as it was, that she should have time, by herself, with no interference from any one, to select what was to be kept and put away what was to be sold; to put away gently, with her own trembling hand, and with eyes full of tears, the old black gown and the Oxford hood that papa had worn in church, and to burn his old sermons and bundles of letters, unread and uncommented on by Aunt Dunes.

In these days Judith did not think much of Coppinger. Uncle Zachie informed her that he was worse, he was confined to his bed, he had done himself harm by coming over to Polzeath the day after his accident, and the doctor had ordered him not to stir from Pentyre Glaze for some time—not till his bones were set. Nothing was known of the occasion of Coppinger’s injuries, so Uncle Zachie said; it was reported in the place that he had been thrown from his horse. Judith entreated the old man not to enlighten the ignorance of the public; she was convinced that naught would transpire through Jamie, who could not tell a story intelligibly; and Miss Dionysia Trevisa was not likely to publish what she knew.

Judith had a pleasant little chamber at Mr. Menaida’s; it was small, low, plastered against the roof, the rafters showing, and whitewashed like the walls and ceiling. The light entered from a dormer in the roof, a low window glazed with diamond quarries set in lead that clickered incessantly in the wind. It faced the south, and let the sun flow in. A scrap of carpet was on the floor, and white curtains to the window. In this chamber Judith ranged such of her goods as she had resolved on retaining, either as indispensable, or as being too dear to her to part with unnecessarily, and which, as being of small size, she might keep without difficulty.

Her father’s old travelling trunk, covered with hide with the hair on, and his initials in brass nails—a trunk he had taken with him to college—was there, thrust against the wall; it contained her clothes. Suspended above it was her little bookcase, with the shelves laden with “The Travels of Rolando,” Dr. Aitkin’s “Evenings at Home,” Magnal’s “Questions,” a French Dictionary, “Paul and Virginia,” and a few other works such as were the delight of children from ninety to a hundred years ago.

Books for children were rare in those days, and such as were produced were read and re-read till they were woven into the very fibre of the mind, never more to be extricated and cast aside. Now it is otherwise. A child reads a story-book every week, and each new story-book effaces the impression produced by the book that went before. The result of much reading is the same as the result of no reading—the production of a blank.

How Judith and Jamie had sat together perched up in a sycamore, in what they called their nest, and had revelled in the adventures of Rolando, she reading aloud, he listening a little, then lapsing into observation of the birds that flew and hopped about, or the insects that spun and crept, or dropped on silky lines, or fluttered humming about the nest, then returned to attention to the book again! Rolando would remain through life the friend and companion of Judith. She could not part with the four-volumed, red-leather-backed book.

For the first day or two Jamie had accompanied his sister to the rectory, and had somewhat incommoded her by his restlessness and his mischief, but on the third day, and thenceforth, he no longer attended her. He had made fast friends with Uncle Zachie. He was amused with watching the process of bird-stuffing, and the old man made use of the boy by giving him tow to pick to pieces and wires to straighten.

Mr. Menaida was pleased to have some one by him in his workshop to whom he could talk. It was unimportant to him whether the listener followed the thread of his conversation or not, so long as he was a listener. Mr. Menaida, in his solitude, had been wont to talk to himself, to grumble to himself at the impatience of his customers, to lament to himself the excess of work that pressed upon him and deprived him of time for relaxation. He was wont to criticise, to himself, his success or want of success in the setting-up of a bird. It was far more satisfactory to him to be able to address all these remarks to a second party.

He was, moreover, surprised to find how keen and just had been Jamie’s observation of birds, their ways, their attitudes. Judith was delighted to think that Jamie had discovered talent of some sort, and he had, so Uncle Zachie assured her, that imitative ability which is often found to exist alongside with low intellectual power, and this enabled him to assist Mr. Menaida in giving a natural posture to his birds.

It flattered the boy to find that he was appreciated, that he was consulted, and asked to assist in a kind of work that exacted nothing of his mind.

When Uncle Zachie was tired of his task, which was every ten minutes or quarter of an hour, and that was the extreme limit to which he could continue regular work, he lit his pipe, left his bench, and sat in his arm-chair. Then Jamie also left his tow-picking or wire-punching, and listened, or seemed to listen, to Mr. Menaida’s talk. When the old man had finished his pipe, and, with a sigh, went back to his task, Jamie was tired of hearing him talk, and was glad to resume his work. Thus the two desultory creatures suited each other admirably, and became attached friends.

“Jamie! what is the meaning of this?” asked Judith, with a start and a rush of blood to her heart.

She had returned in the twilight from the parsonage. There was something in the look of her brother, something in his manner that was unusual.

“Jamie! What have you been taking? Who gave it you?”

She caught the boy by the arm. Distress and shame were in her face, in the tones of her voice.

Mr. Menaida grunted.

“I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped—really it can’t,” said he, apologetically. “But Captain Coppinger has sent me down a present of a keg of cognac—real cognac, splendid, amber-like—and, you know, it was uncommonly kind. He never did it before. So there was no avoidance; we had to tap it and taste it, and give a sup to the fellow who brought us the keg, and drink the health of the Captain. One could not be churlish; and, naturally, I could not abstain from letting Jamie try the spirit. Perfectly pure—quite wholesome—first-rate quality. Upon my word, he had not more than a fly could dip his legs in and feel the bottom; but he is unaccustomed to anything stronger than cider, and this is stronger than I supposed.”

“Mr. Menaida, you promised me—”

“Bless me! There are contingencies, you know. I never for a moment thought that Captain Coppinger would show me such a favor, would have such courtesy. But, upon my honor, I think it is your doing, my dear! You shook hands and made peace with him, and he has sent this in token of the cessation of hostilities and the ratification of the agreement.”

“Mr. Menaida, I trusted you. I did believe, when you passed your word to me, that you would hold to it.”

“Now—there, don’t take it in that way. Jamie, you rascal, hop off to bed. He’ll be right as a trivet to-morrow morning, I stake my reputation on that. There, there, I will help him up-stairs.”

Judith suffered Mr. Menaida to do as he proposed. When he had left the room with Jamie, who was reluctant to go, and struggled to remain, she seated herself on the sofa, and covering her face with her hands burst into tears. Whom could she trust? No one.

Had she been alone in the world she would have been more confident of the future, been able to look forward with a good courage; but she had to carry Jamie with her, who must be defended from himself, and from the weak good-nature of those he was with.

When Uncle Zachie came down-stairs he slunk into his workroom and was very quiet. No lamp or candle was lighted, and it was too dark for him to continue his employment on the birds. What was he doing? Nothing. He was ashamed of himself, and keeping out of Judith’s way.

But Judith would not let him escape so easily; she went to him, as he avoided her, and found him seated in a corner turning his pipe about. He had been afraid of striking a light, lest he should call her attention to his presence.

“Oh, my dear, come in here into the workshop to me! This is an honor, an unexpected pleasure. Jamie and I have been drudging like slaves all day, and we’re fagged—fagged to the ends of our fingers and toes.”

“Mr. Menaida, I am sorry to say it, but if such a thing happens again as has taken place this evening, Jamie and I must leave your house. I thank you with an overflowing heart for your goodness to us; but I must consider Jamie above everything else, and I must see that he be not exposed to temptation.”

“Where will you take him?”

“I cannot tell; but I must shield him.”

“There, there, not a word! It shall never happen again. Now let by-gones be by-gones, and play me something of Beethoven, while I sit here and listen in the twilight.”

“No, Mr. Menaida, I cannot. I have not the spirit to do it. I can think only of Jamie.”

“So you punish me!”

“Take it so. I am sorry; but I cannot do otherwise.”

“Now, look here! Bless my soul! I had almost forgotten it. Here is a note for you, from the Captain, I believe.” He went to the chimney-piece and took down a scrap of paper, folded and sealed.

Judith looked at it and went to the window, broke the seal, and opened the paper. She read—

“Why do you not come and see me? You do not care for what you have done. They call me cruel; but you are that.—C. C.”

CHAPTER X.

EGO ET REGINA MEA.

The strange, curt note from Cruel Coppinger served in a measure to divert the current of Judith’s thoughts from her trouble about Jamie. It was, perhaps, as well, or she would have fretted over that throughout the night, not only because of Jamie, but because she felt that her father had left his solemn injunction on her to protect and guide her twin-brother, and she knew that whatsoever harm, physical or moral, came to him, argued a lack of attention to her duty. Her father had not been dead many days, and already Jamie had been led from the path she had undertaken to keep him in.

But when she began to worry herself about Jamie, the bold characters, “C. C.,” with which the letter was signed, rose before her, and glowed in the dark as characters of fire.

She had gone to her bedroom, and had retired for the night, but could not sleep. The moon shone through the lattice into her chamber, and on the stool by the window lay the letter, where she had cast it. Her mind turned to it.

Why did Coppinger call her cruel? Was she cruel? Not intentionally so. She had not wilfully injured him. He did not suppose that. He meant that she was heartless and indifferent in letting him suffer without making any inquiry concerning him.

He had injured himself by coming to Polzeath to see her the day following his accident. Uncle Zachie had assured her of that.

She went on in her busy mind to ask why he had come to see her? Surely there had been no need for him to do so! His motive—the only motive she could imagine—was a desire to relieve her from anxiety and distress of mind; a desire to show her that he bore no ill-will toward her for what she had done. That was generous and considerate of him. Had he not come she certainly would have been unhappy and in unrest, would have imagined all kinds of evil as likely to ensue through his hostility—for one thing, her aunt’s dismissal from her post might have been expected.

But Coppinger, though in pain, and at a risk to his health, had walked to where she was lodging to disabuse her of any such impression. She was grateful to him for so doing. She felt that such a man could not be utterly abandoned by God, entirely void of good qualities, as she had supposed, viewing him only through the representations of his character and the tales circulating relative to his conduct that had reached her.

A child divides mankind into two classes—the good and the bad, and supposes that there is no debatable land between them, where light and shade are blended into neutral tint; certainly not that there are blots on the white leaf of the lives of the good, and luminous glimpses in the darkness of the histories of the bad. As they grow older they rectify their judgments, and such a rectification Judith had now to make.

She was assisted in this by compassion for Coppinger, who was in suffering, and by self-reproach, because she was the occasion of this suffering.

What were the exact words Captain Cruel had employed? She was not certain; she turned the letter over and over in her mind, and could not recall every expression, and she could not sleep till she was satisfied.

Therefore she rose from bed, stole to the window, took up the letter, seated herself on the stool, and conned it in the moonlight. “Why do you not come and see me? You do not care for what you have done.” That was not true; she was greatly troubled at what she had done. She was sick at heart when she thought of that scene in the lane, when the black mare was leaping and pounding with her hoofs, and Coppinger lay on the ground. One kick of the hoof on his head, and he would have been dead. His blood would have rested on her conscience, never to be wiped off. Horrible was the recollection now, in the stillness of the night. It was marvellous that life had not been beaten out of the prostrate man, that, dragged about by the arm, he had not been torn to pieces, that every bone had not been shattered, that his face had not been battered out of recognition. Judith felt the perspiration stand on her brow at the thought. God had been very good to her in sending His angel to save Coppinger from death and her from blood-guiltiness. She slid to her knees at the window, and held up her hands, the moonlight illuminating her white upturned face, as she gave thanks to Heaven that no greater evil had ensued from her inconsidered act with the button-basket than a couple of broken bones.

Oh! it was very far indeed from true that she did not care for what she had done. Coppinger must have been blind indeed not to have seen how she felt her conduct. His letter concluded: “They call me cruel; but you are that.” He meant that she was cruel in not coming to the Glaze to inquire after him. He had thought of her trouble of mind, and had gone to Polzeath to relieve her of anxiety, and she had shown no consideration for him—or not in like manner.

She had been very busy at the rectory. Her mind had been concerned with her own affairs, that was her excuse. Cruel she was not. She took no pleasure in his pain. But she hesitated about going to see him. That was more than was to be expected of a young girl. She would go on the morrow to Coppinger’s house, and ask to speak to her aunt; that she might do, and from Aunt Dionysia she would learn in what condition Captain Cruel was, and might send him her respects and wishes for his speedy recovery.

As she still knelt in her window, looking up through the diamond panes into the clear, gray-blue sky, she heard a sound without, and, looking down, saw a convoy of horses pass, laden with bales and kegs, and followed or accompanied by men wearing slouched hats. So little noise did the beasts make in traversing the road, that Judith was convinced their hoofs must be muffled in felt. She had heard that this was done by the smugglers. It was said that all Coppinger’s horses had their boots drawn on when engaged in conveying run goods from the place where stored to their destination.

These were Coppinger’s men, this his convoy, doubtless. Judith thrust the letter from her. He was a bad man, a very bad man; and if he had met with an accident, it was his due, a judgment on his sins. She rose from her knees, turned away, and went back to her bed.

Next day, after a morning spent at the rectory, in the hopes that her aunt might arrive and obviate the need of her going in quest of her, Judith, disappointed in this hope, prepared to walk to Pentyre. Mrs. Dionysia had not acted with kindness toward her. Judith felt this, without allowing herself to give to the feeling articulate expression. She made what excuses she could for Aunt Dunes: she was hindered by duties that had crowded upon her, she had been forbidden going by Captain Cruel; but none of these excuses satisfied Judith.

Judith must go herself to the Glaze, and she had reasons of her own for wishing to see her aunt, independent of the sense of obligation on her, more or less acknowledged, that she must obey the summons of C. C. There were matters connected with the rectory, with the furniture there, the cow, and the china, that Mrs. Trevisa must give her judgment upon. There were bills that had come in, which Mrs. Trevisa must pay, as Judith had been left without any money in her pocket.

As the girl walked through the lanes she turned over in her mind the stories she had heard of the smuggler Captain, the wild tales of his wrecking ships, of his contests with the Preventive men, and the ghastly tragedy of Wyvill, who had been washed up headless on Doombar. In former days she had accepted all these stories as true, had not thought of questioning them; but now that she had looked Coppinger in the face, had spoken with him, experienced his consideration, she could not believe that they were to be accepted without question. That story of Wyvill—that Captain Cruel had hacked off his head on the gunwale with his axe—seemed to her now utterly incredible. But if true! She shuddered to think that her hand had been held in that stained with so hideous a crime.

Thus musing, Judith arrived at Pentyre Glaze, and entering the porch, turned from the sea, knocked at the door.

A loud voice bade her enter. She knew that the voice proceeded from Coppinger, and her heart fluttered with fear and uncertainty. She halted, with her hand on the door, inclined to retreat without entering; but again the voice summoned her to come in, and gathering up her courage she opened the door, and, still holding the latch, took a few steps forward into the hall or kitchen, into which it opened.

A fire was smouldering in the great open fireplace, and beside it, in a carved oak arm-chair, sat Cruel Coppinger, with a small table at his side, on which were a bottle and glass, a canister of tobacco and a pipe. His arm was strapped across his breast as she had seen it a few days before. Entering from the brilliant light of day, Judith could not at first observe his face, but, as her eyes became accustomed to the twilight of the smoke-blackened and gloomy hall, she saw that he looked more worn and pale than he had seemed the day after the accident. Nor could she understand the expression on his countenance when he was aware who was his visitor.

“I beg your pardon,” said Judith; “I am sorry to have intruded; but I wished to speak to my aunt.”

“Your aunt? Old mother Dunes? Come in. Let go your hold of the door and shut it. Your aunt started a quarter of an hour ago for the rectory.”

“And I came along the lane from Polzeath.”

“Then no wonder you did not meet her. She went by the church path, of course, and over the down.”

“I am sorry to have missed her. Thank you, Captain Coppinger, for telling me.”

“Stay!” he roared, as he observed her draw back into the porch. “You are not going yet!”

“I cannot stay for more than a moment in which to ask how you do, and whether you are somewhat better? I was sorry to hear you had been worse.”

“I have been worse, yes. Come in. You shall not go. I am mewed in as a prisoner, and have none to speak to, and no one to look at but old Dunes. Come in, and take that stool by the fire, and let me hear you speak, and let me rest my eyes a while on your golden hair—gold more golden than that of the Indies.”

“I hope you are better, sir,” said Judith, ignoring the compliment.

“I am better now I have seen you. I shall be worse if you do not come in.”

She refused to do this by a light shake of the head.

“I suppose you are afraid. We are wild and lawless men here, ogres that eat children! Come, child, I have something to show you.”

“Thank you for your kindness; but I must run to the parsonage; I really must see my aunt.”

“Then I will send her to Polzeath to you when she returns. She will keep; she’s stale enough.”

“I would spare her the trouble.”

“Pshaw! She shall do what I will. Now see—I am wearied to death with solitude and sickness. Come, amuse yourself, if you will, with insulting me—calling me what you like; I do not mind, so long as you remain.”

“I have no desire whatever, Captain Coppinger, to insult you and call you names.”

“You insult me by standing there holding the latch—standing on one foot, as if afraid to sully the soles by treading my tainted floor. Is it not an insult that you refuse to come in? Is it not so much as saying to me, ‘You are false, cruel, not to be trusted; you are not worthy that I should be under the same roof with you, and breathe the same air?’”

“Oh, Captain Coppinger, I do not mean that!”

“Then let go the latch and come in. Stand, if you will not sit, opposite me. How can I see you there, in the doorway?”

“There is not much to see when I am visible,” said Judith, laughing.

“Oh, no! not much! Only a little creature who has more daring than any man in Cornwall—who will stand up to, and cast at her feet, Cruel Coppinger, at whose name men tremble.”

Judith let go her hold on the door, and moved timidly into the hall; but she let the door remain half open that the light and air flowed in.

“And now,” said Captain Coppinger, “here is a key on this table by me. Do you see a small door by the clock-case? Unlock that door with the key.”

“You want something from thence!”

“I want you to unlock the door. There are beautiful and costly things within that you shall see.”

“Thank you; but I would rather look at them some other day, when my aunt is here, and I have more time.”

“Will you refuse me even the pleasure of letting you see what is there?”

“If you particularly desire it, Captain Coppinger, I will peep in—but only peep.”

She took the key from his table, and crossed the hall to the door. The lock was large and clumsy, but she turned the key by putting both hands to it. Then, swinging open the door, she looked inside. The door opened into an apartment crowded with a collection of sundry articles of value: bales of silk from Italy, Genoa laces, Spanish silver-inlaid weapons, Chinese porcelain, bronzes from Japan, gold and silver ornaments, bracelets, brooches, watches, inlaid mother-of-pearl cabinets—an amazing congeries of valuables heaped together.

“Well, now!” shouted Cruel Coppinger. “What say you to the gay things there? Choose—take what you will. I care not for them one rush. What do you most admire, most covet? Put out both hands and take—take all you would have; fill your lap, carry off all you can. It is yours.”

Judith drew hastily back and relocked the door.

“What have you taken?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Take what you will; I give it freely.”

“I cannot take anything, though I thank you, Captain Coppinger, for your kind and generous offer.”

“You will accept nothing?”

She shook her head.

“That is like you. You do it to anger me. As you throw hard words at me—coward, wrecker, robber—and as you dash broken glass, buttons, buckles, in my face, so do you throw back my offers.”

“It is not through ingratitude—”

“I care not through what it is! You seek to anger, and not to please me. Why will you take nothing? There are beautiful things there to charm a woman.”

“I am not a woman; I am a little girl.”

“Why do you refuse me!”

“For one thing, because I want none of the things there, beautiful and costly though they be.”

“And for the other thing——?”

“For the other thing—excuse my plain speaking—I do not think they have been honestly got.”

“By heavens!” shouted Coppinger. “There you attack and stab at me again. I like your plainness of speech. You do not spare me. I would not have you false and double like old Dunes.”

“Oh, Captain Coppinger! I give you thanks from the depths of my heart. It is kindly intended, and it is so good and noble of you, I feel that; for I have hurt you and reduced you to the state in which you now are, and yet you offer me the best things in your house—things of priceless value. I acknowledge your goodness; but just because I know I do not deserve this goodness I must decline what you offer.”

“Then come here and give me the key.”

She stepped lightly over the floor to him and handed him the great iron key to his store chamber. As she did so he caught her hand, bowed his dark head, and kissed her fingers.

“Captain Coppinger!” She started back, trembling, and snatched her hand from him.

“What! have I offended you again? Why not? A subject kisses the hand of his queen; and I am a subject, and you—you my queen.”

CHAPTER XI.

JESSAMINE.

“How are you, old man?”

“Middlin’, thanky’; and how be you, gov’nor?”

“Middlin’ also; and your missus?”

“Only sadly. I fear she’s goin’ slow but sure the way of all flesh.”

“Bless us! ’Tis a trouble and expense them sort o’ things. Now to work, shall we? What do you figure up?”

“And you?”

“Oh, well, I’m not here on reg’lar business. Huntin’ on my own score to-day.”

“Oh, ay! Nice port this.”

“Best the old fellow had in his cellar. I told the executrix I should like the taste of it, and advise thereon.”

The valuers for dilapidations, vulgarly termed dilapidators, were met in the dining-room of the deserted parsonage. Mr. Scantlebray was on one side, Mr. Cargreen on the other. Mr. Scantlebray was on that of the “orphings,” as he termed his clients, and Mr. Cargreen on that of the Rev. Mr. Mules, the recently nominated rector to S. Enodoc.

Mr. Scantlebray was a tall, lean man, with light gray eyes, a red face, and legs and arms that he shook every now and then as though they were encumbrances to his trunk and he was going to shake them off, as a poodle issuing from a bath shakes the water out of his locks. Mr. Cargreen was a bullet-headed man, with a white neckcloth, gray whiskers, a solemn face, and a sort of perpetual “Let-us-pray” expression on his lips and in his eyes—a composing of his interior faculties and abstraction from worldly concerns.

“I am here,” said Mr. Scantlebray, “as adviser and friend—you understand, old man—of the orphings and their haunt.”

“And I,” said Mr. Cargreen, “am ditto to the incoming rector.”

“And what do you get out of this visit!” asked Mr. Scantlebray, who was a frank man.

“Only three guineas as a fee,” said Mr. Cargreen. “And you?”

“Ditto, old man—three guineas. You understand, I am not here as valuer to-day.”

“Nor I—only as adviser.”

“Exactly! Taste this port. ’Taint bad—out of the cellar of the old chap. Told auntie I must have it, to taste and give opinion on.”

“And what are you going to do to-day?”

“I’m going to have one or two little things pulled down, and other little things put to rights.”

“Humph! I’m here to see nothing is pulled down.”

“We won’t quarrel. There’s the conservatory, and the linney in Willa Park.”

“I don’t know,” said Cargreen, shaking his head.

“Now look here, old man,” said Mr. Scantlebray. “You let me tear the linney down, and I’ll let the conservatory stand.”

“The conservatory——”

“I know; the casement of the best bedroom went through the roof of it. I’ll mend the roof and repaint it. You can try the timber, and find it rotten, and lay on dilapidations enough to cover a new conservatory. Pass the linney; I want to make pickings out of that.”

It may perhaps be well to let the reader understand the exact situation of the two men engaged in sipping port. Directly it was known that a rector had been nominated to S. Enodoc, Mr. Cargreen, a Bodmin valuer, agent, and auctioneer, had written to the happy nominee, Mr. Mules, of Birmingham, inclosing his card in the letter, to state that he was a member of an old-established firm, enjoying the confidence, not to say the esteem of the principal county families in the north of Cornwall, that he was a sincere Churchman, that deploring, as a true son of the Church, the prevalence of Dissent, he felt it his duty to call the attention of the reverend gentleman to certain facts that concerned him, but especially the Church, and facts that he himself, as a devoted son of the Church, on conviction, after mature study of its tenets, felt called upon, in the interest of that Church he so had at heart, to notice. He had heard, said Mr. Cargreen, that the outgoing parties from S. Enodoc were removing, or causing to be removed, or were proposing to remove, certain fixtures in the parsonage, and certain out-buildings, barns, tenements, sheds, and linneys on the glebe and parsonage premises, to the detriment of its value, inasmuch as that such removal would be prejudicial to the letting of the land, and render it impossible for the incoming rector to farm it himself without re-erecting the very buildings now in course of destruction, or which were purposed to be destroyed: to wit, certain out-buildings, barns, cattle-sheds, and linneys, together with other tenements that need not be specified. Mr. Cargreen added that, roughly speaking, the dilapidations of these buildings, if allowed to stand, might be assessed at £300; but that, if pulled down, it would cost the new rector about £700 to re-erect them, and their re-erection would be an imperative necessity. Mr. Cargreen had himself, personally, no interest in the matter; but, as a true son of the Church, etc., etc.

By return of post Mr. Cargreen received an urgent request from the Rev. Mr. Mules to act as his agent, and to act with precipitation in the protection of his interests.

In the meantime Mr. Scantlebray had not been neglectful of other people’s interest. He had written to Miss Dionysia Trevisa to inform her that, though he did not enjoy a present acquaintance, it was the solace and joy of his heart to remember that some years ago, before that infelicitous marriage of Mr. Trevisa, which had led to Miss Dionysia’s leaving the rectory, it had been his happiness to meet her at the house of a mutual acquaintance, Mrs. Scaddon, where he had respectfully, and, at this distance of time, he ventured to add, humbly and hopelessly admired her; that, as he was riding past the rectory he had chanced to observe the condition of dilapidation certain tenements, pig-sties, cattle-sheds, and other out-buildings were in, and that, though it in no way concerned him, yet, for auld lang syne’s sake, and a desire to assist one whom he had always venerated, and, at this distance of time might add, had admired, he ventured to offer a suggestion: to wit, That a number of unnecessary out-buildings should be torn down and utterly effaced before a new rector was nominated, and had appointed a valuer; also that certain obvious repairs should be undertaken and done at once, so as to give to the parsonage the appearance of being in excellent order, and cut away all excuse for piling up dilapidations. Mr. Scantlebray ventured humbly to state that he had had a good deal of experience with those gentlemen who acted as valuers for dilapidations, and with pain he was obliged to add that a more unscrupulous set of men it had never been his bad fortune to come into contact with. He ventured to assert that, were he to tell all he knew, or only half of what he knew, as to their proceedings in valuing for dilapidations, he would make both of Miss Trevisa’s ears tingle.

At once Miss Dionysia entreated Mr. Scantlebray to superintend and carry out with expedition such repairs and such demolitions as he deemed expedient, so as to forestall the other party.

“Chicken!” said Mr. Cargreen. “That’s what I’ve brought for my lunch.”

“And ’am is what I’ve got,” said Mr. Scantlebray. “They’ll go lovely together.” Then, in a loud tone—“Come in!”

The door opened, and a carpenter entered with a piece of deal board in his hand.

“You won’t mind looking out of the winder, Mr. Cargreen?” said Mr. Scantlebray. “Some business that’s partick’ler my own. You’ll find the jessamine—the white jessamine—smells beautiful.”

Mr. Cargreen rose, and went to the dining-room window that was embowered in white jessamine, then in full flower and fragrance.

“What is it, Davy?”

“Well, sir, I ain’t got no dry old board for the floor where it be rotten, nor for the panelling of the doors where broken through.”

“No board at all?”

“No, sir—all is green. Only cut last winter.”

“Won’t it take paint?”

“Well, sir, not well. I’ve dried this piece by the kitchen fire, and I find it’ll take the paint for a time.”

“Run, dry all the panels at the kitchen fire, and then paint ’em.”

“Thanky’, sir; but, how about the boarding of the floor? The boards’ll warp and start.”

“Look here, Davy, that gentleman who’s at the winder a-smelling to the jessamine is the surveyor and valuer to t’other party. I fancy you’d best go round outside and have a word with him and coax him to pass the boards.”

“Come in!” in a loud voice. Then there entered a man in a cloth coat, with very bushy whiskers. “How d’y’ do, Spargo? What do you want?”

“Well, Mr. Scantlebray, I understand the linney and cow-shed is to be pulled down.”

“So it is, Spargo.”

“Well, sir!” Mr. Spargo drew his sleeve across his mouth. “There’s a lot of very fine oak timber in it—beams, and such like—that I don’t mind buying. As a timber merchant I could find a use for it.”

“Say ten pound.”

“Ten pun’! That’s a long figure!”

“Not a pound too much; but come—we’ll say eight.”

“I reckon I’d thought five.”

“Five! pshaw! It’s dirt cheap to you at eight.”

“Why to me, sir?”

“Why, because the new rector will want to rebuild both cattle-shed and linney, and he’ll have to go to you for timber.”

“But suppose he don’t, and cuts down some on the glebe?”

“No, Spargo—not a bit. There at the winder, smelling to the jessamine, is the new rector’s adviser and agent. Go round by the front door into the garding, and say a word to him—you understand, and—” Mr. Scantlebray tapped his palm. “Do now go round and have a sniff of the jessamine, Mr. Spargo, and I don’t fancy Mr. Cargreen will advise the rector to use home-grown timber. He’ll tell him it sleeps away, gets the rot, comes more expensive in the long run.”

The valuer took a wing of chicken and a little ham, and then shouted, with his mouth full—“Come in!”

The door opened and admitted a farmer.

“How do, Mr. Joshua? middlin’?”

“Middlin’, sir, thanky’.”

“And what have you come about, sir?”

“Well—Mr. Scantlebray, sir! I fancy you ha’n’t offered me quite enough for carting away of all the rummage from them buildings as is coming down. ’Tis a terrible lot of stone, and I’m to take ’em so far away.”

“Why not?”

“Well, sir, it’s such a lot of work for the bosses, and the pay so poor.”

“Not a morsel, Joshua—not a morsel.”

“Well, sir, I can’t do it at the price.”

“Oh, Joshua! Joshua! I thought you’d a better eye to the future. Don’t you see that the new rector will have to build up all these out-buildings again, and where else is he to get stone except out of your quarry, or some of the old stone you have carted away, which you will have the labor of carting back?”

“Well, sir, I don’t know.”

“But I do, Joshua.”

“The new rector might go elsewhere for stone.”

“Not he. Look there, at the winder is Mr. Cargreen, and he’s in with the new parson, like a brother—knows his very soul. The new parson comes from Birmingham. What can he tell about building-stone here? Mr. Cargreen will tell him yours is the only stuff that ain’t powder.”

“But, sir, he may not rebuild.”

“He must. Mr. Cargreen will tell him that he can’t let the glebe without buildings; and he can’t build without your quarry stone: and if he has your quarry stone—why, you will be given the carting also. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes—if Mr. Cargreen would be sure——”

“He’s there at the winder, a-smelling to the jessamine. You go round and have a talk to him, and make him understand—you know. He’s a little hard o’ hearing; but the drum o’ his ear is here,” said Scantlebray, tapping his palm.

Mr. Scantlebray was now left to himself to discuss the chicken wing—the liver wing he had taken—and sip the port; a conversation was going on in an undertone at the window; but that concerned Mr. Cargreen and not himself, so he paid no attention to it.

After a while, however, when this hum ceased, he turned his head, and called out:

“Old man! how about your lunch?”

“I’m coming.”

“And you found the jessamine very sweet?”

“Beautiful! beautiful!”

“Taste this port. It is not what it should be: some the old fellow laid in when he could afford it—before he married. It is passed, and going back; should have been drunk five years ago.”

Mr. Cargreen came to the table, and seated himself. Then Mr. Scantlebray flapped his arms, shook out his legs, and settled himself to the enjoyment of the lunch, in the society of Mr. Cargreen.

“The merry-thought! Pull with me, old man?”

“Certainly!”

Mr. Scantlebray and Mr. Cargreen were engaged on the merry-thought, each endeavoring to steal an advantage on the other, by working the fingers up the bone unduly, when the window was darkened.

Without desisting from pulling at the merry-thought each turned his head, and Scantlebray at once let go his end of the bone. At the window stood Captain Coppinger looking in at the couple, with his elbow resting on the window-sill.

Mr. Scantlebray flattered himself that he was on good terms with all the world, and he at once with hilarity saluted the Captain by raising the fingers greased by the bone to his brow.

“Didn’t reckon on seeing you here, Cap’n.”

“I suppose not.”

“Come and pick a bone with us?”

Coppinger laughed a short snort through his nostrils.

“I have a bone to pick with you already.”

“Never! no, never!”

“You have forced yourself on Miss Trevisa to act as her agent and valuer in the matter of dilapidations.”

“Not forced, Captain. She asked me to give her friendly counsel. We are old acquaintances.”

“I will not waste words. Give me her letter. She no longer requires your advice and counsel. I am going to act for her.”

“You, Cap’n! Lor’ bless me! You don’t mean to say so!”

“Yes. I will protect her against being pillaged. She is my housekeeper.”

“But see! she is only executrix. She gets nothing out of the property.”

“No—but her niece and nephew do. Take it that I act for them. Give me up her letter.”

Mr. Scantlebray hesitated.

“But, Cap’n, I’ve been to vast expense. I’ve entered into agreements——”

“With whom?”

“With carpenter and mason about the repairs.”

“Give me the agreements.”

“Not agreements exactly. They sent me in their estimates, and I accepted them, and set them to work.”

“Give me the estimates.”

Mr. Scantlebray flapped all his limbs, and shook his head.

“You don’t suppose I carry these sort of things about with me?”

“I have no doubt whatever they are in your pocket.” Scantlebray fidgeted.

“Cap’n, try this port—a little going back, but not to be sneezed at.”

Coppinger leaned forward through the window.

“Who is that man with you?”

“Mr. Cargreen.”

“What is he here for?”

“I am agent for the Reverend Mules, the newly appointed rector,” said Mr. Cargreen, with some dignity.

“Then I request you both to step to the window to me.”

The two men looked at each other. Scantlebray jumped up, and Cargreen followed. They stood in the window-bay at a respectful distance from Cruel Coppinger.

“I suppose you know who I am?” said the latter, fixing his eyes on Cargreen.

“I believe I can form a guess.”

“And your duty to your client is to make out as bad a case as you can against the two children. They have had just one thousand pounds left them. You are going to get as much of that away from them as you are permitted.”

“My good sir—allow me to explain——”

“There is no need,” said Coppinger. “Suffice it that you are one side. I—Cruel Coppinger—on the other. Do you understand what that means?”

Mr. Cargreen became alarmed, his face became very blank.

“I am not a man to waste words. I am not a man that many in Cornwall would care to have as an adversary. Do you ever travel at night, Mr. Cargreen?”

“Yes, sir, sometimes.”

“Through the lanes and along the lonely roads?”

“Perhaps, sir—now and then.”

“So do I,” said Coppinger. He drew a pistol from his pocket, and played with it. The two “dilapidators” shrank back. “So do I,” said Coppinger; “but I never go unarmed. I would advise you to do the same—if you are my adversary.”

“I hope, Captain, that—that——”

“If those children suffer through you more than what I allow”—Coppinger drew up his one shoulder that he could move—“I should advise you to consider what Mrs. Cargreen will have to live on when a widow.” Then he turned to Scantlebray, who was sneaking behind the window-curtain.

“Miss Trevisa’s letter, authorizing you to act for her?”

Scantlebray, with shaking hand, groped for his pocket-book.

“And the two agreements or estimates you signed.”

Scantlebray gave him the letter.

“The agreements also.”

Nervously the surveyor groped again, and reluctantly produced them. Captain Coppinger opened them with his available hand.

“What is this? Five pounds in pencil added to each, and then summed up in the total? What is the meaning of that, pray?”

Mr. Scantlebray again endeavored to disappear behind the curtain.

“Come forward!” shouted Captain Cruel, striking the window-sill with the pistol.

Scantlebray jumped out of his retreat at once.

“What is the meaning of these two five pounds?”

“Well, sir—Captain—it is usual; every one does it. It is my—what d’y’ call it!—consideration for accepting the estimates.”

“And added to each, and then charged to the orphans, who pay you to act in their interest—so they pay wittingly, directly, and unwittingly, indirectly. Well for you and for Mrs. Scantlebray that I release you of your obligation to act for Mother Dunes—I mean Miss Trevisa.”

“Sir,” said Cargreen, “under the circumstances, under intimidation, I decline to sully my fingers with the business. I shall withdraw.”

“No, you shall not,” said Cruel Coppinger, resolutely. “You shall act, and act as I approve; and in the end it shall not be to your disadvantage.”

Then, without a word of farewell, he stood up, slipped the pistol back into his pocket, and strode away.

Mr. Cargreen had become white, or rather, the color of dough. After a moment he recovered himself somewhat, and, turning to Scantlebray, with a sarcastic air, said—

“I hope you enjoy the jessamine. They don’t smell particularly sweet to me.”

“Orful!” groaned Scantlebray. He shook himself—almost shaking off all his limbs in the convulsion—“Old man—them jessamines is orful!”

CHAPTER XII.

THE CAVE.

Some weeks slipped by without bringing to Judith any accession of anxiety. She did not go again to Pentyre Glaze, but her aunt came once or twice in the week to Polzeath to see her. Moreover, Miss Dionysia’s manner toward her was somewhat less contrary and vexatious, and she seemed to put on a conciliatory manner, as far as was possible for one so angular and crabbed. Gracious she could not be; nature had made it as impossible for her to be gracious in manner as to be lovely in face and graceful in movement.

Moreover, Judith observed that her aunt looked at her with an expression of perplexity, as though seeking in her to find an answer to a riddle that vexed her brain. And so it was. Aunt Dunes could not understand the conduct of Coppinger toward Judith and her brother. Nor could she understand how a child like her niece could have faced and defied a man of whom she herself stood in abject fear. Judith had behaved to the smuggler in a way that no man in the whole countryside would have ventured to behave. She had thrown him at her feet, half killed him, and yet Cruel Coppinger did not resent what had been done; on the contrary, he went out of his way to interfere in the interest of the orphans. He was not the man to concern himself in other people’s affairs; why should he take trouble on behalf of Judith and her brother? That he did it out of consideration for herself, Miss Trevisa had not the assurance to believe.

Aunt Dunes put a few searching questions to Judith, but drew from her nothing that explained the mystery. The girl frankly told her of her visit to the Glaze and interview with the crippled smuggler, of his offer to her of some of his spoil, and of her refusal to receive a present from him. Miss Trevisa approved of her niece’s conduct in this respect. It would not have befitted her to accept anything. Judith, however, did not communicate to her aunt the closing scene in that interview. She did not tell her that Coppinger had kissed her hand, nor his excuse for having done so, that he was offering homage to a queen.

For one thing, Judith did not attach any importance to this incident. She had always heard that Coppinger was a wild and insolent man, wild and insolent in his dealings with his fellow-men, therefore doubtless still more so in his treatment of defenceless women. He had behaved to her in the rude manner in which he would behave to any peasant girl or sailor’s daughter who caught his fancy, and she resented his act as an indignity, and his excuse for it as a prevarication. And, precisely, because he had offended her maidenly dignity, she blushed to mention it, even to her aunt, resolving in her own mind not to subject herself to the like again.

Miss Trevisa, on several occasions, invited Judith to come and see her at Pentyre Glaze, but the girl always declined the invitation.

Judith’s estimate of Cruel Coppinger was modified. He could not be the utter reprobate she had always held him to be. She fully acknowledged that there was an element of good in the man, otherwise he would not have forgiven the injury done him, nor would he have interfered to protect her and Jamie from the fraud and extortion of the “dilapidators.” She trusted that the stories she had heard of Coppinger’s wild and savage acts were false, or overcolored. Her dear father had been misled by reports, as she had been, and it was possible that Coppinger had not really been the impediment in her father’s way that the late rector had supposed.

Jamie was happy. He was even, in a fashion, making himself useful. He helped Mr. Menaida in his bird-stuffing on rainy days; he did more, he ran about the cliffs, learned the haunts of the wild-fowl, ascertained where they nested, made friends with Preventive men, and some of those fellows living on shore, without any very fixed business, who rambled over the country with their guns, and from these he was able to obtain birds that he believed Mr. Menaida wanted. Judith was glad that the boy should be content, and enjoy the fresh air and some freedom. She would have been less pleased had she seen the companions Jamie made. But the men had rough good-humor, and were willing to oblige the half-witted boy, and they encouraged him to go with them shooting, or to sit with them in their huts.

Jamie manifested so strong a distaste for books, and lesson time being one of resistance, pouting, tears, and failures, that Judith thought it not amiss to put off the resumption of these irksome tasks for a little while, and to let the boy have his run of holidays. She fancied that the loss of his father and of his old home preyed on him more than was actually the case; and believed that by giving him freedom till the first pangs were over, he might not suffer in the way that she had done.

For a fortnight or three weeks Judith’s time had been so fully engaged at the parsonage, that she could not have devoted much of it to Jamie, even had she thought it desirable to keep him to his lessons; nor could she be with him much. She did not press him to accompany her to the rectory, there to spend the time that she was engaged sorting her father’s letters and memoranda, his account-books and collection of extracts made from volumes he had borrowed, as not only would it be tedious to him, but he would distract her mind. She must see that he was amused, and must also provide that he was not at mischief. She did take him with her on one or two occasions, and found that he had occupied himself in disarranging much that she had put together for the sale.

But she would not allow him wholly to get out of the way of looking to her as his companion, and she abandoned an afternoon to him now and then, as her work became less arduous, to walk with him on the cliffs or in the lanes, to listen to his childish prattle, and throw herself into his new pursuits. The link between them must not be allowed to become relaxed, and, so far as in her lay, she did her utmost to maintain it in its former security. But, with his father’s death, and his removal to Mr. Menaida’s cottage, a new world had opened to Jamie; he was brought into association with men and boys whom he had hardly known by sight previously, and without any wish to disengage himself from his sister’s authority, he was led to look to others as comrades, and to listen to and follow their promptings.

“Come, Jamie,” said Judith, one day. “Now I really have some hours free, and I will go a stroll with you on the downs.”

The boy jumped with pleasure, and caught her hand.

“I may take Tib with me?”

“Oh yes, certainly, dear.”

Tib was a puppy that had been given to Jamie by one of his new acquaintances.

The day was fresh. Clouds driving before the wind, now obscuring the sun and threatening rain, then clearing and allowing the sun to turn the sea green and gild the land. Owing to the breeze the sea was ruffled and strewn with breakers shaking their white foam.

“I am going to show you something I have found, Ju,” said the boy. “You will follow, will you not?”

“Lead the way. What is it?”

“Come and see. I found it by myself. I shan’t tell any one but you.”

He conducted his sister down the cliffs to the beach of a cove. Judith halted a moment to look along the coast with its mighty, sombre cliffs, and the sea glancing with sun or dulled by shadow to Tintagel Head standing up at the extreme point to the northeast, with the white surf lashing and heaving around it. Then she drew her skirts together, and descended by the narrow path along which, with the lightness and confidence of a kid, Jamie was skipping.

“Jamie!” she said. “Have you seen?—there is a ship standing in the offing.”

“Yes; she has been there all the morning.”

Then she went further.

The cove was small, with precipitous cliffs rising from the sand to the height of two to three hundred feet. The seagulls screamed and flashed to and fro, and the waves foamed and threw up their waters lashed into froth as white and light as the feathers on the gulls. In the concave bay the roar of the plunging tide reverberated from every side. Neither the voice of Jamie, when he shouted to his sister from some feet below, nor the barking of his little dog that ran with him, could be distinguished by her.

The descent was rapid and rugged, yet not so precipitous but that it could be gone over by asses or mules. Evidence that these creatures had passed that way remained in the impression of their hoofs in the soil, wherever a soft stratum intervened between the harder shelves of the rock, and had crumbled on the path into clay.

Judith observed that several paths—not all mule-paths—converged lower down at intervals in the way by which she descended, so that it would be possible, apparently, to reach the sand from various points in the down, as well as by the main track by which she was stepping to the beach.

“Jamie!” called Judith, as she stood on the last shoulder of rock before reaching the beach over a wave-washed and smoothed surface. “Jamie! I can see that same ship from here.”

But her brother could not hear her. He was throwing stones for the dog to run after, and meet a wave as it rushed in.

The tide was going out: it had marked its highest elevation by a bow of foam and strips of dark seaweed and broken shells. Judith stepped along this line, and picked out the largest ribbon of weed she could find. She would hang it in her bedroom to tell her the weather. The piece that had been wont to act as barometer was old, and, besides, it had been lost in the recent shift and confusion.

Jamie came up to her.

“Now, Ju, mind and watch me, or you will lose me altogether.”

Then he ran forward, with Tib dancing and yelping round him. Presently he scrambled up a shelf of rock inclined from the sea, and up after him, yelping, scrambled Tib. In a moment both disappeared over the crest.

Judith went up to the ridge and called to her brother.

“I cannot climb this, Jamie.”

But in another moment, a hundred yards to her right, round the extremity of the reef, came Tib and his master, the boy dancing and laughing, the dog ducking his head, shaking his ears, and, all but laughing also, evidently enjoying the fun as much as Jamie.

“This way, Ju!” shouted the boy, and signed to his sister. She could not hear his voice, but obeyed his gestures. The reef ran athwart the top of the bay, like the dorsal, jagged ridge of a crocodile half buried in the sand.

Judith drew her skirts higher and closer, as the sand was wet, and there were pools by the rock. Then, holding her ribbon of seaweed by the harsh, knotted root, torn up along with the leaf, and trailing it behind her, she followed her brother, reached the end of the rock, turned and went in the traces of Jamie and Tib in the sand parallel to her former course.

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, on the right hand there opened before her, in the face of the cliff, a cave, the entrance to which was completely masked by the ridge she had turned. Into this cave went Jamie with his dog.

“I am not obliged to follow you there!” protested Judith; but he made such vehement signs to her to follow him that she good-humoredly obeyed.

The cave ran in a long way, at first at no great incline, then it became low overhead, and immediately after the floor inclined rapidly upward, and the vault took a like direction. Moreover, light appeared in front. Here, to Judith’s surprise, she saw a large boat, painted gray, furnished with oars and boat-hook. She was attached by a chain to a staple in the rock. Judith examined her with a little uneasiness. No name was on her.

The sides of the cave at this point formed shelves, not altogether natural, and that these were made use of was evident, because on them lay staves of broken casks, a four-flanged boat-anchor, and some oars. Out of the main trunk cave branched another that was quite dark, and smaller; in this, Judith, whose eyes were becoming accustomed to the twilight, thought she saw the bows of a smaller boat, also painted gray.

“Jamie!” said Judith, now in serious alarm; “we ought not to be here. It is not safe. Do—do come away at once.”

“Why, what is there to harm us?”

“My dear, do come away.” She turned to retrace her steps, but Jamie stopped her.

“Not that way, Ju! I have another by which to get out. Follow me still.”

He led the way up the steep rubble slope, and the light fell fuller from above. The cave was one of those into which when the sea rolls and chokes the entrance, the compressed air is driven out by a second orifice.

They reached a sort of well or shaft, at the bottom of which they stood, but it did not open vertically but bent over somewhat, so that from below the sky could not be seen, though the light entered. A narrow path was traced in the side, and up this Jamie and the dog scrambled, followed by Judith, who was most anxious to escape from a place which she had no doubt was one of the shelter caves of the smugglers—perhaps of Cruel Coppinger, whose house was not a mile distant.

The ascent was steep, the path slippery in places, and therefore dangerous. Jamie made nothing of it, nor did the little dog, but Judith picked her way with care; she had a good steady head, and did not feel giddy, but she was not sure that her feet might not slide in the clay where wet with water that dripped from the sides. As she neared the entrance she saw that hartstongue and maidenhair fern had rooted themselves in the sheltered nooks of this tunnel.

After a climb of a hundred feet she came out on a ledge in the face of the cliff above the bay, to see, with a gasp of dismay, her brother in the hand of Cruel Coppinger, the boy paralyzed with fear so that he could neither stir nor cry out.

“What!” exclaimed the Captain, “you here?” as he saw Judith stand before him.

The puppy was barking and snapping at his boots. Coppinger let go Jamie, stooped and caught the dog by the neck. “Look at me,” said the smuggler sternly, addressing the frightened boy. Then he swung the dog above his head and dashed it down the cliffs; it caught, then rolled, and fell out of sight—certainly with the life beaten out of it.

“This will be done to you,” said he; “I do not say that I would do it. She”—he waved his hand toward Judith—“stands between us. But if any of the fifteen to twenty men who know this place and come here should chance to meet you as I have met you, he would treat you without compunction as I have treated that dog. And if he were to catch you below—you have heard of Wyvill, the Preventive man?—you would fare as did he. Thank your sister that you are alive now. Go on—that way—up the cliff.” He pointed with a telescope he held.

Jamie fled up the steep path like the wind.

“Judith,” said Coppinger, “will you stand surety that he does not tell tales?”

“I do not believe he will say anything.”

“I do not ask you to be silent. I know you will not speak. But if you mistrust his power to hold his tongue, send him away—send him out of the country—as you love him.”

“He shall never come here again,” said Judith, earnestly.

“That is well; he owes his life to you.”

Judith noticed that Cruel Coppinger’s left arm was no more in a sling, nor in bands.

He saw that she observed this, and smiled grimly. “I have my freedom with this arm once more—for the first time to-day.”

CHAPTER XIII.

IN THE DUSK.

“Kicking along, Mr. Menaida, old man?” asked Mr. Scantlebray, in his loud, harsh voice, as he shook himself inside the door of Uncle Zachie’s workshop. “And the little ’uns? Late in life to become nurse and keep the bottle and pap-bowl going, eh, old man? How’s the orphings? Eating their own weight of victuals at twopence-ha’penny a head, eh? My experience of orphings isn’t such as would make a man hilarious, and feel that he was filling his pockets.”

“Sit you down, sir; you’ll find a chair. Not that one, there’s a dab of arsenical paste got on to that. Sit you down, sir, over against me. Glad to see you and have some one to talk to. Here am I slaving all day, worn to fiddlestrings. There’s Squire Rashleigh, of Menabilly, must have a glaucous gull stuffed at once that he has shot; and there’s Sir John St. Aubyn, of Clowance, must have a case of kittiwakes by a certain day; and an institution in London wants a genuine specimen of a Cornish chough. Do they think I’m a tradesman to be ordered about? That I’ve not an income of my own, and that I am dependent on my customers? I’ll do no more. I’ll smoke and play the piano. I’ve no time to exchange a word with any one. Come, sit down. What’s the news?”

“It’s a bad world,” said Mr. Scantlebray, setting himself into a chair. “That’s to say, the world is well enough if it warn’t for there being too many rascals in it. I consider it’s a duty on all right-thinking men to clear them off.”

“Well, the world would be better if we had the making of it,” acquiesced Mr. Menaida. “Bless you! I’ve no time for anything. I like to do a bit of bird-stuffing just as a sort of relaxation after smoking, but to be forced to work more than one cares—I won’t do it! Besides, it is not wholesome. I shall be poisoned with arsenic. I must have some antidote. So will you, sir—eh? A drop of real first-rate cognac?”

“Thank you, sir—old man—I don’t mind dipping a feather and drawing it across my lips.”

Jamie had been so frightened by the encounter with Cruel Coppinger that he was thoroughly upset. He was a timid, nervous child, and Judith had persuaded him to go to bed. She sat by him, holding his hand, comforting him as best she might, when he sobbed over the loss of his pup, and cheering him when he clung to her in terror at the reminiscence of the threats of the Captain to deal with him as he had with Tib. Judith was under no apprehension of his revisiting the cave; he had been too thoroughly frightened ever to venture there again. She said nothing to impress this on him; all her efforts were directed toward allaying his alarms.

Just as she hoped that he was dropping off into unconsciousness, he suddenly opened his eyes, and said, “Ju.”

“Yes, dear.”

“I’ve lost the chain.”

“What chain, my pretty?”

“Tib’s chain.”

The pup had been a trouble when Jamie went with the creature through the village or through a farm-yard. He would run after and nip the throats of chickens. Tib and his master had got into trouble on this account; accordingly Judith had turned out a light steel chain, somewhat rusty, and a dog collar from among the sundries that encumbered the drawers and closets of the rectory. This she had given to her brother, and whenever the little dog was near civilization he was obliged to submit to the chain.

Judith, to console Jamie for his loss, had told him that in all probability another little dog might be procured to be his companion. Alas! the collar was on poor Tib, but she represented to him that if another dog were obtained it would be possible to buy or beg a collar for him, supposing a collar to be needful. This had satisfied Jamie, and he was about to doze off, when suddenly he woke to say that the chain was lost.

“Where did you lose the chain, Jamie?”

“I threw it down.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I thought I shouldn’t want it when Tib was gone.”

“And where did you throw it? Perhaps it may be found again.”

“I won’t go and look for it—indeed I won’t.” He shivered and clung to his sister.

“Where was it? Perhaps I can find it.”

“I dropped it at the top—on the down when I came up the steps from—from that man, when he had killed Tib.”

“You did not throw it over the cliff?”

“No—I threw it down. I did not think I wanted it any more.”

“I dare say it may be found. I will go and see.”

“No—no! Don’t, Ju. You might meet that man.”

Judith smiled. She felt that she was not afraid of that man—he would not hurt her.

As soon as the boy was asleep, Judith descended the stairs, leaving the door ajar, that she might hear should he wake in a fright, and entering the little sitting-room, took up her needles and wool, and seated herself quietly by the window, where the last glimmer of twilight shone, to continue her work at a jersey she was knitting for Jamie’s use in the winter.

The atmosphere was charged with tobacco-smoke, almost as much as that of the adjoining workshop. There was no door between the rooms; none had been needed formerly, and Mr. Menaida did not think of supplying one now. It was questionable whether one would have been an advantage, as Jamie ran to and fro, and would be certain either to leave the door open or to slam it, should one be erected. Moreover, a door meant payment to a carpenter for timber and labor. There was no carpenter in the village, and Mr. Menaida spent no more money than he was absolutely obliged to spend, and how could he on an annuity of fifty pounds.

Judith dropped her woolwork in her lap and fell into meditation. She reviewed what had just taken place: she saw before her again Coppinger, strongly built, with his dark face, and eyes that glared into the soul to its lowest depths, illumining all, not as the sun, but as the lightning, and suffering not a thought, not a feeling to remain obscure.

A second time had Jamie done what angered him, but on this occasion he had curbed his passion and had contented himself with a threat—nay, not even that—with a caution. He had expressly told Jamie, that he himself would not hurt him, but that he ran into danger from others.

She was again looking at Coppinger as he spoke; she saw the changes in his face, the alterations of expression in his eyes, in his intonation. She recalled the stern, menacing tone in which he had spoken to Jamie, and then the inflexion of voice as he referred to her. A dim surmise—a surmise she was ashamed to allow could be true—rose in her mind and thrilled her with alarm. Was it possible that he liked her—liked—she could, she would give even in thought no other term to describe that feeling which she feared might possibly have sprung up in his breast. That he liked her—after all she had done? Was that why he had come to the cottage the day after his accident? Was that what had prompted the strange note sent to her along with the keg of spirits to Uncle Zachie? Was that the meaning of the offer of the choice of all his treasures?—of the vehemence with which he had seized her hand and had kissed it? Was that the interpretation of those words of excuse in which he had declared her his queen? If this were so, then much that had been enigmatical in his conduct was explained—his interference with the valuers for dilapidations, the strange manner in which he came across her path almost whenever she went to the rectory. And this was the signification of the glow in his eyes, the quaver in his voice, when he addressed her.

Was it so?—could it be so?—that he liked her?—he—Cruel Coppinger—Cruel Coppinger—the terror of the country round—liked her, the weakest creature that could be found?

The thought of such a possibility frightened her. That the wild smuggler-captain should hate her she could have borne with better than that he should like her. That she was conscious of a sense of pleased surprise, intermixed with fear, was inevitable, for Judith was a woman, and there was something calculated to gratify feminine pride in the presumption that the most lawless and headstrong man on the Cornish coast should have meant what he said when he declared himself her subject.

These thoughts, flushing and paling her cheek, quickening and staying her pulse, so engrossed Judith that, though she heard the voices in the adjoining apartment, she paid no heed to what was said.

The wind, which had been fresh all day, was blowing stronger. It battered at the window where Judith sat, as though a hand struck and brushed over the panes.

“Hot or cold?” asked Uncle Zachie.

“Thanky’, neither. Water can be got everywhere, but such brandy as this, old man—only here.”

“You are good to say so. It is Coppinger’s present to me.”

“Coppinger!—his very good health, and may he lie in clover to-morrow night. He’s had one arm bound, I’ve seen; perhaps he may have two before the night grows much older.”

Mr. Menaida raised his brows.

“I do not understand you.”

“I daresay not,” said Scantlebray. “It’s the duty of all right-minded men to clear the world of rascals. I will do my duty, please the pigs. Would you mind—just another drop?”

After his glass had been refilled, Mr. Scantlebray leaned back in his chair and said:

“It’s a wicked world, and, between you and me and the sugar dissolving at the bottom of my glass, you won’t find more rascality anywhere than in my profession, and one of the biggest rascals in it is Mr. Cargreen. He’s on the side against the orphings. If you’ve the faculty of pity in you, pity them—first, because they’ve him agin’ ’em, and, secondly, because they’ve lost me as their protector. You know whom they got in place of me? I wish them joy of him. But they won’t have his wing over them long, I can tell you.”

“You think not?”

“Sure of it.”

“You think he’ll throw it up?”

“I rather suspect he won’t be at liberty to attend to it. He’ll want his full attention to his own consarns.”

Mr. Scantlebray tipped off his glass.

“It’s going to be a dirty night,” said he. “You won’t mind my spending an hour or two with you, will you?”

“I shall be delighted. Have you any business in the place?”

“Business—no. A little pleasure, maybe.” After a pause, he said, “But, old man, I don’t mind telling you what it is. You are mum, I know. It is this—the trap will shut to-night. Snap it goes, and the rats are fast. You haven’t been out on the cliffs to-day, have you?”

“No—bless me!—no, I have not.”

“The Black Prince is in the offing.”

“The Black Prince?”

“Ay, and she will run her cargo ashore to-night. Now, I’m one who knows a little more than most. I’m one o’ your straightfor’ard ’uns, always ready to give a neighbor a lift in my buggy, and a helping hand to the man that is down, and a frank, outspoken fellow am I to every one I meet—so that, knocking about as I do, I come to know and to hear more than do most, and I happen to have learnt into what cove the Black Prince will run her goods. I’ve a bone to pick with Captain Cruel, so I’ve let the Preventive men have the contents of my information-pottle, and they will be ready to-night for Coppinger and the whole party of them. The cutter will slip in between them and the sea, and a party will be prepared to give them the kindliest welcome by land. That is the long and short of it—and, old man, I shall dearly love to be there and see the sport. That is why I wish to be with you for an hour or two. Will you come as well?”

“Bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Menaida, “not I! You don’t suppose Coppinger and his men will allow themselves to be taken easily? There’ll be a fight.”

“And pistols go off,” said Scantlebray. “I shall not be surprised or sorry if Captain Cruel be washed up one of these next tides with a bullet through his head. Ebenezer Wyvill is one of the guards, and he has his brother’s death to avenge.”

“Do you really believe that Coppinger killed him?”

Mr. Scantlebray shrugged his shoulders. “It don’t matter much what I think, to-night, but what the impression is that Ebenezer Wyvill carries about with him. I imagine that if Ebenezer comes across the Captain he won’t speak to him by word of mouth, nor trouble himself to feel for a pair of handcuffs. So—fill my glass again, old man, and we’ll drink to a cold bed and an indigestible lump—somewhere—in his head or in his gizzard—to Cruel Coppinger, and the wiping off of old scores—always a satisfaction to honest men.” Scantlebray rubbed his hands. “It is a satisfaction to the conscience—to ferret out the rats sometimes.”

CHAPTER XIV.

WARNING OF DANGER.

Judith, lost for awhile in her dreams, had been brought to a sense of what was the subject of conversation in the adjoining room by the mention of Coppinger’s name more than once. She heard the desultory talk for awhile without giving it much attention, but Scantlebray’s voice was of that harsh and penetrating nature that to exclude it the ears must be treated as Ulysses treated the ears of his mariners as he passed the rock of the Sirens.

Presently she became alive to the danger in which Coppinger stood. Scantlebray spoke plainly, and she understood. There could be no doubt about it. The Black Prince belonged to the Captain, and his dealings with and through that vessel were betrayed. Not only was Coppinger, as the head of a gang of smugglers, an object worth capture to the Preventive men, but the belief that he had caused the death of at least one of their number had embittered them against him to such an extent that, when the opportunity presented itself to them of capturing him red-handed engaged in his smuggling transactions, they were certain to deal with him in a way much more summary than the processes of a court of a justice. The brother of the man who had been murdered was among the coast-guard, and he would not willingly let slip a chance of avenging the death of Jonas Wyvill. Coppinger was not in a condition to defend himself effectively. On that day for the first time, had he left off his bandages, and his muscles were stiff and the newly set bones still weak.

What was to be done? Could Judith go to bed and let Coppinger run into the net prepared for his feet—go to his death?

No sooner, however, had Judith realized the danger that menaced Coppinger than she resolved on doing her utmost to avert it. She, and she alone, could deliver him from the disgrace, if not the death, that menaced him.

She stole lightly from the room and got her cloak, drew the hood over her head, and sallied forth into the night. Heavy clouds rolled over the sky, driven before a strong gale. Now and then they opened and disclosed the twilight sky, in which faintly twinkled a few stars, and at such times a dim light fell over the road, but in another moment lumbering masses of vapor were carried forward, blotting out the clear tract of sky, and at the same time blurring all objects on earth with one enveloping shadow.

Judith’s heart beat furiously, and timidity came over her spirit as she left the cottage, for she was unaccustomed to be outside the house at such an hour; but the purpose she had before her eyes gave her strength and courage. It seemed to her that Providence had suddenly constituted her the guardian angel of Coppinger, and she flattered herself that, were she to be the means of delivering him from the threatened danger, she might try to exact of him a promise to discontinue so dangerous and so questionable a business. If this night she were able to give him warning in time, it would be some return made for his kindness to her, and some reparation made for the injury she had done him. When for an instant there was a rift in the clouds, and she could look up and see the pure stars, it seemed to her that they shone down on her like angels’ eyes, watching, encouraging, and promising her protection. She thought of her father—of how his mind had been set against Coppinger; now, she felt convinced, he saw that his judgment had been warped, and that he would bless her for doing that which she had set her mind to accomplish. Her father had been ever ready frankly to acknowledge himself in the wrong when he had been convinced that he was mistaken, and now in the light of eternity, with eyes undarkened by prejudice, he must know that he was in error in his condemnation of Coppinger, and be glad that his daughter was doing something to save that man from an untimely and bloody death.

Not a soul did Judith meet or pass on her way. She had determined in the first case to go to Pentyre Glaze. She would see if Captain Cruel were there. She trusted he was at his house. If so, her course was simple; she would warn him and return to Mr. Menaida’s cottage as quickly as her feet would bear her. The wind caught her cloak, and she turned in alarm, fancying that it was plucked by a human hand. No one, however, was behind her.

In Pentyre lane it was dark, very dark. The rude half-walls, half-hedges stood up high, walled toward the lane hedged with earth and planted with thorns toward the field. The wind hissed through the bushes; there was an ash tree by a gate. One branch sawed against another, producing a weird, even shrill sound like a cry.

The way led past a farm, and she stole along before it with the utmost fear as she heard the dog in the yard begin to bark furiously, and as she believed that it was not chained up, might rush forth at her. It might fall upon her, and hold her there till the farmer came forth and found her, and inquired into the reason of her being there at night. If found and recognized, what excuse could she give? What explanation could satisfy the inquisitive?

She did not breathe freely till she had come out on the down; the dog was still barking, but, as he had not pursued her, she was satisfied that he was not at large. Her way now lay for a while over open common, and then again entered a lane between the hedges that enclosed the fields and meadows of the Glaze.

A dense darkness fell over the down, and Judith for a while was uncertain of her way, the track being undistinguishable from the short turf on either side. Suddenly she saw some flashes of light that ran along the ground and then disappeared.

“This is the road,” said a voice.

Judith’s heart stood still, and her blood curdled in her veins. If the cloud were to roll away—and she could see far off its silvery fringe, she would become visible. The voice was that of a man, but whether that of a smuggler or of a coast-guard she could not guess. By neither did she care to be discovered. By the dim, uncertain light she stole off the path, and sank upon the ground among some masses of gorse that stood on the common. Between the prickly tufts she might lie, and in her dark cloak be mistaken for a patch of furze. She drew her feet under the skirt, that the white stockings might not betray her, and plucked the hood of her cloak closely round her face. The gorse was sharp, and the spikes entered her hands and feet, and pricked her as she turned herself about between the bushes to bring herself deeper among them.

From where she lay she could see the faintly illumined horizon, and against that horizon figures were visible, one—then another—a third—she could not count accurately, for there came several together; but she was convinced there must have been over a dozen men.

“It’s a’most too rough to-night, I reckon,” said one of the men.

“No, it is not—the wind is not direct on shore. They’ll try it.”

“Coppinger and his chaps are down in the cove already,” said a third. “They wouldn’t go out if they wasn’t expecting the boats from the Black Prince.”

“You are sure they’re down, Wyvill?”

“Sure and sartain. I seed ’em pass, and mighty little I liked to let ’em go by—without a pop from my pistol. But I’d my orders. No orders against the pistol going off of itself, Captain, if I have a chance presently?”

No answer was given to this; but he who had been addressed as Captain asked—

“Are the asses out?”

“Yes; a whole score, I reckon.”

“Then they’ll come up the mule path. We must watch that. Lieutenant Hanson will be ready with the cutter to run out and stop their way back by water to the Prince. The Prince’s men will take to the sea, and he’ll settle with them; but Coppinger’s men will run up the cliffs, and we must tackle them. Go on.”

Several now disappeared into the darkness, moving toward the sea.

“Here, a word with you, Wyvill,” said the Captain.

“Right, sir—here I be.”

“Dash it!—it is so dark! Here, step back—a word in your ear.”

“Right you are, sir.”

They came on to the turf close to where Judith crouched.

“What is that?” said the Captain, hastily.

“What, sir?”

“I thought I trod on something like cloth. Have you a light?”

“No, sir! Home has the dark lantern.”

“I suppose it is nothing. What is all that dark stuff there?”

“I’ll see, sir,” said Wyvill, stooping, and with his hand. “By George, sir! it’s naught but fuzz.”

“Very well, Wyvill—a word between us. I know that if you have the chance you intend to send a bullet into Coppinger. I don’t blame you. I won’t say I wouldn’t do it—unofficially—but looky’ here, man, if you can manage without a bullet—say a blow with the butt-end on his forehead and a roll over the cliffs—I’d prefer it. In self-defence of course we must use fire-arms. But there’s some squeamish stomachs, you understand; and if it can come about accidentally, as it were—as if he’d missed his footing—I’d prefer it. Make it pleasant all around, if you can.”

“Yes, sir; leave it to me.”

“It oughtn’t to be difficult, you know, Wyvill. I hear he’s broke one arm, so is like to be insecure in his hold climbing the cliffs. Then no questions asked, and more pleasant, you know. You understand me?”

“Yes, sir; thank you, sir.”

Then they went on, and were lost to sight and to hearing. For some minutes Judith did not stir. She lay, recovering her breath; she had hardly ventured to breathe while the two men were by her, the Captain with his foot on her skirt. Now she remained motionless, to consider what was to be done. It was of no further use her going on to Pentyre Glaze. Coppinger had left it. Wyvill, who had been planted as spy, had seen him with his carriers defile out of the lane with the asses that were to bring up the smuggled goods from the shore.

She dare not take the path by which on the preceding afternoon she had descended with Jamie to the beach, for it was guarded by the Preventive men.

There was but one way by which she could reach the shore and warn Coppinger, and that was by the chimney of the cave—a way dangerous in daylight, one, moreover, not easy to find at night. The mouth of the chimney opened upon a ledge that overhung the sea half-way down the face of the precipice, and this ledge could only be reached by a narrow track—a track apparently traced by sheep.

Judith thought that she might find her way to that part of the down from which the descent was to be made; for she had noticed that what is locally called a “new-take” wall came near it, and if she could hit this wall, she believed she could trace it up to where it approached the cliff: and the track descended somewhere thereabouts. She waited where she lay till the heavy clouds rolled by, and for a brief space the sky was comparatively clear. Then she rose, and took the direction in which she ought to go to reach the “new-take” wall. As she went over the down, she heard the sea roaring threateningly; on her left hand the glint of the light-house on Trevose Head gave her the direction she must pursue. But, on a down like that, with a precipice on one hand, in a light, uncertain at best, often in complete darkness, it was dangerous to advance except by thrusting the foot forward tentatively before taking a step. The sea and the gnawing winds caused the cliffs to crumble; bits were eaten out of the surface, and in places there were fissures in the turf where a rent had formed, and where shortly a mass would fall.

It is said that the duties on customs were originally instituted in order to enable the Crown to afford protection to trade against pirates. The pirates ceased to infest the seas, but the duties were not only taken off, but were increased, and became a branch of the public revenue. Perhaps some consciousness that the profits were not devoted to the purpose originally intended, bred in the people on the coast a feeling of resentment against the imposition of duties. There certainly existed an impression, a conviction rather, that the violation of a positive law of this nature was in no respect criminal. Adventurers embarked in the illicit traffic without scruple, as they did in poaching. The profit was great, and the danger run enhanced the excitement of the pursuit, and gave a sort of heroic splendor to the achievements of the successful smuggler.

The Government, to stop a traffic that injured legitimate trade and affected the revenue, imposed severe penalties. Smuggling was classed among the felonies, “without benefit of clergy,” the punishment for which was death and confiscation of goods. The consciousness that they would be dealt with with severity did not deter bold men from engaging in the traffic, but made them desperate in self-defence when caught. Conflicts with revenue officers were not uncommon, and lives were lost on both sides. The smugglers were not bound together by any link, and sometimes one gang was betrayed by another, so as to divert suspicion and attention from their own misdeeds, or out of jealousy, or on account of a quarrel. It was so on this occasion: the success of Coppinger, the ingenuity with which he had carried on his defiance of the law, caused envy of him, because he was a foreigner—was, at all events, not a Cornishman; this had induced a rival to give notice to the Revenue officers, through Scantlebray—a convenient go-between in a good many questionable negotiations. The man who betrayed Coppinger dared not be seen entering into communication with the officers of the law. He, therefore, employed Scantlebray as the vehicle through whom, without suspicion resting on himself, his rival might be fallen upon and his proceedings brought to an end.

It was now very dark. Judith had reached and touched a wall; but in the darkness lost her bearings. The Trevose light was no longer visible, and directly she left the wall to strike outward she became confused as direction, and in the darkness groped along with her feet, stretching her hands before her. Then the rain came down, lashing in her face. The wind had shifted somewhat during the evening, and it was no guidance to Judith to feel from what quarter the rain drove against her. Moreover, the cove formed a great curve in the coast-line, and was indented deeply in some places, so that to grope round the edge without light in quest of a point only seen or noticed once, seemed a desperate venture. Suddenly Judith’s foot caught. It was entangled, and she could not disengage it. She stooped, and put her hand on a chain. It was Jamie’s steel dog-chain, one link of which had caught in a tuft of rest-harrow.

She had found the spot she wanted, and now waited only till the rain had rushed further inland, and a fringe of light appeared in the sky, to advance to the very edge of the cliff. She found it expedient to stoop as she proceeded, so as to discover some indications of the track. There were depressions where feet had worn the turf, and she set hers therein, and sought the next. Thus, creeping and groping, she neared the edge.

And now came the moment of supreme peril, when, trusting that she had found the right path, she must go over the brink. If she were mistaken, the next step would send her down two hundred feet, to where she heard the roar, and felt the breath of the sea stream up to her from the abyss. Here she could distinguish nothing; she must trust to Providence to guide her steps. She uttered a short and earnest prayer, and then boldly descended. She could not stoop now. To stoop was to dive headlong down. She felt her way, however, with her feet, reached one firm station, then another. Her hands touched the grass and earth of the ragged margin, then with another step she was below it, and held to the rain-splashed fangs of rock.

Clinging, with her face inward, feeling with her feet, and never sure but that the next moment might see her launched into air, she stole onward, slowly, cautiously, and ever with the gnawing dread in her heart lest she should be too late. One intense point of consciousness stood out in her brain—it told her that if, while thus creeping down, there should come the flash and explosion of fire-arms, her courage would fail, her head would spin, and she would be lost.

How long she was descending she could not tell, how many steps she took was unknown to her—she had not counted—but it seemed to her an entire night that passed, with every change of position an hour was marked; then, at last, she was conscious that she stood on more level ground. She had reached the terrace.

A little further, and on her left hand, would open the mouth of the shaft, and she must descend that, in profoundest darkness. A cry! A light flashed into her eyes and dazzled her. A hand at the same moment clutched her, or she would have reeled back and gone over the cliff.

The light was held to pour over her face. Who held it and who grasped her she could not see; but she knew the moment she heard a voice exclaim—

“Judith!”

In her terror and exhaustion she could but gasp for breath for a few moments.

By degrees her firmness and resolution returned, and she exclaimed, in broken tones, panting between every few words—

“Captain Cruel!—you are betrayed—they are after you!”

He did not press her. He waited till she could speak again, lowering the lantern.

Then, without the glare in her eyes, she was able to speak more freely.

“There is a boat—a Revenue cutter—waiting in the bay—and—above—are the Preventive men—and they will kill you.”

“Indeed,” said he. “And you have come to warn me?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me—are there any above, where you came down!”

“None; they are on the ass-path.”

“Can you ascend as you came down?”

“Yes.”

He extinguished his lantern, or covered it.

“I must no more show light. I must warn those below.” He paused, then said—

“Dare you mount alone.”

“I came down alone.”

“Then do this one thing more for me. Mount, and go to Pentyre. Tell your aunt—three lights—red, white, red; then ten minutes, and then, red, red, white. Can you remember? Repeat after me: ‘Three lights—red, white, red; then, ten minutes, and next, red, red, and white.’”

Judith repeated the words.

“That is right. Lose no time. I dare not give you a light. None must now be shown. The boat from the Black Prince is not in—this lantern was her guide. Now it is out she will go back. You will remember the signals? I thank you for what you have done. There is but one woman would have done it, and that Judith.”

He stepped inside the shaft to descend. When hidden, he allowed his light again to show, to assist him in his way down. Judith only waited till her eyes, that had been dazzled by the light, were recovered, and then she braced herself to resume her climb; but now it was to be up the cliff.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAINED.

To ascend is easier than to go down. Judith was no longer alarmed. There was danger still, that was inevitable; but the danger was as nothing now to what it had been. It is one thing to descend in total darkness into an abyss where one knows that below are sharp rocks, and a drop of two hundred feet to a thundering, raging sea, racing up the sand, pouring over the shelves of rock, foaming where divided waves clash. When Judith had been on the beach in the afternoon the tide was out; now it was flowing, and had swept over all that tract of white sand and pebble where she had walked. She could not indeed now see the water, but she heard the thud of a billow as it smote a rock, the boil and the hiss of the waves and spray. To step downward, groping the way, with a depth and a wild-throbbing sea beneath, demanded courage, and courage of no mean order; but it was other to mount, to be able to feel with the foot the ascent in the track, and to grope upward with the hand from one point of clutch to another, to know that every step upward was lessening the peril, and bringing nearer to the sward and to safety.

Without great anxiety, therefore, Judith turned to climb. Cruel Coppinger had allowed her to essay it unaided. Would he have done that had he thought it involved danger, or, rather, serious danger? Judith was sure he would not. His confidence that she could climb to the summit unassisted made her confident. As she had descended she had felt an interior qualm and sinking at every step she took; there was no such sensation now as she mounted.

She was not much inconvenienced by the wind, for the wind was not directly on shore; but it soughed about her, and eddies caught her cloak and jerked it. It would have been better had she left her cloak above on the turf. It incommoded her in her climb; it caught in the prongs of rock.

The rain, the water running off the rock, had wet her shoes, soaked them, and every step was in moisture that oozed out of them. She was glad now to rest on her right hand. In descending, the left had felt and held the rock, and it had been rubbed and cut. Probably it was bleeding.

Surely there was a little more light in the sky where the sky showed between the dense masses of vapor. Judith did not observe this, for she did not look aloft; but she could see a steely tract of sea, fretted into foam, reflecting an illumination from above, greater than the twilight could cast. Then she remembered that there had been a moon a few nights before, and thought that it was probably risen by this time.

Something chill and wet brushed her face. It startled her for a moment, and then she knew by the scent that it was a bunch of samphire growing out of the side of the crag.

Shrill in her ear came the scream of a gull that rushed by in the darkness, and she felt, or believed she felt, the fan from the wings. Again it screamed, and near the ear it pierced her brain like an awl, and then again, still nearer, unnerving her. In the darkness she fancied that this gull was about to attack her with beak and claws, and she put up her left arm as a protection to her eyes. Then there broke out a jabber of sea-birds’ voices, laughing mockingly, at a little distance.

Whither had she got!

The way was no longer easy—one step before another—there was a break of continuity in the path, if path the track could be called.

Judith stood still, and put forward her foot to test the rock in front. There was no place where it could rest. Had she, bewildered by that gull, diverged from the track? It would be well to retreat a few steps. She endeavored to do this, and found that she encountered a difficulty in finding the place where she had just planted her foot.

It was but too certain that she was off the track line. How to recover it she knew not. With the utmost difficulty she did reach a point in her rear where she could stand, clinging to the rock; but she clung now with both hands. There was no tuft of samphire to brush her face as she descended. She must have got wrong before she touched that. But where was the samphire? She cautiously felt along the surface of the crag in quest of it, but could not find it. There was, however, a little above her shoulder, a something that felt like a ledge, and which might be the track. If she had incautiously crept forward at a level without ascending rapidly enough, she was probably below the track. Could she climb to this point—climb up the bare rock, with sheer precipice below her? And, supposing that the shelf she felt with her hand were not the track, could she descend again to the place where she had been?

Her brain spun. She lost all notion as to where she might be—perhaps she was below the path, perhaps she was above it. She could not tell. She stood with arms extended, clinging to the rock, and her heart beat in bounds against the flinty surface. The clasp of her cloak was pressing on her throat, and strangling her. The wind had caught the garment, and was playing with the folds, carrying it out and flapping it behind her over the gulf. It was irksome; it was a danger to her. She cautiously slid one hand to her neck, unhasped the mantle, and it was snatched from her shoulders and carried away. She was lighter without it, could move with greater facility; cold she was not, wet she might become, but what mattered that if she could reach the top of the cliff?

Not only on her own account was Judith alarmed. She had undertaken a commission. She had promised to bear a message to her aunt from Coppinger that concerned the safety of his men. What the signal meant she did not know, but suspected that it conveyed a message of danger.

She placed both her hands on the ledge, and felt with her knee for some point on which to rest it, to assist her in lifting herself from where she stood to the higher elevation. There was a small projection, and after a moment’s hesitation she drew her foot from the shelf whereon it had rested and leaned the left knee on this hunch. Then she clung with both hands, and with them and her knee endeavored to heave herself up about four feet, that is, to the height of her shoulders. A convulsive quiver seized on her muscles. She was sustained by a knee and her hands only. If they gave way she could not trust to recover her previous lodgement place. One desperate strain, and she was on the ledge, on both knees, and was feeling with her hands to ascertain if she had found the track. Her fingers touched thrift and passed over turf. She had not reached what she sought. She was probably farther from it than before. As all her members were quivering after the effort, she seated herself on the shelf she had reached, leaned back against the wet rock, and waited till her racing pulses had recovered evenness of flow, and her muscles had overcome the first effects of their tension.

Her position was desperate. Rain and perspiration mingled dripped from her brow, ran over and blinded her eyes. Her breath came in sobs between her parted lips. Her ears were full of the booming of the surge far below, and the scarcely less noisy throb of her blood in her pulses.

When she had started on her adventurous expedition she had seen some stars that had twinkled down on her, and had appeared to encourage her. Now, not a star was visible, only, far off on the sea, a wan light that fell through a rent in the black canopy over an angry deep. Beyond that all was darkness, between her and that all was darkness.

As she recovered her self-possession, with the abatement of the tumult in her blood she was able to review her position, and calculate her chances of escape from it.

Up the track from the cave the smugglers would almost certainly escape, because that was the only way, unwatched, by which they could leave the beach without falling into the hands of the Preventive men.

If they came by the path—that path could not be far off, though in which direction it lay she could not guess. She would call, and then Coppinger or some of his men would come to her assistance.

By this means alone could she escape. There was nothing for her to do but to wait.

She bent forward and looked down. She might have been looking into a well; but a little way out she could see, or imagine she saw, the white fringes of surf stealing in. There was not sufficient light for her to be certain whether she really saw foam, or whether her fancy, excited by the thunder of the tide, made her suppose she saw it.

The shelf she occupied was narrow and inclined; if she slipped from it she could not trust to maintain herself on the lower shelf, certainly not if she slid down in a condition of unconsciousness. And now reaction after the strain was setting in, and she feared lest she might faint. In her pocket was the dog-chain that had caught her foot. She extracted that now, and groping along the wall of rock behind her, caught a stout tuft of coarse heather, wiry, well rooted; and she took the little steel chain and wound it about the branches and stem of the plant, and also about her wrist—her right wrist—so as to fasten her to the wall. That was some relief to her to know that in the event of her dropping out of consciousness there was something to hold her up, though that was only the stem of an erica, and her whole weight would rest on its rootlets. Would they suffice to sustain her? It was doubtful; but there was nothing else on which she could depend.

Suddenly a stone whizzed past, struck the ledge, and rebounded. Then came a shower of earth and pebbles. They did not touch her, but she heard them clatter down.

Surely they had been displaced by a foot, and that a foot passing above.

Then she heard a shot—also overhead, and a cry. She looked aloft, and saw against the half-translucent vapors a black struggling figure on the edge of the cliff. She saw it but for an instant, and then was struck on the face by an open hand, and a body crashed on to the shelf at her side, rolled over the edge, and plunged into the gulf below.

She tried to cry, but her voice failed her. She felt her cheek stung by the blow she had received. A feeling as though all the rock were sinking under her came on, as though she were sliding—not shooting—but sliding down, down, and the sky went up higher, higher—and she knew no more.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE SHINGLE.

The smugglers, warned by Coppinger, had crept up the path in silence, and singly, at considerable intervals between each, and on reaching the summit of the cliffs had dispersed to their own homes, using the precaution to strike inland first, over the “new-take” wall.

As the last of the party reached the top he encountered one of the coast-guards, who, by the orders of his superior, was patrolling the down to watch that the smugglers did not leave the cove by any other path than the one known—that up and down which donkeys were driven. This donkey-driving to the beach was not pursued solely for the sake of contraband; the beasts brought up loads of sand, which the farmers professed they found valuable as manure on their stiff soil, and also the masses of seaweed cast on the strand after a gale, and which was considered to be possessed of rare fertilizing qualities.

No sooner did the coast-guard see a man ascend the cliff, or rather come up over the edge before him, than he fired his pistol to give the signal to his fellows, whereupon the smuggler turned, seized him by the throat, and precipitated him over the edge.

Of this Coppinger knew nothing. He had led the procession, and had made his way to Pentyre Glaze by a roundabout route, so as to evade a guard set to watch for him approaching from the cliffs, should one have been so planted.

On reaching his door, his first query was whether the signals had been made.

“What signals?” asked Miss Trevisa.

“I sent a messenger here with instructions.”

“No messenger has been here.”

“What, no one—not—” he hesitated, and said, “not a woman?”

“Not a soul has been here—man, woman, or child—since you left.”

“No one to see you?”

“No one at all, Captain.”

Coppinger did not remove his hat; he stood in the doorway biting his thumb. Was it possible that Judith had shrunk from coming to his house to bear the message? Yet she had promised to do so. Had she been intercepted by the Preventive men? Had—had she reached the top of the cliff? Had she, after reaching the top, lost her way in the dark, taken a false direction, and—Coppinger did not allow the thought to find full expression in his brain. He turned, without another word, and hastened to the cottage of Mr. Menaida. He must ascertain whether she had reached home.

Uncle Zachie had not retired to bed; Scantlebray had been gone an hour; Zachie had drunk with Scantlebray, and he had drunk after the departure of that individual to indemnify himself for the loss of his company. Consequently Mr. Menaida was confused in mind and thick in talk.

“Where is Judith?” asked Coppinger, bursting in on him.

“In bed, I suppose,” answered Uncle Zachie, after a while, when he comprehended the question, and had had time to get over his surprise at seeing the Captain.

“Are you sure? When did she come in?”

“Come in?” said the old man, scratching his forehead with his pipe. “Come in—bless you, I don’t know; some time in the afternoon. Yes, to be sure it was, some time in the afternoon.”

“But she has been out to-night?”

“No—no—no,” said Uncle Zachie, “it was Scantlebray.”

“I say she has—she has been to—” he paused, then said—“to see her aunt.”

“Aunt Dunes! bless my heart, when?”

“To-night.”

“Impossible!”

“But I say she has. Come, Mr. Menaida. Go up to her room, knock at the door, and ascertain if she be back. Her aunt is alarmed—there are rough folks about.”

“Why, bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Menaida, “so there are. And—well, wonders’ll never cease. How came you here! I thought the guard were after you. Scantlebray said so.”

“Will you go at once and see if Judith Trevisa is home?”

Coppinger spoke with such vehemence, and looked so threateningly at the old man, that he staggered out of his chair, and, still holding his pipe, went to the stairs.

“Bless me!” said he, “whatever am I about? I’ve forgot a candle. Would you oblige me with lighting one? My hand shakes, and I might light my fingers by mistake.”

After what seemed to Coppinger to be an intolerable length of time, Uncle Zachie stumbled down the stairs again.

“I say,” said Mr. Menaida, standing on the steps, “Captain—did you ever hear about Tincombe Lane?—

‘Tincombe Lane is all up-hill, Or down hill, as you take it; You tumble up and crack your crown, Or tumble down and break it.’

—It’s the same with these blessed stairs. Would you mind lending me a hand? By the powers, the banister is not firm! Do you know how it goes on?—

‘Tincombe Lane is crooked and straight As pot-hook or as arrow. ’Tis smooth to foot, ’tis full of rut, ’Tis wide and then ’tis narrow.’

—Thank you, sir, thank you. Now take the candle. Bah! I’ve broke my pipe—and then comes the moral—

‘Tincombe Lane is just like life From when you leave your mother, ’Tis sometimes this, ’tis sometimes that, ’Tis one thing or the other.’”

In vain had Coppinger endeavored to interrupt the flow of words, and to extract from thick Zachie the information he needed, till the old gentleman was back in his chair.

Then Uncle Zachie observed—“Blessy’—I said so—I said so a thousand times. No—she’s not there. Tell Aunt Dunes so. Will you sit down and have a drop? The night is rough, and it will do you good—take the chill out of your stomach and the damp out of your chest.”

But Coppinger did not wait to decline the offer. He turned at once, left the house, and dashed the door back as he stepped out into the night. He had not gone a hundred paces along the road before he heard voices, and recognized that of Mr. Scantlebray—

“I tell you the vessel is the Black Prince, and I know he was to have unloaded her to-night.”

“Anyhow he is not doing so. Not a sign of him.”

“The night is too dirty.”

“Wyvill—” Coppinger knew that the Captain at the head of the coast-guard was speaking. “Wyvill, I heard a pistol-shot. Where is Jenkyns? If you had not been by me I should have said you had acted wide of your orders. Has any one seen Jenkyns?”

“No, sir.”

“Who is that?”

Suddenly a light flashed forth, and glared upon Coppinger. The Captain in command of the coast-guard uttered an oath.

“You out to-night, Mr. Coppinger! Where do you come from?”

“As you see—from Polzeath.”

“Humph! From no other direction?”

“I’ll trouble you to let me pass.”

Coppinger thrust the Preventive man aside, and went on his way.

When he was beyond earshot, Scantlebray said—“I trust he did not notice me along with you. You see, the night is too dirty. Let him bless his stars, it has saved him.”

“I should like to see Jenkyns,” said the officer. “I am almost certain I heard a pistol-shot; but when I sent in the direction whence it came, there was no one to be seen. It’s a confounded dark night.”

“I hope they’ve not give us the slip, Captain?” said Wyvill.

“Impossible,” answered the officer. “Impossible. I took every precaution. They did not go out to-night. As Mr. Scantlebray says, the night was too dirty.”

Then they went on.

In the meantime Coppinger was making the best of his way to the downs. He knew his direction even in the dark—he had the “new-take” wall as a guide. What the coast-guard did not suspect was that this “new-take” had been made for the very purpose of serving as a guide by which the smugglers could find their course in the blackest of winter’s nights; moreover, in the fiercest storm the wall served as a shelter, under lea of which they might approach their cave. Coppinger was without a lantern. He doubted if one would avail him, in his quest; moreover, the night was lightening, as the moon rode higher.

The smuggler captain stood for a moment on the edge of the cliffs to consider what course he should adopt to find Judith. If she had reached the summit, it was possible enough that she had lost her way and had rambled inland among lanes and across fields, pixy-led. In that case it was a hopeless task to search for her; moreover, there would be no particular necessity for him to do so, as, sooner or later, she must reach a cottage or a farm, where she could learn her direction. But if she had gone too near the edge, or if, in her ascent, her foot had slipped, then he must search the shore. The tide was ebbing now, and left a margin on which he could walk. This was the course he must adopt. He did not descend by the track to the chimney, as the creeping down of the latter could be effected in absolute darkness only with extreme risk; but he bent his way over the down skirting the crescent indentation of the cove to the donkey-path, which was now, as he knew, unwatched. By that he swiftly and easily descended to the beach. Along the shore he crept carefully toward that portion which was overhung by the precipice along which the way ran from the mouth of the shaft. The night was mending, or at all events seemed better. The moon, as it mounted, cast a glimmer through the least opaque portions of the driving clouds. Coppinger looked up, and could see the ragged fringe of down torn with gullies, and thrust up into prongs, black as ink against the gray of the half-translucent vapors. And near at hand was the long dorsal ridge that concealed the entrance to the cave, sloping rapidly upward and stretching away before him into shadow.

Coppinger mused. If one were to fall from above, would he drop between the cliff and this curtain, or would he strike and be projected over it on to the shelving sand up which stole the waves? He knew that the water eddying against friable sandstone strata that came to the surface had eaten them out with the wash, and that the hard flakes of slate and ribs of quartz stood forth, overhanging the cave. Most certainly, therefore, had Judith fallen, her body must be sought on the sea-face of the masking ridge. The smuggler stood at the very point where in the preceding afternoon Jamie and the dog had scrambled up that fin-like blade of rock and disappeared from the astonished gaze of Judith. The moon, smothered behind clouds, and yet, in a measure self-assertive, cast sufficient light down into the cove to glitter on, and transmute into steel, the sea-washed and smoothed, and still wet, ridge, sloping inland as a seawall. As Coppinger stood looking upward he saw in the uncertain light something caught on the fangs of this saw-ridge, moving uneasily this way, then that, something dark, obscuring the glossed surface of the rock, as it might be a mass of gigantic sea-tangles.

“Judith!” he cried. “Is that you?” and he plunged through the pool that intervened, and scrambled up the rock.

He caught something. It was cloth. “Judith! Judith!” he almost shrieked in anxiety. That which he had laid hold of yielded, and he gathered to him a garment of some sort, and with it he slid back into the pool, and waded on to the pebbles. Then he examined his capture by the uncertain light, and by feel, and convinced himself that it was a cloak—a cloak with clasp and hood—just such as he had seen Judith wearing when he flashed his lantern over her on the platform at the mouth of the shaft.

He stood for a moment, numbed as though he had been struck on the head with a mallet, and irresolute. He had feared that Judith had fallen over the edge, but he had hoped that it was not so. This discovery seemed to confirm his worst fears.

If the cloak were there—she also would probably be there also, a broken heap. She who had thrown him down and broken him, had been thrown down herself, and broken also—thrown down and broken because she had come to rescue him from danger. Coppinger put his hand to his head. His veins were beating as though they would burst the vessels in his temples, and suffuse his face with blood. As he stood thus clasping his brow with his right hand, the clouds were swept for an instant aside, and for an instant the moon sent down a weird glare that ran like a wave along the sand, leaped impediments, scrambled up rocks, and flashed in the pools. For one moment only—but that sufficed to reveal to him a few paces ahead a black heap: there was no mistaking it. The rounded outlines were not those of a rock. It was a human body lying on the shingle half immersed in the pool at the foot of the reef!

A cry of intensest, keenest anguish burst from the heart of Coppinger. Prepared though he was for what he must see by the finding of the cloak, the sight of that motionless and wrecked body was more than he could endure with composure. In the darkness that ensued after the moon-gleam he stepped forward, slowly, even timidly, to where that human wreck lay, and knelt on both knees beside it on the wet sand.

He waited. Would the moon shine out again and show him what he dreaded seeing? He would not put down a hand to touch it. One still clasped his brow, the other he could not raise so high, and he held it against his breast where it had lately been strapped. He tried to hold his breath, to hear if any sound issued from what lay before him. He strained his eyes to see if there were any, the slightest movement in it. Yet he knew there could be none. A fall from these cliffs above must dash every spark of life out of a body that reeled down them. He turned his eyes upward to see if the cloud would pass; but no—it seemed to be one that was all-enveloping, unwilling to grant him that glimpse which must be had, but which would cause him acutest anguish.

He could not remain kneeling there in suspense any longer. In uncertainty he was not. The horror was before him—and must be faced.

He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew forth tinder-box and flint. With a hand that had never trembled before, but now shaking as with an ague, he struck a light. The sparks flew about, and were long in igniting the touchwood. But finally it was kindled, and glowed red. The wind fanned it into fitful flashes, as Coppinger, stooping, held the lurid spark over the prostrate form, and passed it up and down on the face. Then suddenly it fell from his hand, and he drew a gasp. The dead face was that of a bearded man.

A laugh—a wild, boisterous laugh—rang out into the night, and was re-echoed by the cliff, as Coppinger leaped to his feet. There was hope still. Judith had not fallen.

CHAPTER XVII.

FOR LIFE OR DEATH.

Coppinger did not hesitate a moment now to leave the corpse on the beach where he had found it, and to hasten to the cave.

There was a third alternative to which hitherto he had given no attention. Judith, in ascending the cliff, might have strayed from the track, and be in such a position that she could neither advance nor draw back. He would, therefore, explore the path from the chimney mouth, and see if any token could be found of her having so done.

He again held his smouldering tinder and by this feeble glimmer made his way up the inclined beach within the cave, passed under the arch of the rock where low, and found himself in that portion where was the boat.

Here he knew of a receptacle for sundries, such as might be useful in an emergency, and to that he made his way, and drew from it a piece of candle and a lantern. He speedily lighted the candle, set it in the lantern, and then ascended the chimney.

On reaching the platform at the orifice in the face of the rock, it occurred to him that he had forgotten to bring rope with him. He would not return for that, unless he found a need for it. Rope there was below, of many yards length. Till he knew that it was required, it seemed hardly worth his while to encumber himself with a coil that might be too long or too short for use. He did not even know that he would find Judith. It was a chance, that was all. It was more probable that she had strayed on the down, and was now back at Polzeath, and safe and warm in bed.

From the ledge in front of the shaft Coppinger proceeded with caution and leisure, exploring every portion of the ascent with lowered lantern. There were plenty of impressions of feet wherever the soft and crumbly beds had been traversed, and where the dissolved stone had been converted into clay or mud, but these were the impressions of the smugglers escaping from their den. Step by step he mounted, till he had got about half-way up, when he noticed, what he had not previously observed, that there was a point at which the track left the ledge of stratified vertical rock that had inclined its broken edge upward, and by a series of slips mounted to another fractured stratum, a leaf of the story-book turned up with the record of infinite ages sealed up in it. It was possible that one unacquainted with the course might grope onward, following the ledge instead of deserting it for a direct upward climb. As Coppinger now perceived, one ignorant of the way and unprovided with a light would naturally follow the shelf. He accordingly deserted the track, and advanced along the ledge. There was a little turf in one place, in the next a tuft of armeria, then mud or clay, and there—assuredly a foot had trodden. There was a mark of a sole that was too small to have belonged to a man.

The shelf at first was tolerably broad, and could be followed without risk by one whose head was steady; but for how long would it so continue? These rough edges, these laminæ of upheaved slate were treacherous—they were sometimes completely broken down, forming gaps, in places stridable, in others discontinuous for many yards.

The footprints satisfied Coppinger that Judith had crept along this terrace, and so had missed the right course. It was impossible that she could reach the summit by this way—she must have fallen or be clinging at some point farther ahead, a point from which she could not advance, and feared to retreat.

He held the lantern above his head, and peered before him, but could see nothing. The glare of the artificial light made the darkness beyond its radius the deeper and more impervious to the eye. He called, but received no answer. He called again, with as little success. He listened, but heard no other sound than the mutter of the sea, and the wail of the wind. There was nothing for him to do but to go forward; and he did that slowly, searchingly, with the light near the ground, seeking for some further trace of Judith. He was obliged to use caution, as the ledge of rock narrowed. Here it was hard, and the foot passing over it made no impression. Then ensued a rift and a slide of shale, and here he thought he observed indications of recent dislodgement.

Now the foot-hold was reduced, he could no longer stoop to examine the soil; he must stand upright and hold to the rock with his right hand, and move with precaution lest he should be precipitated below.

Was it conceivable that she had passed there?—there in the dark? And yet—if she had not, she must have been hurled below.

Coppinger, clinging with his fingers, and thrusting one foot before the other, then drawing forward that foot, with every faculty on the alert, passed to where, for a short space, the ledge of rock expanded, and there he stooped once more with the light to explore. Beyond was a sheer fall, and the dull glare from his lantern showed him no continuance of the shelf. As he arose from his bent position, suddenly the light fell on a hand—a delicate, childish hand—hanging down. He raised the lantern, and saw her whom he sought. At this point she had climbed upward to a higher ledge, and on that she lay, one arm raised, fastened by a chain to a tuft of heather—her head fallen against the rock, and feet and one arm over the edge of the cliff. She was unconscious, sustained by a dog-chain and a little bunch of ling.

Coppinger passed the candle over her face. It was white, and the eyes did not close before the light.

His position was vastly difficult. She hung there chained to the cliff, and he doubted whether he could sustain her weight if he attempted to carry her back while she was unconscious, along the way he and she had come. It was perilous for one alone to move along that strip of surface; it seemed impossible for one to effect it bearing in his arms a human burden.

Moreover, Coppinger was well aware that his left arm had not recovered its strength. He could not trust her weight on that. He dare not trust it on his right arm, for to return by the way he came the right hand would be that which was toward the void. The principal weight must be thrown inward.

What was to be done? This, primarily: to release the insensible girl from her present position, in which the agony of the strain on her shoulder perhaps prolonged her unconsciousness.

Coppinger mounted to the shelf on which she lay, and bowing himself over her, while holding her, so that she should not slip over the edge, he disentangled the chain from her wrist and the stems of the heather. Then he seated himself beside her, drew her toward him, with his right arm about her, and laid her head on his shoulder.

And the chain?

That he took and deliberately passed it round her waist and his own body, fastened it, and muttered, “For life or for death!”

There, for a while, he sat. He had set the lantern beside him. His hand was on Judith’s heart, and he held his breath, and waited to feel if there was pulsation there; but his own arteries were in such agitation, the throb in his finger ends prevented his being able to satisfy himself as to what he desired to know.

He could not remain longer in his present position. Judith might never revive. She had swooned through over-exhaustion, and nothing could restore her to life but the warmth and care she would receive in a house; he cursed his folly, his thoughtlessness, in having brought with him no flask of brandy. He dared remain no longer where he was, the ebbing powers in the feeble life might sink beyond recall.

He thrust his right arm under her, and adjusted the chain about him so as to throw some of her weight off the arm, and then cautiously slid to the step below, and, holding her, set his back to the rocky wall.

So, facing the Atlantic Ocean, facing the wild night sky, torn here and there into flakes of light, otherwise cloaked in storm-gloom, with the abyss below, an abyss of jagged rock and shingle shore, he began to make his way along the track by which he had gained that point.

He was at that part where the shelf narrowed to a foot, and his safety and hers depended largely on the power that remained to him in his left arm. With the hand of that arm he felt along and clutched every projecting point of rock, and held to it with every sinew strained and starting. He drew a long breath. Was Judith stirring on his arm?

The critical minute had come. The slightest movement, the least displacement of the balance, and both would be precipitated below.

“Judith!” said he, hoarsely, turning his head toward her ear. “Judith!”

There was no reply.

“Judith! For Heaven’s sake—if you hear me—do not lift a finger. Do not move a muscle.”

The same heavy weight on him without motion.

“Judith! For life—or death!”

Then suddenly from off the ocean flashed a tiny spark—far, far away.

It was a signal from the Black Prince.

He saw it, fixed his eyes steadily on it, and began to move sideways, facing the sea, his back to the rock, reaching forward with his left arm, holding Judith in the right.

“For life!”

He took one step sideways, holding with the disengaged hand to the rock. The bone of that arm was but just knit. Not only so, but that of the collar was also recently sealed up after fracture. Yet the salvation of two lives hung on these two infirm joints. The arm was stiff; the muscles had not recovered flexibility, nor the sinews their strength.

“For death!”

A second sidelong step, and the projected foot slid in greasy marl. He dug his heel into the wet and yielding soil, he stamped in it; then, throwing all his weight on the left heel, aided by the left arm, he drew himself along and planted the right beside the left.

He sucked the air in between his teeth with a hiss. The soft soil was sinking—it would break away. The light from the Black Prince seemed to rise. With a wrench he planted his left foot on rock—and drew up the right to it.

“Judith! For life!”

That star on the black sea—what did it mean? He knew. His mind was clear, and though in intense concentration of all his powers on the effort to pass this strip of perilous path, he could reason of other things, and knew why the Black Prince had exposed her light. The lantern that he had borne, and left on the shelf, had been seen by her, and she supposed it to be a signal from the terrace over the cave.

The next step was full of peril. With his left foot advanced, Coppinger felt he had reached the shale. He kicked into it, and kicked away an avalanche of loose flakes that slid over the edge. But he drove his foot deep into the slope, and rammed a dent into which he could fix the right foot when drawn after it.

“For death!”

Then he crept along upon the shale.

He could not see the star now. His sweat, rolling off his brow, had run over his eyelids and charged the lashes with tears. In partial blindness he essayed the next step.

“For life!”

Then he breathed more freely. His foot was on the grass.

The passage of extreme danger was over. From the point now reached the ledge widened, and Coppinger was able to creep onward with less stress laid on the fractured bones. The anguish of expectation of death was lightened; and as it lightened nature began to assert herself. His teeth chattered as in an ague fit, and his breath came in sobs.

In ten minutes he had attained the summit—he was on the down above the cliffs.

“Judith,” said he, and he kissed her cheeks and brow and hair. “For life—for death—mine, only mine.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

UNA.

When Judith opened her eyes, she found herself in a strange room, but as she looked about her she saw Aunt Dionysia with her hands behind her back looking out of the window.

“Oh, aunt! Where am I!”

Miss Trevisa turned.

“So you have come round at last, or pleased to pretend to come round. It is hard to tell whether or not dissimulation was here.”

“Dissimulation, aunt?”

“There’s no saying. Young folks are not what they were in my day. They have neither the straightforwardness nor the consideration for their elders and betters.”

“But—where am I?”

“At the Glaze; not where I put you, but where you have put yourself.”

“I did not come here, auntie, dear.”

“Don’t auntie dear me, and deprive me of my natural sleep.”

“Have I?”

“Have you not? Three nights have I had to sit up. And natural sleep is as necessary to me at my age as is stays. I fall abroad without one or the other. Give me my choice—whether I’d have nephews and nieces crawling about me or erysipelas, and I’d choose the latter.”

“But, aunt—I’m sorry if I am a trouble to you.”

“Of course you are a trouble. How can you be other? Don’t burs stick? But that is neither here nor there.”

“Aunt, how came I to Pentyre Glaze!”

“I didn’t invite you, and I didn’t bring you—you may be sure of that. Captain Coppinger found you somewhere on the down at night, when you ought to have been at home. You were insensible, or pretended to be so—it’s not for me to say which.”

“Oh, aunt, I don’t want to be here.”

“Nor do I want you here—and in my room, too. Hoity-toity! nephews and nieces are just like pigs—you want them to go one way and they run the other.”

“But I should like to know where Captain Coppinger found me, and all about it. I don’t remember anything.”

“Then you must ask him yourself.”

“I should like to get up; may I?”

“I can’t say till the doctor comes. There’s no telling—I might be blamed. I shall be pleased enough when you are shifted to your own room,” and she pointed to a door.

“My room, auntie?”

“I suppose so; I don’t know whose else it is.”

Then Miss Trevisa whisked out of the room.

Judith lay quietly in bed trying to collect her thoughts and recall something of what had happened. She could recollect fastening her wrist to the shrub by her brother’s dog-chain; then, with all the vividness of a recurrence of the scene—the fall of the man, the stroke on her cheek, his roll over and plunge down the precipice. The recollection made a film come over her eyes and her heart stand still. After that she remembered nothing. She tried hard to bring to mind one single twinkle of remembrance, but in vain. It was like looking at a wall and straining the eyes to see through it.

Then she raised herself in bed to look about her. She was in her aunt’s room, and in her aunt’s bed. She had been brought there by Captain Coppinger. He, therefore, had rescued her from the position of peril in which she had been. So far she could understand. She would have liked to know more, but more, probably, her aunt could not tell her, even if inclined to do so.

Where was Jamie? Was he at Uncle Zachie’s? Had he been anxious and unhappy about her? She hoped he had got into no trouble during the time he had been free from her supervision. Judith felt that she must go back to Mr. Menaida’s and to Jamie. She could not stay at the Glaze. She could not be happy with her ever-grumbling, ill-tempered aunt. Besides, her father would not have wished her to be there.

What did Aunt Dunes mean when she pointed to a door and spoke of her room?

Judith could not judge whether she were strong till she tried her strength. She slipped her feet to the floor, stood up and stole over the floor to that door which her aunt had indicated. She timidly raised the latch, after listening at it, opened and peeped into a small apartment. To her surprise she saw the little bed she had occupied at her dear home, the rectory, her old wash-stand, her mirror, the old chairs, the framed pictures that had adorned her walls, the common and trifling ornaments that had been arranged on her chimney-piece. Every object with which she had been familiar at the parsonage for many years, and to which she had said good-by, never expecting to have a right to them any more—all these were there, furnishing the room that adjoined her aunt’s apartment.

She stood looking around in surprise, till she heard a step on the stair outside, and, supposing it was that of Aunt Dionysia, she ran back to bed, and dived under the clothes and pulled the sheets over her golden head.

Aunt Dunes entered the room, bringing with her a bowl of soup. Her eye at once caught the opened door into the little adjoining chamber.

“You have been out of bed!”

Judith thrust her head out of its hiding-place, and said, frankly, “Yes, auntie! I could not help myself. I want to see. How have you managed to get all my things together?”

“I? I have had nothing to do with it.”

“But—who did it, auntie?”

“Captain Coppinger; he was at the sale.”

“Is the sale over, aunt?”

“Yes, whilst you have been ill.”

“Oh, I am so glad it is over, and I knew nothing about it.”

“Oh, exactly! Not a thought of the worry you have been to me; deprived of my sleep—of my bed—of my bed,” repeated Aunt Dunes, grimly. “How can you expect a bulb to flower if you take it out of the earth and stick it on a bedroom chair stirring broth? I have no patience with you young people. You are consumed with selfishness.”

“But, auntie! Don’t be cross. Why did Captain Coppinger buy all my dear crinkum-crankums?”

Aunt Dionysia snorted and tossed her head.

Judith suddenly flushed; she did not repeat the question, but said hastily, “Auntie, I want to go back to Mr. Menaida.”

“You cannot desire it more than I do,” said Miss Trevisa, sharply. “But whether he will let you go is another matter.”

“Aunt Dunes, if I want to go, I will go!”

“Indeed!”

“I will go back as soon as ever I can.”

“Well, that can’t be to-day, for one thing.”

The evening of that same day Judith was removed into the adjoining room, “her room,” as Miss Trevisa designated it. “And mind you sleep soundly, and don’t trouble me in the night. Natural sleep is as suitable to me as green peas to duck.”

When, next morning, the girl awoke, her eyes ranged round and lighted everywhere on familiar objects. The two mezzotints of Happy and Deserted Auburn, the old and battered pieces of Dresden ware, vases with flowers encrusted round them, but with most of the petals broken off—vases too injured to be of value to a purchaser, valuable to her because full of reminiscences—the tapestry firescreen, the painted fans with butterflies on them, the mirror blotched with damp, the inlaid wafer-box and ruler, the old snuffer-tray. Her eyes filled with tears. A gathering together into one room of old trifles did not make that strange room to be home. It was the father, the dear father, who, now that he was taken away, made home an impossibility, and the whole world, however crowded with old familiar odds and ends, to be desert and strange. The sight of all her old “crinkum-crankums,” as she had called them, made Judith’s heart smart. It was kindly meant by Coppinger to purchase all these things and collect them there; but it was a mistake of judgment. Grateful she was, not gratified.

In the little room there was an ottoman with a woolwork cover representing a cluster of dark red, pink, and white roses; and at each corner of the ottoman was a tassel, which had been a constant source of trouble to Judith, as the tassels would come off, sometimes because the cat played with them, sometimes because Jamie pulled them off in mischief, sometimes because they caught in her dress. Her father had embroidered those dreadful roses on a buff ground one winter when confined to the house by a heavy cold and cough. She valued that ottoman for his sake, and would not have suffered it to go into the sale had she possessed any place she could regard as her own where to put it. She needed no such article to remind her of the dear father—the thought of him would be forever present to her without the assistance of ottomans to refresh her memory.

On this ottoman, when dressed, Judith seated herself, and let her hands rest in her lap. She was better; she would soon be well; and when well would take the first opportunity to depart.

The door was suddenly thrown open by her aunt, and in the doorway stood Coppinger looking at her. He raised his hand to his hat in salutation, but said nothing. She was startled and unable to speak. In another moment the door was shut again.

That day she resolved that nothing should detain her longer than she was forced. Jamie—her own dear Jamie—came to see her, and the twins were locked in each other’s arms.

“Oh, Ju! darling Ju! You are quite well, are you not! And Captain Coppinger has given me a gray donkey instead of Tib; and I’m to ride it about whenever I choose!”

“But, dear, Mr. Menaida has no stable, and no paddock.”

“Oh, Ju! that’s nothing. I’m coming up here, and we shall be together—the donkey and you and me and Aunt Dunes!”

“No, Jamie. Nothing of the sort. Listen to me. You remain at Mr. Menaida’s. I am coming back.”

“But I’ve already brought up my clothes.”

“You take them back. Attend to me. You do not come here. I go back to Mr. Menaida’s immediately.”

“But, Ju! you’ve got all your pretty things from the parsonage here!”

“They are not mine. Mr. Coppinger bought them for himself.”

“But—the donkey?”

“Leave the donkey here. Pay attention to my words. I lay a strict command on you. As you love me, Jamie, do not leave Mr. Menaida’s; remain there till my return.”

That night there was a good deal of noise in the house. Judith’s room lay in a wing, nevertheless she heard the riot, for the house was not large, and the sounds from the hall penetrated every portion of it. She was frightened, and went into Miss Trevisa’s room.

“Aunt! what is this dreadful racket about?”

“Go to sleep—you cannot have every one shut his mouth because of you.”

“But what is it, auntie!”

“It is nothing but the master has folk with him, if you wish particularly to know. The whole cargo of the Black Prince has been run, and not a finger has been laid by the coast-guard on a single barrel or bale. So they are celebrating their success. Go to bed and sleep. It is naught to you.”

“I cannot sleep, aunt. They are singing now.”

“Why should they not; have you aught against it? You are not mistress here, that I am aware of.”

“But, auntie, are there many down-stairs?”

“I do not know. It is no concern of mine—and certainly none of yours.”

Judith was silenced for a while by her aunt’s ill-humor; but she did not return to her room. Presently she asked—

“Are you sure, aunt, that Jamie is gone back to Polzeath?”

Miss Trevisa kicked the stool from under her feet, in her impatience.

“Really! you drive me desperate. I did not bargain for this. Am I to tear over the country on post-horses to seek a nephew here and a niece there? I can’t tell where Jamie is, and what is more, I do not care. I’ll do my duty by you both. I’ll do no more; and that has been forced on me, it was not sought by me. Heaven be my witness.”

Judith returned to her room. The hard and sour woman would afford her no information.

In her room she threw herself on her bed and began to think. She was in the very home and head-quarters of contrabandism. But was smuggling a sin? Surely not that, or her father would have condemned it decidedly. She remembered his hesitation relative to it, in the last conversation they had together. Perhaps it was not actually a sin—she could recall no text in Scripture that denounced it—but it was a thing forbidden, and though she did not understand why it was forbidden, she considered that it could not be an altogether honorable and righteous traffic. Judith was unable to rest. It was not the noise that disturbed her so much as her uneasiness about Jamie. Had he obeyed her and gone back to Uncle Zachie? Or had he neglected her injunction, and was he in the house, was he below along with the revellers?

She opened the door gently, and stole along the passage to the head of the stairs, and listened. She could smell the fumes of tobacco; but to these she was familiar. The atmosphere of Mr. Menaida’s cottage was redolent of the Virginian weed. The noise was, however, something to which she was utterly unaccustomed: the boisterous merriment, the shouts, and occasional oaths. Then a fiddle was played. There was disputation, a pause, then the fiddle recommenced; it played a jig; there was a clatter of feet, then a roar of laughter—and then—she was almost sure she heard the voice of her brother.

Regardless of herself, thinking only of him, without a moment’s consideration, she ran down the stairs and threw open the door into the great kitchen or hall.

It was full of men—wild, rough fellows—drinking and smoking; there were lights and a fire. The atmosphere was rank with spirits and tobacco; on a chair sat a sailor fiddling, and in the midst of the room, on a table, was Jamie dancing a jig, to the laughter and applause of the revellers.

The moment Judith appeared silence ensued—the men were surprised to see a pale and delicate girl stand before them, with a crown of gold like a halo round her ivory-white face. But Judith took no notice of anyone there—her eyes were on her brother, and her hand raised to attract his attention. Judith had been in bed, but, disturbed by the uproar, had risen and drawn on her gown; her feet, however, were bare, and her magnificent hair poured over her shoulders unbound. Her whole mind, her whole care, was for Jamie; on herself not a thought rested; she had forgotten that she was but half clothed.

“Jamie! Jamie!” she cried. “My brother! my brother!”

The fiddler ceased, lowered his violin, and stared at her.

“Ju, let me alone! It is such fun,” said the boy.

“Jamie! this instant you shall come with me. Get down off the table!”

As he hesitated, and looked round to the men who had been applauding him for support against his sister, she went to the table, and caught him by the feet.

“Jamie! in pity to me! Jamie! think—papa is but just dead.”

Then tears of sorrow, shame, and entreaty filled her eyes.

“No, Ju! I’m not tied to your apron-strings,” said the lad, disengaging himself.

But in an instant he was caught from the table by the strong arm of Coppinger, and thrust toward the door.

“Judith, you should not have come here.”

“Oh, Mr. Coppinger—and Jamie! why did you let him—”

Coppinger drew the girl from the room into the passage.

“Judith, not for the world would I have had you here,” said he, in an agitated voice. “I’ll kill your aunt for letting you come down.”

“Mr. Coppinger, she knew nothing of my coming. Come I must—I heard Jamie’s voice.”

“Go,” said the Captain, shaking the boy. He was ashamed of himself and angry. “Beware how you disobey your sister again.”

Coppinger’s face was red as fire. He turned to Judith—

“Your feet are bare. Let me carry you up-stairs—carry you once more.”

She shook her head. “As I came down so I can return.”

“Will you forgive me?” he said, in a low tone.

“Heaven forgive you,” she answered, and burst into tears. “You will break my heart, I foresee it.”

CHAPTER XIX.

A GOLDFISH.

Next day—just in the same way as the day before—when Judith was risen and dressed, the door was thrown open, and again Coppinger was revealed, standing outside, looking at her with a strange expression, and saying no word.

But Judith started up from her chair and went to him in the passage, put forth her delicate white hand, laid it on his cuff, and said: “Mr. Coppinger, may I speak to you?”

“Where?”

“Where you like—down-stairs will be best, in the hall if no one be there.”

“It is empty.”

He stood aside and allowed her to precede him.

The staircase was narrow, and it would have been dark but for a small dormer-window through which light came from a squally sky covered with driving white vapors. But such light as entered from a white and wan sun fell on her head as she descended—that head of hair was like the splendor of a beech-tree touched by frost before the leaves fall.

Coppinger descended after her.

When they were both in the hall, he indicated his arm-chair by the hearth for her to sit in, and she obeyed. She was weak, and now also nervous. She must speak to the smuggler firmly, and that required all her courage.

The room was tidy; all traces of the debauch of the preceding night had disappeared.

Coppinger stood a few paces from her. He seemed to know that what she was going to say would displease him, and he did not meet her clear eyes, but looked with a sombre frown upon the floor.

Judith put the fingers of her right hand to her heart to bid it cease beating so fast, and then rushed into what she had to say, fearing lest delay should heighten the difficulty of saying it.

“I am so—so thankful to you, sir, for what you have done for me. My aunt tells me that you found and carried me here. I had lost my way on the rocks, and but for you I would have died.”

“Yes,” he said, raising his eyes suddenly and looking piercingly into hers, “but for me you would have died.”

“I must tell you how deeply grateful I am for this and for other kindnesses. I shall never forget that this foolish, silly, little life of mine I owe to you.”

Again her heart was leaping so furiously as to need the pressure of her fingers on it to check it.

“We are quits,” said Coppinger, slowly. “You came—you ran a great risk to save me. But for you I might be dead. So this rude and worthless—this evil life of mine,” he held out his hands, both palms before her, and spoke with quivering voice—“I owe to you.”

“Then,” said Judith, “as you say, we are quits. Yet no. If one account is cancelled, another remains unclosed. I threw you down and broke your bones. So there still remains a score against me.”

“That I have forgiven long ago,” said he. “Throw me down, break me, kill me, do with me what you will—and—I will kiss your hand.”

“I do not wish to have my hand kissed,” said Judith, hastily, “I let you understand that before.”

He put his elbow against the mantel-shelf, and leaned his brow against his open hand, looking down at her, so she could not see his face without raising her eyes, but he could rest his on her and study her, note her distress, the timidity with which she spoke, the wince when he said a word that implied his attachment to her.

“I have not only to thank you, Captain Coppinger, but I have to say good-by.”

“What—go?”

“Yes—I shall go back to Mr. Menaida to-day.”

He stamped, and his face became blood-red. “You shall not. I will it—here you stay.”

“It cannot be,” said Judith, after a moment’s pause to let his passion subside. “You are not my guardian, though very generously you have undertaken to be valuer for me in dilapidations. I must go, I and Jamie.”

He shook his head. He feared to speak, his anger choked him.

“I cannot remain here myself, and certainly I will not let Jamie be here.”

“Is it because of last night’s foolery you say that?”

“I am responsible for my brother. He is not very clever; he is easily led astray. There is no one to think for him, to care for him, but myself. I could never let him run the risk of such a thing happening again.”

“Confound the boy!” burst forth Coppinger. “Are you going to bring him up as a milk-sop? You are wrong altogether in the way you manage him.”

“I can but follow my conscience.”

“And is it because of him that you go?”

“Not because of him only.”

“But I have spoken to your aunt; she consents.”

“But I do not,” said Judith.

He stamped again, passionately.

“I am not the man who will bear to be disobeyed and my will crossed. I say—Here you shall stay.”

Judith waited a moment, looking at him steadily out of her clear, glittering iridescent eyes, and said slowly, “I am not the girl to be obliged to stay where my common-sense and my heart say Stay not.”

He folded his arms, lowered his chin on his breast, and strode up and down the room. Then, suddenly, he stood still opposite her and asked, in a threatening tone:

“Do you not like your room? Does that not please your humor?”

“It has been most kind of you to collect all my little bits of rubbish there. I feel how good you have been, how full of thought for me; but, for all that, I cannot stay.”

“Why not?”

“I have said, on one account, because of Jamie.”

He bit his lips—“I hate that boy.”

“Then most certainly he cannot be here. He must be with those who love him.”

“Then stay.”

“I cannot—I will not. I have a will as well as you. My dear papa always said that my will was strong.”

“You are the only person who has ever dared to resist me.”

“That may be; I am daring—because you have been kind.”

“Kind to you. Yes—to you only.”

“It may be so, and because kind to me, and me only, I, and I only, presume to say No when you say Yes.”

He came again to the fireplace and again leaned against the mantel-shelf. He was trembling with passion.

“And what if I say that, if you go, I will turn old Dunes—I mean your aunt—out of the house?”

“You will not say it, Mr. Coppinger; you are too noble, too generous, to take a mean revenge.”

“Oh! you allow there is some good in me?”

“I thankfully and cheerfully protest there is a great deal of good in you—and I would there were more.”

“Come—stay here and teach me to be good—be my crutch; I will lean on you, and you shall help me along the right way.”

“You are too great a weight, Mr. Coppinger,” said she, smiling—but it was a frightened and a forced smile. “You would bend and break the little crutch.”

He heaved a long breath. He was looking at her from under his hand and his bent brows.

“You are cruel—to deny me a chance. And what if I were to say that I am hungry, sick at heart, and faint. Would you turn your back and leave me?”

“No, assuredly not.”

“I am hungry.”

She looked up at him, and was frightened by the glitter in his eyes.

“I am hungry for the sight of you, for the sound of your voice.”

She did not say anything to this, but sat, with her hands on her lap, musing, uncertain how to deal with this man, so strange, impulsive, and yet so submissive to her, and even appealing to her pity.

“Mr. Coppinger, I have to think of and care for Jamie, and he takes up all my thoughts and engrosses all my time.”

“Jamie, again!”

“So that I cannot feed and teach another orphan.”

“Put off your departure—a week. Grant me that. Then you will have time to get quite strong, and also you will be able to see whether it is not possible for you to live here. Here is your aunt—it is natural and right that you should be with her. She has been made your guardian by your father. Do you not bow to his directions.”

“Mr. Coppinger, I cannot stay here.”

“I am at a disadvantage,” he exclaimed. “Man always is when carrying on a contest with a woman. Stay—stay here and listen to me.” He put out his hand and pressed her back into the chair, for she was about to rise. “Listen to what I say. You do not know—you cannot know—how near death you and I—yes, you and I were, chained together.” His deep voice shook. “You and I were on the face of the cliff. There was but one little strip, the width of my hand”—he held out his palm before her—“and that was not secure. It was sliding away under my feet. Below was death, certain death—a wretched death. I held you. That little chain tied us two—us two together. All your life and mine hung on was my broken arm and broken collar-bone. I held you to me with my right arm and the chain. I did not think we should live. I thought that together—chained together, I holding you—so we would die—so we would be found—and my only care, my only prayer was, if so, that so we might be washed to sea and sink together, I holding you and chained to you, and you to me. I prayed that we might never be found; for I thought if rude hands were laid on us that the chain would be unloosed, my arm unlocked from about you, and that we should be carried to separate graves. I could not endure that thought. Let us go down together—bound, clasped together—into the depths of the deep sea, and there rest. But it was not to be so. I carried you over that stage of infinite danger. An angel or a devil—I cannot say which—held me up. And then I swore that never in life should you be loosed from me, as I trusted that in death we should have remained bound together. See!” He put his hand to her head and drew a lock of her golden hair and wound it about his hand and arm. “You have me fast now—fast in a chain of gold—of gold infinitely precious to me—infinitely strong—and you will cast me off, who never thought to cast you off when tied to you with a chain of iron. What say you? Will you stand in safety on your cliff of pride and integrity and unloose the golden band and say, ‘Go down—down. I know nothing in you to love. You are naught to me but a robber, a wrecker, a drunkard, a murderer—go down into Hell?’”

In his quivering excitement he acted the whole scene, unconscious that he was so doing, and the drops of agony stood on his brow and rolled—drip—drip—drip from it. Man does not weep; his tears exude more bitter than those that flow from the eyes, and they distil from his pores.

Judith was awed by the intensity of passion in the man, but not changed in her purpose. His vehemence reacted on her, calming her, giving her determination to finish the scene decisively and finally.

“Mr. Coppinger,” she said, looking up to him, who still held her by the hair wound about his hand and arm, “it is you who hold me in chains, not I you. And so I—your prisoner—must address a gaoler. Am I to speak in chains, or will you release me?”

He shook his head, and clenched his hand on the gold hair.

“Very well,” said she, “so it must be; I, bound, plead my cause with you—at a disadvantage. This is what I must say at the risk of hurting you; and, Heaven be my witness, I would not wound one who has been so good to me—one to whom I owe my life, my power now to speak and entreat.” She paused a minute to gain breath and strengthen herself for what she had to say.

“Mr. Coppinger—do you not yourself see that it is quite impossible that I should remain in this house—that I should have anything more to do with you? Consider how I have been brought up—what my thoughts have been. I have had, from earliest childhood, my dear papa’s example and teachings, sinking into my heart till they have colored my very life-blood. My little world and your great one are quite different. What I love and care for is folly to you, and your pursuits and pleasures are repugnant to me. You are an eagle—a bird of prey.”

“A bird of prey,” repeated Coppinger.

“And you soar and fight, and dive, and rend in your own element; whereas I am a little silver trout——”

“No”—he drew up his arm wound round with her hair—“No—a goldfish.”

“Well, so be it; a goldfish swimming in my own crystal element, and happy in it. You would not take me out of it to gasp and die. Trust me, Captain Coppinger, I could not—even if I would—live in your world.”

She put up her hands to his arm and drew some of the hair through his fingers, and unwound it from his sleeve. He made no resistance. He watched her, in a dream. He had heard every word she had said, and he knew that she spoke the truth. They belonged to different realms of thought and sensation. He could not breathe—he would stifle—in hers, and it was possible—it was certain—that she could not endure the strong, rough quality of his.

Her delicate fingers touched his hand, and sent a spasm to his heart. She was drawing away another strand of hair, and untwisting it from about his arm, passing the wavy, fire-gold from one hand to the other. And as every strand was taken off, so went light and hope from him, and despair settled down on his dark spirit.

He was thinking whether it would not have been better to have thrown himself down when he had her in his arms, and bound to him by the chain.

Then he laughed.

She looked up, and caught his wild eye. There was a timid inquiry in her look, and he answered it.

“You may unwind your hair from my arm, but it is woven round and round my heart, and you cannot loose it thence.”

She drew another strand away, and released that also from his arm. There remained now but one red-gold band of hair fastening her to him. He looked entreatingly at her, and then at the hair.

“It must indeed be so,” she said, and released herself wholly.

Then she stood up, a little timidly, for she could not trust him in his passion and his despair. But he did not stir; he looked at her with fixed, dreamy eyes. She left her place, and moved toward the door. She had gone forth from Mr. Menaida’s without hat or other cover for her head than the cloak with its hood, and that she had lost. She must return bare-headed. She had reached the door; and there she waved him a farewell.

“Goldfish!” he cried.

She halted.

“Goldfish, come here; one—one word only.”

She hesitated whether to yield. The man was dangerous. But she considered that with a few strides he might overtake her if she tried to escape. Therefore she returned toward him, but came not near enough for him to touch her.

“Hearken to me,” said he. “It may be as you say. It is as you say. You have your world; I have mine. You could not live in mine, nor I in yours.” But his voice thrilled. “Swear to me—swear to me now—that while I live no other shall hold you, as I would have held you, to his side; that no other shall take your hair and wind it round him, as I have—I could not endure that. Will you swear to me that?—and you shall go.”

“Indeed I will; indeed, indeed I will.”

“Beware how you break this oath. Let him beware who dares to seek you.” He was silent, looking on the ground, his arms folded. So he stood for some minutes, lost in thought. Then suddenly he cried out, “Goldfish!”

He had found a single hair, long—a yard long—of the most intense red-gold, lustrous as a cloud in the west over the sunken sun. It had been left about his arm and hand.

“Goldfish!”

But she was gone.

CHAPTER XX.

BOUGHT AND SOLD.

Cruel Coppinger remained brooding in the place where he had been standing, and as he stood there his face darkened. He was a man of imperious will and violent passions; a man unwont to curb himself; accustomed to sweep out of his path whoever or whatever stood between him and the accomplishment of his purpose; a man who never asked himself whether that purpose were good or bad. He had succumbed, in a manner strange and surprising to himself, to the influence of Judith—a sort of witchery over him that subdued his violence and awed him into gentleness and modesty. But when her presence was withdrawn the revolt of the man’s lawless nature began. Who was this who had dared to oppose her will to his? a mere child of eighteen. Women were ever said to be a perverse generation, and loved to domineer over men; and man was weak to suffer it. So thinking, chafing, he had worked himself into a simmering rage when Miss Trevisa entered the hall, believing it to be empty. Seeing him, she was about to withdraw, when he shouted to her to stay.

“I beg your pardon for intruding, sir; I am in quest of my niece. Those children keep me in a whirl like a teetotum.”

“Your niece is gone.”

“Gone! where to?”

“Back—I suppose to that old fool, Menaida. He is meet to be a companion for her and that idiot, her brother; not I—I am to be spurned from her presence.”

Miss Trevisa was surprised, but she said nothing. She knew his moods.

“Stand there, Mother Dunes!” said Coppinger, in his anger and humiliation, glad to have some one on whom he could pour out the lava that boiled up in his burning breast. “Listen to me. She has told me that we belong to different worlds—she and I—and to different races, kinds of being, and that there can be no fellowship betwixt us. Where I am she will not be. Between me and you there is a great gulf fixed—see you? and I am as Dives tormented in my flame, and she stands yonder, serene, in cold and complacent blessedness, and will not cross to me with her finger dipped in cold water to cool my tongue; and as for my coming near to her”—he laughed fiercely—“that can never be.”

“Did she say all that?” asked Miss Trevisa.

“She looked it; she implied it, if she did not say it in these naked words. And, what is more,” shouted he, coming before Aunt Dionysia, threateningly, so that she recoiled, “it is true. When she sat there in yonder chair, and I stood here by this hearthstone, and she spoke, I knew it was true; I saw it all—the great gulf unspanned by any bridge. I knew that none could ever bridge it, and there we were, apart for ever, I in my fire burning, she in Blessedness—indifferent.”

“I am very sorry,” said Miss Trevisa, “that Judith should so have misconducted herself. My brother brought her up in a manner to my mind, most improper for a young girl. He made her read Rollin’s ‘Ancient History,’ and Blair’s ‘Chronological Tables,’ and really upon my word, I cannot say what else.”

“I do not care how it was,” said Coppinger. “But here stands the gulf.”

“Rollin is in sixteen octavo volumes,” said Aunt Dionysia; “and they are thick also.”

Coppinger strode about the room, with his hands in his deep coat pockets, his head down.

“My dear brother,” continued Miss Trevisa, apologetically, “made of Judith his daily companion, told her all he thought, asked her opinion, as though she were a full-grown woman, and one whose opinion was worth having, whereas he never consulted me, never cared to talk to me about anything, and the consequence is the child has grown up without that respect for her elders and betters, and that deference for the male sex which the male sex expects. I am sure when I was a girl, and of her age, I was very different, very different indeed.”

“Of that I have not the smallest doubt,” sneered Coppinger. “But never mind about yourself. It is of her I am speaking. She is gone, has left me, and I cannot endure it. I cannot endure it,” he repeated.

“I beg your pardon,” said Aunt Dionysia, “you must excuse me saying it, Captain Coppinger, but you place me in a difficult position. I am the guardian of my niece, though, goodness knows, I never desired it, and I don’t know what to think. It is very flattering and kind, and I esteem it great goodness in you to speak of Judith with such warmth, but——”

“Goodness! kindness!” exclaimed Coppinger. “I am good and kind to her! She forced me to it. I can be nothing else, and she throws me at her feet and tramples on me.”

“I am sure your sentiments, sir, are—are estimable; but, feeling as you seem to imply toward Judith, I hardly know what to say. Bless me! what a scourge to my shoulders these children are: nettles stinging and blistering my skin, and not allowing me a moment’s peace!”

“I imply nothing,” said Coppinger. “I speak out direct and plain what I mean. I love her. She has taken me, she turns me about, she gets my heart between her little hands and tortures it.”

“Then surely, Captain, you cannot ask me to let her be here. You are most kind to express yourself in this manner about the pert hussy, but, as she is my niece, and I am responsible for her, I must do my duty by her, and not expose her to be—talked about. Bless me!” gasped Aunt Dunes, “when I was her age I never would have put myself into such a position as to worry my aunt out of her seven senses, and bring her nigh to distraction.”

“I will marry her, and make her mistress of my house and all I have,” said Coppinger.

Miss Trevisa slightly courtesied, then said, “I am sure you are over-indulgent, but what is to become of me? I have no doubt it will be very comfortable and acceptable to Judith to hear this, but—what is to become of me? It would not be very delightful for me to be housekeeper here under my own niece, a pert, insolent, capricious hussy. You can see at once, Captain Coppinger, that I cannot consent to that.”

The woman had the shrewdness to know that she could be useful to Coppinger, and the selfishness that induced her to make terms with him to secure her own future, and to show him that she could stand in his way till he yielded to them.

“I never asked to have these children thrust down my throat, like the fish-bone that strangled Lady Godiva—no, who was it? Earl Godiva; but I thank my stars I never waded through Rollin, and most certainly kept my hands off Blair. Of course, Captain Coppinger, it is right and proper of you to address yourself to me, as the guardian of my niece, before speaking to her.”

“I have spoken to her and she spurns me.”

“Naturally, because you spoke to her before addressing me on the subject. My dear brother—I will do him this justice—was very emphatic on this point. But you see, sir, my consent can never be given.”

“I do not ask your consent.”

“Judith will never take you without it.”

“Consent or no consent,” said Coppinger, “that is a secondary matter. The first is, she does not like me, whereas I—I love her. I never loved a woman before. I knew not what love was. I laughed at the fools, as I took them to be, who sold themselves into the hands of women; but now, I cannot live without her. I can think of nothing but her all day. I am in a fever, and cannot sleep at night—all because she is tormenting me.”

All at once, exhausted by his passion, desperate at seeing no chance of success, angry at being flouted by a child, he threw himself into the chair, and settled his chin on his breast, and folded his arms.

“Go on,” said he. “Tell me what is my way out of this.”

“You cannot expect my help or my advice, Captain, so as to forward what would be most unsatisfactory to me.”

“What! do you grudge her to me?”

“Not that; but, if she were here, what would become of me? Should I be turned out into the cold at my age by this red-headed hussy, to find a home for myself with strangers? Here I never would abide with her as mistress, never.”

“I care naught about you.”

“No, of that I am aware, to my regret, sir; but that makes it all the more necessary for me to take care for myself.”

“I see,” said Coppinger, “I must buy you. Is your aid worth it? Will she listen to you?”

“I can make her listen to me,” said Aunt Dunes, “if it be worth my while. At my age, having roughed it, having no friends, I must think of myself and provide for the future, when I shall be too old to work.”

“Name your price.”

Miss Trevisa did not answer for a while; she was considering the terms she would make. To her coarse and soured mind there was nothing to scruple at in aiding Coppinger in his suit. The Trevisas were of a fine old Cornish stock, but then Judith took after her mother, the poor Scottish governess, and Aunt Dunes did not feel toward her as though she were of her own kin. The girl looked like her mother. She had no right, in Miss Trevisa’s eyes, to bear the name of her father, for her father ought to have known better than stoop to marry a beggarly, outlandish governess. Not very logical reasoning, but what woman, where her feelings are engaged, does reason logically? Aunt Dunes had never loved her niece; she felt an inner repulsion, such as sprang from encountering a nature superior, purer, more refined than her own, and the mortification of being forced to admit to herself that it was so. Judith, moreover, was costing her money, and Miss Trevisa parted with her hard-earned savings as reluctantly as with her heart’s blood. She begrudged the girl and her brother every penny she was forced, or believed she would be forced, to expend upon them. And was she doing the girl an injury in helping her to a marriage that would assure her a home and a comfortable income?

Aunt Dionysia knew well enough that things went on in Pentyre Glaze that were not to be justified, that Coppinger’s mode of life was not one calculated to make a girl of Judith’s temperament happy, but—“Hoity-toity!” said Miss Trevisa to herself, “if girls marry, they must take men as they find them. Beggars must not be choosers. You must not look a gift horse in the mouth. No trout can be eaten apart from its bones, nor a rose plucked that is free from thorns.” She herself had accommodated herself to the ways of the house, to the moods and manners of Coppinger; and if she could do that, so could a mongrel Trevisa. What was good enough for herself was over-good for Judith.

She had been saddled with these children, much against her wishes, and if she shifted the saddle to the shoulders of one willing to bear it, why not? She had duties to perform to her own self as well as to those thrust on her by the dead hand of that weak, that inconsiderate brother of hers, Peter Trevisa.

Would her brother have approved of her forwarding this union? That was a question that did not trouble her much. Peter did what he thought best for his daughter when he was alive, stuffing her head with Rollin and Blair, and now that he was gone, she must do the best she could for her, and here was a chance offered that she would be a fool not to snap at.

Nor did she concern herself greatly whether Judith’s happiness were at stake. Hoity-toity! girls’ happiness! They are bound to make themselves happy when they find themselves. The world was not made to fit them, but they to accommodate themselves to the places in which they found themselves in the world.

Miss Trevisa had for some days seen the direction matters were taking, she had seen clearly enough the infatuation—yes, infatuation she said it was—that had possessed Coppinger. What he could see in the girl passed her wits to discover. To her, Judith was an odious little minx—very like her mother. Miss Trevisa, therefore, had had time to weigh the advantages and the disadvantages that might spring to her, should Coppinger persist in his suit and succeed; and she had considered whether it would be worth her while to help or to hinder his suit.

“You put things,” said Aunt Dionysia, “in a blunt and a discourteous manner, such as might offend a lady of delicacy, like myself, who am in delicacy a perfect guava jelly; but, Captain, I know your ways, as I ought to, having been an inmate of this house for many years. It is no case of buying and selling, as you insinuate, but the case is plainly this: I know the advantage it will be to my niece to be comfortably provided for. She and Jamie have between them but about a thousand pounds, a sum to starve, and not to live, upon. They have no home and no relative in the world but myself, who am incapable of giving them a home and of doing anything for them except at an excruciating sacrifice. If Judith be found, through your offer, a home, then Jamie also is provided for.”

He said nothing to this, but moved his feet impatiently. She went on: “The boy must be provided for. And if Judith become your wife, not only will it be proper for you to see that he is so, but Judith will give neither you nor me our natural rest until the boy is comfortable and happy.”

“Confound the boy!”

“It is all very well to say that, but he who would have anything to say to Judith must reckon to have to consider Jamie also. They are inseparable. Now, I assume that by Judith’s marriage Jamie is cared for. But how about myself? Is every one to lie in clover and I in stubble? Am I to rack my brains to find a home for my nephew and niece, only that I may be thrust out myself? To find for them places at your table, that I may be deprived of a crust and a bone under it? If no one else will consider me, I must consider myself. I am the last representative of an ancient and honorable family—” She saw Coppinger move his hand, and thought he expressed dissent. She added hastily, “As to Judith and Jamie, they take after their Scotch mother. I do not reckon them as Trevisas.”

“Come—tell me what you want,” said Coppinger, impatiently.

“I want to be secure for my old age, that I do not spend it in the poor-house.”

“What do you ask?”

“Give me an annuity of fifty pounds for my life, and Othello Cottage that is on your land.”

“You ask enough.”

“You will never get Judith without granting me that.”

“Well—get Judith to be mine, and you shall have it.”

“Will you swear to it?”

“Yes.”

“And give me—I desire that—the promise in writing.”

“You shall have it.”

“Then I will help you.”

“How?”

“Leave that to me. I am her guardian.”

“But not of her heart?”

“Leave her to me. You shall win her.”

“How!”

“Through Jamie.”

CHAPTER XXI.

OTHELLO COTTAGE.

To revert to the old life as far as possible under changed circumstances, to pass a sponge over a terrible succession of pictures, to brush out the vision of horrors from her eyes, and shake the burden of the past off her head—if for a while only—was a joy to Judith. She had been oppressed with nightmare, and now the night was over, her brain clear, and should forget its dreams.

She and Jamie were together, and were children once more; her anxiety for her brother was allayed, and she had broken finally with Cruel Coppinger. Her heart bounded with relief. Jamie was simple and docile as of old; and she rambled with him through the lanes, along the shore, upon the downs, avoiding only one tract of common and one cove.

A child’s heart is elastic; eternal droopings it cannot bear. Beaten down, bruised and draggled by the storm, it springs up when the sun shines, and laughs into flower. It is no eucalyptus that ever hangs its leaves; it is a sensitive plant, wincing, closing, at a trifle, feeling acutely, but not for long.

And now Judith had got an idea into her head, that she communicated to Jamie, and her sanguine anticipations kindled his torpid mind. She had resolved to make little shell baskets and other chimney ornaments, not out of the marine shells cast up by the sea, for on that coast none came ashore whole, but out of the myriad snail-shells that strew the downs. They were of all sizes, from a pin’s head to a gooseberry, and of various colors—salmon-pink, sulphur-yellow, rich brown and pure white. By judicious arrangement of sizes and of colors, with a little gum on cardboard, what wonderful erections might be made, certain to charm the money out of the pocket, and bring in a little fortune to the twins.

“And then,” said Jamie, “I can build a linney, and rent a paddock, and keep my Neddy at Polzeath.”

“And,” said Judith, “we need be no longer a burden to Auntie.”

The climax of constructive genius would be exhibited in the formation of a shepherd and shepherdess, for which Judith was to paint faces and hands; but their hats, their garments, their shoes, were to be made of shells. The shepherdess was to have a basket on her arm, and in this basket were to be flowers, not made out of complete shells, but out of particles of sea-shells of rainbow colors.

What laughter, what exultation there was over the shepherd and shepherdess! How in imagination they surpassed the fascinations of Dresden china figures. And the price at which they were to be sold was settled. Nothing under a pound would be accepted, and that would be inadequate to represent the value of such a monument of skill and patience! The shepherd and shepherdess would have to be kept under glass bells, on a drawing-room mantel-shelf.

Judith’s life had hitherto been passed between her thoughtful, cultured father and her thoughtless, infantile brother. In some particulars she was old for her age, but in others she was younger than her years. As the companion of her father, she had gained powers of reasoning, a calmness in judging, and a shrewdness of sense which is unusual in a girl of eighteen. But as also the associate of Jamie in his play, she had a childish delight in the simplest amusements, and a readiness to shake off all serious thought and fretting care in an instant, and to accommodate herself to the simplicity of her brother.

Thus—a child with a child—Judith and Jamie were on the common one windy, showery day, collecting shells, laughing, chattering, rejoicing over choice snail-shells, as though neither had passed through a wave of trouble, as though life lay serene before them.

Judith had no experience of the world. With her natural wit and feminine instinct she had discovered that Cruel Coppinger loved her. She had also no hesitation in deciding that he must be repulsed. Should he seek her, she must avoid him. They could not possibly unite their lives. She had told him this, and there the matter ended. He must swallow his disappointment, and think no more about her. No one could have everything he wanted. Other people had to put up with rejection, why not Coppinger? It might be salutary to him to find that he could not have his way in all things. So she argued, and then she put aside from her all thought of the Captain, and gave herself up to consideration of snail-shell boxes, baskets, and shepherds and shepherdesses.

Jamie was developing a marvellous aptitude for bird-stuffing. Mr. Menaida had told Judith repeatedly that if the boy would stick to it, he might become as skilful as himself. He would be most happy, thankful to be able to pass over to him some of the work that accumulated, and which he could not execute. “I am not a professional; I am an amateur. I only stuff birds to amuse my leisure moments. Provokingly enough, gentlemen do not believe this. They write to me as if I were a tradesman, laying their commands upon me, and I resent it. I have a small income of my own, and am not forced to slave for my bread and ’baccy. Now, if Jamie will work with me and help me, I will cheerfully share profits with him. I must be director—that is understood.”

But it was very doubtful whether poor Jamie could be taught to apply himself regularly to the work, and that under a desultory master, who could not himself remain at a task many minutes without becoming exhausted and abandoning it. Jamie could be induced to work only by being humored. He loved praise. He must be coaxed and flattered to undertake any task that gave trouble. Fortunately, taxidermy did not require any mental effort, and it was the straining of his imperfect mental powers that irritated and exhausted the boy.

With a little cajolery he might be got to do as much as did Uncle Zachie, and if Mr. Menaida were as good as his word—and there could be little doubt that so kind, amiable, and honorable a man would be that—Jamie would really earn a good deal of money. Judith also hoped to earn more with her shell-work, and together she trusted they would be able to support themselves without further tax on Miss Trevisa.

And what a childish pleasure they found in scheming their future, what they would do with their money, where they would take a house, how furnish it! They laughed over their schemes, and their pulses fluttered at the delightful pictures they conjured up. And all their rosy paradise was to rise out of the proceeds of stuffed birds and snail-shell chimney ornaments.

“Ju! come here, Ju!” cried Jamie.

Then again impatiently, “Ju! come here, Ju!”

“What is it, dear?”

“Here is the very house for us. Do come and see.”

On the down, nestled against a wall that had once enclosed a garden, but was now ruinous, stood a cottage. It was built of wreck-timber, thatched with heather and bracken, and with stones laid on the thatching, which was bound with ropes, as protection against the wind. A quaint, small house, with little windows under the low eaves; one story high, the window-frames painted white; the glass frosted with salt blown from the sea, so that it was impossible to look through the small panes, and discover what was within. The door had a gable over it, and the centre of the gable was occupied by a figure-head of Othello. The Moor of Venice was black and well battered by storm, so that the paint was washed and bitten off him. There was a strong brick chimney in the midst of the roof, but no smoke issued from it, nor had the house the appearance of being inhabited. There were no blinds to the windows, there were no crocks, no drying linen about the house; it had a deserted look, and yet was in good repair.

“Oh, Ju!” said Jamie, “we will live here. Will it not be fun? And I shall have a gun and shoot birds.”

“Whose house can it be?” asked Judith.

“I don’t know. Ju, the door is open; shall we go in?”

“No, Jamie, we have no right there.”

A little gate was in the wall, and Judith looked through. There had at one time certainly been a garden there, but it had been neglected, and allowed to be overrun with weeds. Roses, escallonica, and lavender had grown in untrimmed luxuriance. Marigolds rioted over the space like a weed. Pinks flourished, loving the sandy soil, but here and there the rude blue thistle had intruded and asserted its right to the sea-border land as its indigenous home.

Down came the rain, so lashing that Judith was constrained to seek shelter, and, in spite of her protest that she had no right to enter Othello Cottage, she passed the threshold.

No one was within but Jamie, who had not attended to her objection; led by curiosity, and excusing himself by the rain, he had opened the door and gone inside.

The house was unoccupied, and yet was not in a condition of neglect and decay. If no one lived there, yet certainly some one visited it, for it had not that mouldy atmosphere that pervades a house long shut up, nor were dust and sand deep on floor and table. There was furniture, though scanty. The hearth showed traces of having had a fire in it at no very distant period. There were benches. There were even tinder-box and candle on the mantle-shelf.

Jamie was in high excitement and delight. This was the ogre’s cottage to which Jack had climbed up the bean-stalk. He was sure to find somewhere the hen that laid golden eggs, and the harp that played of itself.

Judith seated herself on one of the benches and sorted her shells, leaving Jamie to amuse himself. As the house was uninhabited, it did not seem to her that any gross impropriety existed in allowing him to run in and out and peep round the rooms, and into the corners.

“Judith,” he exclaimed, coming to her from an adjoining room, “there is a bed in here, and there are crooks in the wall!”

“What are the crooks for, dear?”

“For climbing, I think.”

Then he ran back, and she saw no more of him for a while, but heard him scrambling.

She rose and went to the door into the adjoining apartment to see that he was after no mischief. She found that this apartment was intended for sleeping in. There was a bedstead with a mattress on it, but no clothes. Jamie had found some crooks in the wall, and was scrambling up these, with hands and feet, toward the ceiling, where she perceived an opening, apparently into the attic.

“Oh, Jamie! what are you doing there?”

“Ju, I want to see whether there is anything between the roof and the ceiling. There may be the harp there, or the hen that lays golden eggs.”

“The shower is nearly over; I shall not wait for you.”

She seated herself on the bed and watched him. He thrust open a sliding board, and crawled through into the attic. He would soon tire of exploring among the rafters, and would return dirty, and have to be cleared of cobwebs and dust. But it amused the boy. He was ever restless, and she would find it difficult to keep him occupied sitting by her below till the rain ceased, so she allowed him to scramble and search as he pleased. Very few minutes had passed before Judith heard a short cough in the main room, and she at once rose and stepped back into it to apologize for her intrusion. To her great surprise she found her aunt there, at the little window, measuring it.

“A couple of yards will do—double width,” said Miss Trevisa.

“Auntie!” exclaimed Judith. “Who ever would have thought of seeing you here?”

Miss Trevisa turned sharply round, and her lips tightened.

“And who would have thought of seeing you here,” she answered, curtly.

“Auntie, the rain came on; I ran in here so as not to be wet through. To whom does this house belong?”

“To the master—to whom else? Captain Coppinger.”

“Are you measuring the window for blinds for him?”

“I am measuring for blinds, but not for him.”

“But—who lives here?”

“No one as yet.”

“Is any one coming to live here?”

“Yes—I am.”

“Oh, auntie! and are we to come here with you?”

Miss Trevisa snorted, and stiffened her back.

“Are you out of your senses, like Jamie, to ask such a question? What is the accommodation here? Two little bedrooms, one large kitchen, and a lean-to for scullery—that is all—a fine roomy mansion for three people indeed!”

“But, auntie, are you leaving the Glaze?”

“Yes, I am. Have you any objection to that?”

“No, aunt, only I am surprised. And Captain Cruel lets you have this dear little cottage?”

“As to its being dear, I don’t know, I am to have it; and that is how you have found it open to poke and pry into. I came up to look round and about me, and then found I had not brought my measuring tape with me, so I returned home for that, and you found the door open and thrust yourself in.”

“I am very sorry if I have given you annoyance.”

“Oh, it’s no annoyance to me. The place is not mine yet.”

“But when do you come here, Aunt Dunes?”

“When?” Miss Trevisa looked at her niece with a peculiar expression in her hard face that Judith noticed, but could not interpret. “That,” said Miss Trevisa, “I do not know yet.”

“I suppose you will do up that dear little garden,” said Judith.

Miss Trevisa did not vouchsafe an answer; she grunted, and resumed her measuring.

“Has this cottage been vacant for long, auntie?”

“Yes.”

“But, auntie, some one comes here. It is not quite deserted.”

Miss Trevisa said to herself, “Four times two and one breadth torn in half to allow for folds will do it. Four times two is eight, and one breadth more is ten.”

Just then Jamie appeared, shyly peeping through the door. He had heard his aunt’s voice, and was afraid to show himself. Her eye, however, observed him, and in a peremptory tone she ordered him to come forward.

But Jamie would not obey her willingly, and he deemed it best for him to make a dash through the kitchen to the open front door.

“That boy!” growled Miss Trevisa, “I’ll be bound he has been at mischief.”

“Auntie, I think the rain has ceased, I will say good-by.”

Then Judith left the cottage.

“Ju,” said Jamie, when he was with his sister beyond earshot of the aunt, “such fun—I have something to tell you.”

“What is it, Jamie?”

“I won’t tell you till we get home.”

“Oh, Jamie, not till we get back to Polzeath?”

“Well, not till we get half-way home—to the white gate. Then I will tell you.”

CHAPTER XXII.

JAMIE’S RIDE.

“Now, Jamie! the white gate.”

“The white gate!—what about that?” He had forgotten his promise.

“You have a secret to tell me.”

Then the boy began to laugh and to tap his pockets.

“What do you think, Ju! look what I have found. Do you know what is in the loft of the cottage we were in? There are piles of tobacco, all up hidden away in the dark under the rafters. I have got my pockets stuffed as full as they will hold. It is for Uncle Zachie. Won’t he be pleased?”

“Oh, Jamie! you should not have done that.”

“Why not? Don’t scold, Ju!”

“It is stealing.”

“No, it is not. No one lives there.”

“Nevertheless it belongs to some one, by whatever means it was got, and for whatever purpose stowed away there. You had no right to touch it.”

“Then why do you take snail-shells?”

“They belong to no one, no one values them. It is other with this tobacco. Give it up. Take it back again.”

“What—to Aunt Dunes? I daren’t, she’s so cross.”

“Well, give it to me, and I will take it to her. She is now at the cottage, and the tobacco can be replaced.”

“Oh, Ju, I should like to see her scramble up the wall!”

“I do not think she will do that; but she will contrive somehow to have the tobacco restored. It is not yours, and I believe it belongs to Captain Cruel. If it be not given back now he may hear of it and be very angry.”

“He would beat me,” said the boy, hastily emptying his pockets. “I’d rather have Aunt Dunes’ jaw than Captain Cruel’s stick.” He gave the tobacco to his sister, but he was not in a good humor. He did not see the necessity for restoring it. But Jamie never disobeyed his sister, when they were alone, and she was determined with him. Before others he tried to display his independence, by feeble defiances never long maintained, and ending in a reconciliation with tears and kisses, and promises of submission without demur for the future. With all, even the most docile children, there occur epochs when they try their wings, strut and ruffle their plumes, and crow very loud—epochs of petulance or boisterous outbreak of self-assertion in the face of their guides and teachers. If the latter be firm, the trouble passes away to be renewed at a future period till manhood or womanhood is reached, and then guide and teacher who is wise falls back, lays down control, and lets the pupils have their own way. But if at the first attempts at mastery, those in authority, through indifference or feebleness or folly, give way, then the fate of the children is sealed, they are spoiled for ever.

Jamie had his rebellious fits, and they were distressing to Judith, but she never allowed herself to be conquered. She evaded provoking them whenever possible; and as much as possible led him by his affection. He had a very tender heart, was devotedly attached to his sister, and appeals to his better nature were usually successful, not always immediately, but in the long run.

Her association with Jamie had been of benefit to Judith; it had strengthened her character. She had been forced from earliest childhood to be strong where he was weak, to rule because he was incapable of ruling himself. This had nurtured in her a decision of mind, a coolness of judgment, and an inflexibility of purpose unusual in a girl of her years.

Judith walked to Othello Cottage, carrying the tobacco in her skirt, held up by both hands; and Jamie sauntered back to Polzeath, carrying his sister’s basket of shells, stopping at intervals to add to the collection, then ensconcing himself in a nook of the hedge to watch a finch, a goldhammer, or a blackbird, then stopped to observe and follow a beetle of gorgeous metallic hues that was running across the path.

Presently he emerged into the highway, the parish road; there was no main road in those parts maintained by toll-gates, and then observed a gig approach in which sat two men, one long and narrow-faced, the other tall, but stout and round-faced. He recognized the former at once as Mr. Scantlebray, the appraiser. Mr. Scantlebray, who was driving, nudged his companion, and with the butt-end of the whip pointed to the boy.

“Heigh! hi-up! Gaffer!” called Mr. Scantlebray, flapping his arms against his sides, much as does a cock with his wings. “Come along; I have something of urgent importance to say to you—something so good that it will make you squeak; something so delicious that it will make your mouth water.”

This was addressed to Jamie, as the white mare leisurely trotted up to where the boy stood. Then Scantlebray drew up, with his elbows at right angles to his trunk.

“Here’s my brother thirsting, ravening to make your acquaintance—and, by George! you are in luck’s way, young hopeful, to make his. Obadiah! this here infant is an orphing. Orphing! this is Obadiah Scantlebray, whom I call Scanty because he is fat. Jump up, will y’, into the gig.”

Jamie looked vacantly about him. He had an idea that he ought to wait for Judith or go directly home. But she had not forbidden him to have a ride, and a ride was what he dearly loved.

“Are you coming?” asked Scantlebray; “or do you need a more ceremonious introduction to Mr. Obadiah, eh?”

“I’ve got a basket of shells,” said Jamie. “They belong to Ju.”

“Well, put Ju’s basket in—the shells won’t hurt—and then in with you. There’s a nice little portmantle in front, on which you can sit and look us in the face, and if you don’t tumble off with laughing, it will be because I strap you in. My brother is the very comicalest fellow in Cornwall. It’s a wonder I haven’t died of laughter. I should have, but our paths diverged; he took up the medical line, and I the valuation and all that, so my life was saved. Are you comfortable there?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jamie, seated himself where advised.

“Now for the strap round ye,” said Scantlebray. “Don’t be alarmed; it’s to hold you together, lest you split your sides with merriment, and to hold you in, lest you tumble overboard convulsed with laughter. That brother of mine is the killingest man in Great Britain. Look at his face. Bless me! in church I should explode when I saw him, but that I am engrossed in my devotions. On with you, Juno!”

That to the gray mare, and a whip applied to make the gray mare trot along, which she did, with her head down lost in thought, or as if smelling the road, to make sure that she was on the right track.

“’Tisn’t what he says,” remarked Mr. Scantlebray, seeing a questioning expression on Jamie’s innocent face, “it’s the looks of him. And when he speaks—well, it’s the way he says it more than what he says. I was at a Charity Trust dinner, and Obadiah said to the waiter, ‘Cutlets, please!’ The fellow dropped the dish, and I stuffed my napkin into my mouth, ran out, and went into a fit. Now, Scanty, show the young gentleman how to make a rabbit.”

Then Mr. Scantlebray tickled up the mare with the lash of his whip, cast some objurgations at a horse-fly that was hovering and then darting at Juno.

Mr. Obadiah drew forth a white but very crumpled kerchief from his pocket, and proceeded to fold it on his lap.

“Just look at him,” said the agent, “doing it in spite of the motion of the gig. It’s wonderful. But his face is the butchery. I can’t look at it for fear of letting go the reins.”

The roads were unfrequented; not a person was passing as the party jogged along. Mr. Scantlebray hissed to the mare between his front teeth, which were wide apart; then, turning his eye sideways, observed what his brother was about.

“That’s his carcase,” said he, in reference to the immature rabbit.

Then a man was sighted coming along the road, humming a tune. It was Mr. Menaida.

“How are you? Compliments to the young lady orphing, and say we’re jolly—all three,” shouted Scantlebray, urging his mare to a faster pace, and keeping her up to it till they had turned a corner, and Menaida was no more in sight.

“Just look at his face, as he’s a folding of that there pockyhandkercher,” said the appraiser. “It’s exploding work.”

Jamie looked into the stolid features of Mr. Obadiah, and laughed—laughed heartily, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. Not that he saw aught humorous there, but that he was told it was there, he ought to see it, and would be a fool if he were not convulsed by it.

Precisely the same thing happens with us. We look at and go into raptures over a picture, because it is by a Royal Academician who has been knighted on account of his brilliant successes. We are charmed at a cantata, stifling our yawns, because we are told by the art critics who are paid to puff it, that we are fools, and have no ears if we do not feel charmed by it. We rush to read a new novel, and find it vastly clever, because an eminent statesman has said on a postcard it has pleased him.

We laugh when told to laugh, condemn when told to condemn, and would stand on our heads if informed that it was bad for us to walk on our feet.

“There!” said Mr. Scantlebray, the valuer. “Them’s ears.”

“Crrrh!” went Mr. Obadiah, and the handkerchief, converted into a white bunny, shot from his hand up his sleeve.

“I can’t drive, ’pon my honor; I’m too ill. You have done me for to-day,” said Scantlebray the elder, the valuer. “Now, young hopeful, what say you? Will you make a rabbit, also? I’ll give you a shilling if you will.”

Thereupon Jamie took the kerchief and spread it out, and began to fold it. Whenever he went wrong Mr. Obadiah made signs, either by elevation of his brows and a little shake of his head, or by pointing, and his elder brother caught him at it and protested. Obadiah was the drollest fellow, he was incorrigible, as full of mischief as an egg is full of meat. There was no trusting him for a minute when the eye was off him.

“Come, Scanty! I’ll put you on your honor. Look the other way.” But a moment after—“Ah, for shame! there you are at it again. Young hopeful, you see what a vicious brother I have; perfectly untrustworthy, but such a comical dog. Full of tricks up to the ears. You should see him make shadows on the wall. He can represent a pig eating out of a trough. You see the ears flap, the jaws move, the eye twinkle in appreciation of the barley-meal. It is to the life, and all done by the two hands—by one, I may say, for the other serves as trough. What! Done the rabbit! First rate! Splendid! Here is the shilling. But, honor bright, you don’t deserve it; that naughty Scanty helped you.”

“Please,” said Jamie, timidly, “may I get out now and go home?”

“Go home! What for?”

“I want to show Ju my shilling.”

“By ginger! that is too rich. Not a bit of it. Do you know Mistress Polgrean’s sweetie shop?”

“But that’s at Wadebridge.”

“At Wadebridge; and why not? You will spend your shilling there. But look at my brother. It is distressing; his eyes are alight at the thoughts of the tartlets, and the sticks of peppermint sugar, and the almond rock. Are you partial to almond rock, orphin?”

Jamie’s mind was at once engaged.

“Which is it to be? Gingerbreads or tartlets, almond rock or barley-sugar?”

“I think I’ll have the peppermint,” said Jamie.

“Then peppermint it shall be. And you will give me a little bit, and Scanty a bit, and take a little bit home to Ju, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’ll take a little bit home to Ju, Obadiah, old man.”

The funny brother nodded.

“And the basket of shells?” asked the elder.

“Yes, she is making little boxes with them to sell,” said Jamie.

“I suppose I may have the privilege of buying some,” said Mr. Scantlebray, senior. “Oh, look at that brother of mine! How he is screwing his nose about! I say, old man, are you ill? Upon my life, I believe he is laughing.”

Presently Jamie got restless.

“Please, Mr. Scantlebray, may I get out? Ju will be frightened at my being away so long.”

“Poor Ju!” said Scantlebray, the elder. “But no—don’t you worry your mind about that. We passed Uncle Zachie, and he will tell her where you are, in good hands, or rather, nipped between most reliable knees—my brother’s and mine. Sit still. I can’t stop Juno; we’re going down-hill now, and if I stopped Juno she would fall. You must wait—wait till we get to Mrs. Polgrean’s.” Then, after chuckling-to himself, Scantlebray, senior, said: “Obadiah, old man, I wonder what Missie Ju is thinking? I wonder what she will say, eh?” Again he chuckled. “No place in your establishment for that party, eh?”

The outskirts of Wadebridge were reached.

“Now may I get out?” said Jamie.

“Bless my heart! Not yet. Wait for Mrs. Polgrean’s.”

But presently Mrs. Polgrean’s shop-window was passed.

“Oh, stop! stop!” cried Jamie. “We have gone by the sweetie shop.”

“Of course we have,” answered Scantlebray, senior. “I daren’t trust that brother of mine in there; he has such a terrible sweet tooth. Besides, I want you to see the pig eating out of the trough. It will kill you. If it don’t I’ll give you another shilling.”

Presently he drew up at the door of a stiff, square-built house, with a rambling wing thrown out on one side. It was stuccoed and painted drab—drab walls, drab windows, and drab door.

“Now, then, young man,” said Scantlebray, cheerily, “I’ll unbuckle the strap and let you out. You come in with me. This is my brother’s mansion, roomy, pleasant, and comprehensive. You shall have a dish of tea.”

“And then I may go home?”

“And then—we shall see; shan’t we, Obadiah, old man?”

They entered the hall, and the door was shut and fastened behind them; then into a somewhat dreary room, with red flock paper on the walls, no pictures, leather-covered, old, mahogany chairs, and a book or two on the table—one of these a Bible.

Jamie looked wonderingly about him, a little disposed to cry. He was a long way from Polzeath, and Judith would be waiting for him and anxious, and the place into which he was ushered was not cheery, not inviting.

“Now, then,” said Mr. Scantlebray, “young hopeful, give me my shilling.”

“Please, I’m going to buy some peppermint and burnt almonds for Ju and me as I go back.”

“Oh, indeed! But suppose you do not have the chance?”

Jamie looked vacantly in his face, then into that of the stolid brother, who was not preparing to show him the pig feeding out of a trough, nor was he calling for tea.

“Come,” said Scantlebray, the elder; “suppose I take charge of that shilling till you have the chance of spending it, young man.”

“Please, I’ll spend it now.”

“Not a bit. You won’t have the chance. Do you know where you are!”

Jamie looked round in distress. He was becoming frightened at the altered tone of the valuer.

“My dear,” said Mr. Scantlebray, “you’re now an honorable inmate of my brother’s Establishment for Idiots, which you don’t leave till cured of imbecility. That shilling, if you please?”

CHAPTER XXIII.

ALL IS FOR THE BEST IN THE BEST OF WORLDS.

Judith returned to the cottage of Mr. Menaida, troubled in mind, for Aunt Dunes had been greatly incensed at the taking of the tobacco by Jamie, and not correspondingly gratified by the return of it so promptly by Judith. Miss Trevisa was a woman who magnified and resented any wrong done, but minimized and passed over as unworthy of notice whatever was generous, and every attempt made to repay an evil. Such attempts not only met with no favor from her, but were perverted in her crabbed mind into fresh affronts or injuries. That the theft of Jamie would not have been discovered had not Judith spoken of it and brought back what had been taken, was made of no account by Aunt Dionysia; she attacked Judith with sharp reproach for allowing the boy to be mischievous, for indulging him and suffering him to run into danger through his inquisitiveness and thoughtlessness. “For,” said Aunt Dionysia, “had the master or any of his men found out what Jamie had done there is no telling how he might have been served.” Then she had muttered: “If you will not take precautions, other folk must, and the boy must be put where he can be properly looked after and kept from interfering with the affairs of others.”

On reaching Mr. Menaida’s cottage, Judith called her brother, but as she did not receive an answer, she went in quest of him, and was met by the servant, Jump. “If you please, miss,” said Jump, “there’s been two gen’lemen here, as said they was come from Mrs. Trevisa, and said they was to pack and take off Master Jamie’s clothes. And please miss, I didn’t know what to do—they was gen’lemen, and the master—he was out, and you was out, miss—and Master Jamie, he wasn’t to home n’other.”

“Taken Jamie’s clothes!” repeated Judith, in amazement.

“Yes, miss, they brought a portmantle a-purpose; and they’d a gig at the door; and they spoke uncommon pleasant, leastwise one o’ them did.”

“And where is Jamie? Has he not come home?”

“No, miss.”

At that moment Mr. Menaida came in.

“What is it, Judith? Jamie? Where Jamie is?—why, having a ride, seated between the two Scantlebrays, in their gig. That is where he is.”

“Oh, Mr. Menaida, but they have taken his clothes!”

“Whose clothes?”

“Jamie’s.”

“I do not understand.”

“The two gentlemen came to this house when you and I were out, and told Jump that they were empowered by my aunt to pack up and carry off all Jamie’s clothing, which they put into a portmanteau they had brought with them.”

“And then picked up Jamie. He was sitting on the portmanteau,” said Uncle Zachie; then his face became grave. “They said that they acted under authority from Mrs. Trevisa?”

“So Jump says.”

“It can surely not be that he has been moved to the asylum.”

“Asylum, Mr. Menaida?”

“The idiot asylum.”

Judith uttered a cry, and staggered back against the wall.

“Jamie! my brother Jamie!”

“Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray has such a place at Wadebridge.”

“But Jamie is not an idiot.”

“Your aunt authorized them—,” mused Uncle Zachie. “Humph! you should see her about it. That is the first step, and ascertain whether she has done it, or whether they are acting with a high hand for themselves. I’ll look at my law-books—if the latter it would be actionable.”

Judith did not hesitate for a moment. She hastened to Pentyre. That her aunt had left Othello Cottage she was pretty sure, as she was preparing to leave it when Judith returned with the tobacco. Accordingly she took the road to Pentyre at once. Tears of shame and pain welled up in her eyes at the thought of her darling brother being beguiled away to be locked up among the imbecile in a private establishment for the insane. Then her heart was contracted with anger and resentment at the scurvy trick played on her and him: She did not know that the Scantlebrays had been favored by pure accident. She conceived that men base enough to carry off her brother would watch and wait for the opportunity when to do it unobserved and unopposed. She hardly walked. She ran till her breath failed her, and the rapid throbbing of her heart would no longer allow her to run. Her dread of approaching the Glaze after the declaration made by Captain Cruel was overwhelmed in her immediate desire to know something about Jamie, in her anguish of fear for him. On Coppinger she did not cast a thought—her mind was so fully engrossed in her brother.

She saw nothing of the Captain. She entered the house, and proceeded at once to her aunt’s apartment. She found Miss Trevisa there, seated near the window, engaged on some chintz that she thought would do for the window at Othello Cottage, when she took possession of it. She had measured the piece, found that it was suitable, and was turning down a hem and tacking it. It was a pretty chintz, covered with sprigs of nondescript pink and blue flowers.

Judith burst in on her, breathless, her brow covered with dew, her bosom heaving, her face white with distress, and tears standing on her eyelashes. She threw herself on her knees before Miss Trevisa, half crying out and half sobbing:

“Oh, aunt! they have taken him!”

“Who have taken whom?” asked the elderly lady, coldly.

She raised her eyes and cast a look full of malevolence at Judith. She never had, did not, never would feel toward that girl as a niece. She hated her for her mother’s sake, and now she felt an unreasonable bitterness against her, because she had fascinated Coppinger—perhaps, also, because in a dim fashion she was aware that she herself was acting toward the child in an unworthy, unmerciful manner, and we all hate those whom we wrong.

“Auntie! tell me it is not so. Mr. Scantlebray and his brother have carried my darling Jamie away.”

“Well, and what of that!”

“But—will they let me have him back?”

Miss Trevisa pulled at the chintz. “I will trouble you not to crumple this,” she said.

“Aunt! dear aunt! you did not tell Mr. Scantlebray to take Jamie away from me?”

The old lady did not answer, she proceeded to release the material at which she was engaged from under the knees of Judith. The girl, in her vehemence, put her hands to her aunt’s arms, between the elbows and shoulders, and held and pressed them back, and with imploring eyes looked into her hard face.

“Oh, auntie! you never sent Jamie to an asylum?”

“I must beg you to let go my arms,” said Miss Trevisa. “This conduct strikes me as most indecorous toward one of my age and relationship.”

She avoided Judith’s eye, her brow wrinkled, and her lips contracted. The gall in her heart rose and overflowed.

“I am not ashamed of what I have done.”

“Auntie!” with a cry of pain. Then Judith let go the old lady’s arms, and clasped her hands over her eyes.

“Really,” said Miss Trevisa, with asperity, “you are a most exasperating person. I shall do with the boy what I see fit. You know very well that he is a thief.”

“He never took anything before to-day—never—and you had settled this before you knew about the tobacco!” burst from Judith, in anger and with floods of tears.

“I knew that he has always been troublesome and mischievous, and he must be placed where he can be properly managed by those accustomed to such cases.”

“There is nothing the matter with Jamie.”

“You have humored and spoiled him. If he is such a plague to all who know him, it is because he has been treated injudiciously. He is now with men who are experienced, and able to deal with the like of Jamie.”

“Aunt, he must not be there. I promised my papa to be ever with him, and to look after him.”

“Then it is a pity your father did not set this down in writing. Please to remember that I, and not you, am constituted his guardian, by the terms of the will.”

“Oh, aunt! aunt! let him come back to me!”

Miss Trevisa shook her head.

“Then let me go to him!”

“Hoity-toity! here’s airs and nonsense. Really, Judith, you are almost imbecile enough to qualify for the asylum. But I cannot afford the cost of you both. Jamie’s cost in that establishment will be £70 in the year, and how much do you suppose that you possess?”

Judith remained kneeling upright, with her hands clasped, looking earnestly through her tears at her aunt.

“You have in all, between you, but £45 or £50. When the dilapidations are paid, and the expenses of the funeral, and the will-proving, and all that, I do not suppose you will be found to have a thousand pounds between you, and that put out to interest will not bring you more than I have said; so I shall have to make up the deficiency. That is not pleasing to me, you may well suppose. But I had rather pay £25 out of my poor income, than have the name of the family disgraced by Jamie.”

“Jamie will never, never disgrace the name. He is too good. And—it is wicked, it is cruel to put him where you have. He is not an idiot.”

“I am perhaps a better judge than you; so also is Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray, who has devoted his life to the care and study of the imbecile. Your brother has weak intellects.”

“He is not clever; that is all. With application——”

“He cannot apply his mind. He has no mind that can be got to be applied.”

“Aunt, he’s no idiot. He must not be kept in that place.”

“You had best go back to Polzeath. I have decided on what I considered right. I have done my duty.”

“It cannot be just. I will see what Mr. Menaida says. He must be released; if you will not let him out, I will.”

Miss Trevisa looked up at her quickly between her half-closed lids; a bitter, cruel smile quivered about her lips. “If any one can deliver him, it will be you.”

Judith did not understand her meaning, and Aunt Dionysia did not care at that time to further enlighten her thereon. Finding her aunt inflexible, the unhappy girl left Pentyre Glaze and hurried back to Polzeath, where she implored Mr. Menaida to accompany her to Wadebridge. Go there she would—she must—that same evening. If he would not attend her, she would go alone. She could not rest, she could not remain in the house, till she had been to the place where Jamie was, and seen whether she could not release him thence by her entreaties, her urgency.

Mr. Menaida shook his head. But he was a kind-hearted old man, and was distressed at the misery of the girl, and would not hear of her making the expedition alone, as she could not well return before dark. So he assumed his rough and shabby beaver hat, put on his best cravat, and sallied forth with Judith upon her journey to Wadebridge, one that he assured her must be fruitless, and had better be postponed till the morrow.

“I cannot! I cannot!” she cried. “I cannot sleep, thinking of my darling brother in that dreadful place, with such people about him, he crying, frightened, driven mad by the strangeness of it all, and being away from me. I must go. If I cannot save him and bring him back with me, I can see him and console him, and bid him wait in patience and hope.”

Mr. Menaida with a soft heart and a weak will, was hung about with scraps of old-world polish, scraps only. In him nothing was complete—here and there a bare place of rustic uncouthness, there patches of velvet courtesy of the Queen Anne age; so, also, was he made up of fine culture, of classic learning alternating with boorish ignorance—here high principle, there none at all—a picture worked to a miniature in points, and in others rudely roughed in and neglected. Now he was moved as he had not been moved for years by the manifest unhappiness of the girl, and he was willing to do his utmost to assist her, but that utmost consisted in little more than accompanying her to Wadebridge and ringing at the house-bell of Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray’s establishment. When it came to the interview that ensued with the proprietor of the establishment and jailer of Jamie, he failed altogether. Judith and Uncle Zachie were shown into the dreary parlor without ornaments, and presently to them entered Mr. Obadiah.

“Oh, sir, is he here?—have you got Jamie here?”

Mr. Scantlebray nodded his head, then went to the door and knocked with his fists against the wall. A servant maid appeared. “Send missus,” said he, and returned to the parlor.

Again Judith entreated to be told if her brother were there with all the vehemence and fervor of her tattered heart.

Mr. Obadiah listened with stolid face and vacant eyes that turned from her to Mr. Menaida, and then back to her again. Presently an idea occurred to him and his face brightened. He went to a sideboard, opened a long drawer, brought out a large book, thrust it before Judith, and said, “Pictures.” Then, as she took no notice of the book, he opened it.

“Oh, please sir,” pleaded Judith, “I don’t want that. I want to know about Jamie. I want to see him.”

Then in at the door came a lady in black silk, with small curls about her brow. She was stout, but not florid.

“What!” said she, “my dear, are you the young lady whose brother is here? Don’t you fret yourself. He is as comfortable as a chick in a feathered nest. Don’t you worry your little self about him now. Now your good days have begun. He will not be a trouble and anxiety to you any more. He is well cared for. I dare be sworn he has given you many an hour of anxiety. Now, O be joyful! that is over, and you can dance and play with a light heart. I have lifted the load off you, I and Mr. Scantlebray. Here he will be very comfortable and perfectly happy. I spare no pains to make my pets snug, and Scantlebray is inexhaustible in his ability to amuse them. He has a way with these innocents that is quite marvellous. Wait a while—give him and me a trial, and see what the result is. You may believe me as one of long and tried experience. It never does for amateurs—for relations—to undertake these cases; they don’t know when to be firm, or when to yield. We do—it is our profession. We have studied the half-witted.”

“But my brother is not half-witted.”

“So you say, and so it becomes you to say. Never admit that there is imbecility or insanity in the family. You are quite right, my dear; you look forward to being married some day, and you know very well it might stand in the way of an engagement, were it supposed that you had idiocy in the family blood. It is quite right. I understand all that sort of thing. We call it nervous debility, and insanity we term nervous excitement. Scantlebray, my poppet, isn’t it so!”

Mr. Obadiah nodded.

“You leave all care to us; thrust it upon our shoulders. They will bear it; and never doubt that your brother will be cared for in body and in soul. In body—always something nice and light for supper, tapioca, rice-pudding, batter; to-night, rolly-poly. After that, prayers. We don’t feed high, but we feed suitably. If you like to pay a little extra, we will feed higher. Now, my dear, you take all as for the best, and rely on it everything is right.”

“But Jamie ought not to be locked up.”

“My dear, he is at school under the wisest and most experienced of teachers. You have mismanaged him. Now he will be treated professionally; and Mr. Scantlebray superintends not the studies only, but the amusements of the pupils. He has such a fund of humor in him.” Obadiah at once produced his pocket-handkerchief and began to fold it. “No, dear, no ducky, no rabbit now! You fond thing, you! always thinking of giving entertainment to some one. No, nor the parson preaching either.” He was rolling his hands together and thrusting up his thumb as the representative of a sacred orator in his pulpit. “No, ducky darling! another time. My husband is quite a godsend to the nervously prostrate. He can amuse them by the hour; he never wearies of it; he is never so happy as when he is entertaining them. You cannot doubt that your brother will be content in the house of such a man. Take my word for it; there is nothing like believing that all is for the best as it is. Our pupils will soon be going to bed. Rolly-poly and prayers, and then to bed—that is the order.”

“Oh, let me see Jamie now.”

“No, my dear. It would be injudicious. He is settling in; he is becoming reconciled, and it would disturb him, and undo what has already been done. Don’t you say so, poppet?”

The poppet nodded his head.

“You see, this great authority agrees with me. Now, this evening Jamie and the others shall have an extra treat. They shall have the pig eating out of the trough. There—what more can you desire? As soon as lights are brought in, then rolly-poly, prayers, and the pig and the trough. Another time you shall see him. Not to-night. It is inadvisable. Take my word for it, your brother is as happy as a boy can be. He has found plenty of companions of the same condition as himself.”

“But he is not an idiot.”

“My dear, we know all about that; very nice and sweet for you to say so—isn’t it duckie?”

The duckie agreed it was so.

“There is the bell. My dear, another time. You will promise to come and see me again? I have had such a delightful talk with you. Good-night, good-night. ‘All is for the best in the best of worlds.’ Put that maxim under your head and sleep upon it.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

A NIGHT EXCURSION.

Some people are ever satisfied with what is certain to give themselves least trouble, especially if that something concerns other persons.

Mr. Menaida was won over by the volubility of Mrs. Scantlebray and the placidity of Mr. Scantlebray to the conviction that Jamie was in the very best place he could possibly be in. A lady who called Judith “my dear” and her husband “duckie” must have a kindly heart, and a gentleman like Mr. Obadiah, so full of resources, could not fail to divert and gratify the minds of those under his charge, and banish care and sorrow. And as Mr. Menaida perceived that it would be a difficult matter to liberate Jamie from the establishment where he was, and as it was an easy matter to conclude that the establishment was admirably adapted to Jamie, he was content that Aunt Dionysia had chosen the wisest course in putting him there, and that it would be to the general advantage to cherish this opinion. For, in the first place, it would pacify Judith, and then, by pacifying her, would give himself none of that inconvenience, that running to and fro between Polzeath and Wadebridge, that consultation of law-books, that correspondence, that getting of toes and fingers into hot water, likely to result from the impatience, the unflagging eagerness of Judith to liberate her brother.

Accordingly Uncle Zachie used his best endeavors to assure Judith that Jamie certainly was happy, had never been so happy in his life before, and that, under the treatment of so kind and experienced a man as Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray, there was reason to believe that in a short time Jamie would issue from under his tuition a light so brilliant as to outshine the beacon on Trevose Head.

Judith was unconvinced. Love is jealous and timorous. She feared lest all should not be as was represented. There was an indefinable something in Mrs. Scantlebray that roused her suspicion. She could not endure that others should step into the place of responsibility toward Jamie she had occupied so long, and which she had so solemnly assured her father she would never abandon. Supposing that Scantlebray and his wife were amiable and considerate persons, might they not so influence the fickle Jamie as to displace her from his affections and insinuate themselves in her room?

But it was not this mainly that troubled her. She was tormented with the thought of the lonely, nervous child in the strange house, among strange people, in desolation of heart and deadly fear.

Whenever he had become excited during the day he was sleepless at night, and had to be soothed and coaxed into slumber. On such occasions she had been wont, with the infinite, inexhaustible patience of true love, to sit by his bed, pacifying his alarms, allaying his agitation, singing to him, stroking his hair, holding his hand, till his eyes closed. And how often, just as he seemed about to drop asleep, had he become again suddenly awake, through some terror, or some imagined discomfort? then all the soothing process had to be gone through again, and it had always been gone through without a murmur or an impatient word.

Now Jamie was alone—or perhaps worse than alone—in a dormitory of idiots, whose strange ways filled him with terror, and his dull mind would be working to discover how he came to be there, how it was that his Ju was not with him. Who would lull his fears, who sing to him old familiar strains? Would any other hand rest on the hot brow and hold it down on the pillow?

Judith looked up to heaven, to the stars already glimmering there. She was not hearkening to the talk of Uncle Zachie: she was thinking her own thoughts. She was indeed walking back to Polzeath; but her mind was nailed to that dull drab house in the suburbs of Wadebridge with the brass plate on the door, inscribed, “Mr. Scantlebray, Surgeon.” As her eyes were raised to the stars, she thought of her father. He was above, looking down on her, and it seemed to her that in the flicker of the stars she saw the trouble in her father’s face at the knowledge that his children were parted, and his poor little half-bright boy was fallen among those who had no love for him, might have no patience with his waywardness, would not make allowance for his infirmities.

She sobbed, and would not be comforted by Mr. Menaida’s assurances. Tired, foot-weary, but more tired and weary in heart and mind, she reached the cottage. She could not sleep; she was restless. She sought Jamie’s room, and seated herself on the chair by his little bed, and sobbed far on into the night. Her head ached, as did her burning and blistered feet; and as she sat she dozed off, then awoke with a start, so distinctly did she seem to hear Jamie’s voice—his familiar tone when in distress—crying, “Ju! Come to me, Ju!” So vividly did the voice sound to her that she could not for a moment or two shake off the conviction that she had in reality heard him. She thought that he must have called her. He must be unhappy. What were those people doing to him? Were they tormenting the poor little frightened creature? Were they putting him into a dark room by himself, and was he nearly mad with terror? Were they beating him, because he cried out in the night and disturbed the house?

She imagined him sitting up on a hard bed, shivering with fear, looking round him in the dark, and screaming for her—and she could not help him.

“Oh, Jamie!” she cried, and threw herself on her knees and put her hands over her eyes to shut out the horrible sight, over her ears to close them to the piercing cry. “They will drive him mad! Oh, papa! my papa! what will you say to me? Oh, my Jamie! what can I do for you?”

She was half mad herself, mad with fancies, conjured up by the fever of distress into which she had worked herself. What could she do? She could not breathe in that room. She could not breathe in the house. She could not remain so far from Jamie—and he crying for her. His voice rang still in her ears. It sounded in her heart, it drew her irresistibly away. If she could but be outside that drab establishment in the still night, to listen, and hear if all were quiet within, or whether Jamie were calling, shrieking for her. He would cry himself into fits. He would become really deranged, unless he were pacified. Oh! those people!—she imagined they were up, not knowing what to do with the boy, unable to soothe him, and were now wishing that she were there, wishing they had not sent her away.

Judith was in that condition which is one of half craze through brooding on her fears, through intense sympathy with the unhappy boy so ruthlessly spirited away, through fever of the blood, caused by long-protracted nervous strain, through over-weariness of mind and body. Jamie’s distress, his need for her became an idea that laid hold of her, that could not be dispelled, that tortured her into recklessness. She could not lie on her bed, she could not rest her head for one moment. She ran to the window, panting, and smoked the glass with her burning breath, so that she could not see through it.

The night was still, the sky clear, and there were stars in it. Who would be abroad at that time? What danger would ensue to her if she went out and ran back to Wadebridge? If any foot were to be heard on the road, she could hide. She had gone out at night in storm to save Cruel Coppinger—should she not go out in still starlight to aid her own twin-brother, if he needed her? Providence had shielded her before—it would shield her now.

The house was quiet. Mr. Menaida had long ago gone to bed, and was asleep. His snores were usually audible at night through the cottage. Jump was asleep, sound in sleep as any hard-worked sewing-wench. Judith had not undressed, had not taken off her shoes; she had wandered, consumed by restlessness, between her own room and that of her brother.

It was impossible for her to remain there. She felt that she would die of imaginings of evil unless she were near Jamie, unless there were naught but a wall between him and her.

Judith descended the stairs and once again went forth alone into the night, not now to set her face seaward, but landward; before she had gone with a defined aim in view, to warn Coppinger of his danger, now she was moved by a vague suspicion of evil.

The night was calm, but there was summer lightning on the horizon, attended by no thunder, a constant flicker, sometimes a flare, as though some bonfire were kindled beyond the margin of the world, that was being stirred and added to. The air was close.

Judith had no one to look to in the world to help her and Jamie—not her aunt, her sole relative, it was she who had sent her brother to this place of restraint; not Mr. Menaida, he had not the moral courage and energy of purpose to succor her in her effort to release Jamie; not Captain Coppinger—him she dare not ask, lest he should expect too much in return. The hand of misfortune was heavy on the girl; if anything was to be done to relieve the pressure, she must do it herself.

As she was going hastily along the lane she suddenly halted. She heard some one a little way before her. There was no gate near by which she could escape. The lane was narrow, and the hedges low, so as not to afford sufficient shadow to conceal her. By the red summer flashes she saw a man reeling toward her round the corner. His hat was on one side of his head, and he lurched first to one side of the lane, then to the other.

“There went three trav’llers over the moor— Ri-tiddle-riddle-rol, huph! said he. Three trav’llers over the moor so green, The one sang high, the third sang low, Ri-tiddle-riddle-rol, huph! said he, And the second he trolled between.”

Then he stood still.

“Huph! huph!” he shouted. “Some one else go on, I’m done for—‘Ri-tiddle-de.’”

He saw Judith by the starlight and by the flicker of the lightning, and put his head on one side and capered toward her with arms extended, chirping—“‘Ri-tiddle-riddle-rol, huph! said he.’”

Judith started on one side, and the drunken man pursued her, but in so doing, stumbled, and fell sprawling on the ground. He scrambled to his feet again, and began to swear at her and sent after her a volley of foul and profane words. Had he contented himself with this it would have been bad enough, but he also picked up a stone and threw it. Judith felt a blow on her head, and the lightning flashes seemed to be on all sides of her, and then great black clouds to be rising like smoke out of the earth about her. She staggered into the hedge, and sank on her knees.

But fear lest the tipsy ruffian should pursue her nerved her to make an effort to escape. She quickly rose and ran along the lane, turned the corner, and ran on till her feet would no longer bear her, and her breath failed. Then, looking back, and seeing that she was not followed, she seated herself, breathless, and feeling sick, in the hedge, where a glow-worm was shining, with a calm, steady light, very different from the flicker of the stars above.

As she there sat, she was conscious of something warm on her neck, and putting her hand up, felt that it was moist. She held her fingers to the faint glow of the worm in the grass; there was a dark stain on her hand, and she was sure that it was blood.

She felt her head swim, and knew that in another moment she would lose consciousness, unless she made an effort to resist. Hastily she bound a white handkerchief about her head where wounded by the stone, to stay the flow, and walked resolutely forward.

There was now a shadow stealing up the sky to the south, and obscuring the stars, a shadow behind which danced and wavered the electrical light, but Judith heard no thunder, she had not the leisure to listen for it; all her anxiety was to reach Wadebridge. But the air, the oppressively sultry air, was charged with sound, the mutter and growl of the Atlantic. The ocean, never at rest, ever gives forth a voice, but the volume of its tone varies. Now it was loud and threatening, loud and threatening as it had been on that afternoon when Judith sat with her father in the rectory garden, tossing guelder-roses. Then, the air had been still, but burdened with the menace of the sea. So it was now at midnight; the ocean felt the influence of the distant storm that was playing far away to the south.

Judith could not run now. Her feet were too sore, her strength had given way. Resolute though her will might be, it could not inspire with masculine strength the fragile little body, recently recovered from sickness. But it carried her into the suburbs of Wadebridge, and in the starlight she reached the house of Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray, and stood before it, looking up at it despairingly. It was not drab in color now, it was lampblack against a sky that flashed in the russet-light. The kerchief she had tied about her head had become loose. Still looking at the ugly, gloomy house, she put up her arms and rebound it, knotting the ends more tightly, using care not to cover her ears, as she was intent to hear the least sound, that issued from the asylum. But for some time she could hear nothing save the rush of her blood in her ears, foaming, hissing, like the tide entering a bay over reefs. With this was mingled the mutter of the Atlantic, beyond the hills—and now—yes, certainly now—the rumble of remote thunder.

Judith had stood on the opposite side of the street looking up at Scantlebray’s establishment; she saw no light anywhere. Now she drew near and crept along the walls. There was a long wing, with its back to the street, without a window in the wall, and she thought it probable that the inmates of the asylum were accommodated therein, a dormitory up-stairs, play or school-rooms below. There Jamie must be. The only windows to this wing opened into the garden; and consequently Judith stole along the garden wall, turned the angle, down a little lane, and stood listening. The wall was high, and the summit encrusted with broken glass. She could see the glass prongs by the flicker of the lightning. She could not possibly see over the wall; the lane was too narrow for her to go back far, and the wall on the further side too high to climb. Not a sound from within reached her ears.

In the still night she stood holding her breath.

Then a scream startled her.

It was the cry of a gull flying inland.

If a gull’s cry could be heard, then surely that of her brother, were he awake and unhappy, and wanting her.

She went further down the wall, and came on a small garden gate in it, fastened, locked from within. It had a stone step. On that she sank, and laid her head in her hands.

CHAPTER XXV.

FOUND.

Strange mystery of human sympathy! inexplicable, yet very real. Irrational, yet very potent. The young mother has accepted an invitation to a garden-party. She knows that she never looked better than at present, with a shade of delicacy about her. She has got a new bonnet that is particularly becoming, and which she desires to wear in public. She has been secluded from society for several months, and she longs to meet her friends again. She knows that she is interesting, and believes herself to be more interesting than she really is. So she goes. She is talking, laughing, a little flushed with pleasure, when suddenly she becomes grave, the hand that holds the plate of raspberries and cream trembles. All her pleasure is gone. She knows that baby is crying. Her eye wanders in quest of her husband, she runs to him, touches his arm, says—

“Do order the carriage; baby is crying.”

It is all fiddle-de-dee. Baby has the best of nurses, the snuggest, daintiest little cot; has a fresh-opened tin of condensed Swiss milk. Reason tells her that; but no! and nurse cannot do anything to pacify the child, baby is crying, nurse is in despair.

In like manner now did Judith argue with herself, without being able to convince her heart. Her reason spoke and said to her—

No sound of cries comes from the asylum. There is no light in any window. Every inmate is asleep, Jamie among them. He does not need you. He is travelling in dreamland. The Scantlebrays have been kind to him. The lady is a good, motherly body; the gentleman’s whole soul is devoted to finding amusement and entertainment for the afflicted creatures under his care. He has played tricks before Jamie, made shadow-pictures on the wall, told funny stories, made jacks-in-the-box with his hands, and Jamie has laughed till he was tired, and his heavy eyes closed with a laugh not fully laughed out on his lips. The Scantlebrays are paid £70 for taking care of Jamie, and £70 in Judith’s estimation was a very princely sum. The £70 per annum Mr. Scantlebray would corruscate into his richest fun, and Mrs. Scantlebray’s heart overflowed with warmest maternal affection.

But it was in vain that Judith thus reasoned, her heart would not be convinced. An indescribable unrest was in her, and would not be laid. She knew by instinct that Jamie wanted her, was crying for her, was stretching out his hands in the dark for her.

As she sat on the step not only did reason speak, but judgment also. She could do nothing there. She had acted a foolish part in coming all that way in the dark, and without a chance of effecting any deliverance to Jamie now she had reached her destination. She had committed an egregious error in going such a distance from home, from anyone who might serve as protector to her in the event of danger, and there were other dangers she might encounter than having stones thrown at her by drunken men. If the watch were to find her there, what explanation of her presence could she give? Would they take her away and lock her up for the rest of the night? They could not leave her there. Large, warm drops, like tears from angels’ eyes, fell out of heaven upon her folded hands, and on her bowed neck.

She began to feel chilled after having been heated by her walk, so she rose, and found that she had become stiff. She must move about, however sore and weary her feet might be.

She had explored the lane as far as was needful. She could not see from it into the house, the garden, and playground. Was it possible that there was a lane on the further side of the house which would give her the desired opportunity?

Judith resolved to return by the way she had come, down the lane into the main street, then to walk along the front of the house, and explore the other side. As she was descending the lane she noticed, about twenty paces from the door, on the further side, a dense mass of Portugal laurel that hung over the opposite wall, casting a shadow of inky blackness into the lane. This she considered might serve her as shelter when the threatening storm broke and the rain poured down. She walked through this shadow, and would have entered the street, but that she perceived certain dark objects passing noiselessly along it. By the flashes of lightning she could distinguish men with laden asses, and one she saw turn to enter the lane where she was. She drew back hastily into the blot cast by the bush that swung its luxuriance over the wall, and drew as closely back to the wall as was possible. Thus she could not be seen, for the reflection of the lightning would not fall on her; every glare made the shadow seem the deeper. Though concealed herself, and wholly invisible, she was able to distinguish a man with an ass passing by, and then halting at the door in the wall that surrounded Mr. Obadiah’s tenement. There the man knocked, and uttered a peculiar whistle. As there ensued no immediate answer he knocked and whistled again, whereupon the door was opened; and a word or two was passed.

“How many do you want, sir?”

“Four.”

“Any to help to carry the half-ankers!”

“No.”

“Well, no odds. I’ll carry one and you the t’other. We’ll make two journeys, that’s all. I can’t leave Neddy for long, but I’ll go with you to your house-door.”

Probably the person addressed nodded a reply in the darkness; he made no audible answer.

“Which is it, Mr. Obadiah, rum or brandy?”

“Brandy.”

“Right you are, then. These are brandy. You won’t take three brandies and one rum?”

“Yes.”

“All right, sir; lead the way. It’s deuced dark.”

Judith knew what this signified. Some of the householders of Wadebridge were taking in their supplies of spirits from the smugglers. Owing to the inconvenience of it being unlawful to deal with these men for such goods, they had to receive their purchases at night, and with much secrecy. There were watchmen at Wadebridge, but on such nights they judiciously patrolled another quarter of the town than that which received its supplies. The watchmen were municipal officials, and were not connected with the excise, had no particular regard for the inland revenue, anyhow, owed no duties to the officers of the coast-guard. Their superior was the mayor, and the mayor was fond of buying his spirits at the cheapest market.

Both men disappeared. The door was left open behind them. The opportunity Judith had desired had come. Dare she seize it? For a moment she questioned her heart, then she resolutely stepped out of the shadow of the Portugal laurel, brushed past the patient ass, entered the grounds of Mr. Scantlebray’s establishment through the open garden-door, and drew behind a syringa bush to consider what further step she should take. In another moment both men were back.

“You are sure you don’t mind one rum?”

“No.”

“Right you are, then; I’ll have it for you direct. The other kegs are at t’other end of the lane. You come with me, and we’ll have ’em down in a jiffy.”

Judith heard both men pass out of the door. She looked toward the house. There was a light low down in a door opening into the garden or yard where she was.

Not a moment was to be lost. As soon as the last kegs were brought in the house-door would be locked, and though she had entered the garden she would be unable to penetrate to the interior of the asylum. Without hesitation, strong in her earnest purpose to help Jamie to the utmost of her power, and grasping at every chance that offered, she hastened, cautiously indeed, but swiftly, to the door whence the light proceeded. The light was but a feeble one, and cast but a fluttering ray upon the gravel. Judith was careful to walk where it could not fall on her dress.

The whole garden front of the house was now before her. She was in a sort of gravelled yard, with some bushes against the walls. The main block of the house lay to her right, and the view of it was intercepted by a wall. Clearly the garden space was divided, one portion for the house, and another, that into which she had entered, for the wing. That long wing rose before her with its windows all dark above, and the lower or ground floor also dark. Only from the door issued the light, and she saw that a guttering tallow candle was set there on the floor.

Hastily she drew back. She heard feet on the gravel. The men were returning, Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray and the smuggler, each laden with a small cask of spirits.

“Right you are,” said the man, as he set his keg down in the passage, “that’s yours, and I could drink your health, sir.”

“You wouldn’t—prefer?—” Mr. Scantlebray made contortions with his hands between the candle and the wall, and threw a shadow on the surface of plaster.

“No, thanks sir, I’d prefer a shilling.”

Mr. Scantlebray fumbled in his pockets, grunted “Humph! purse up-stairs.” Felt again, “No,” groped inside the breast of his waistcoat, “another time—not forget.”

The man muttered something not complimentary, and turned to go through the yard.

“Must lock door,” said Mr. Obadiah, and went after him. Now was Judith’s last chance. She took it at once; the moment the backs of the two men were turned she darted into the passage and stood back against the door out of the flare of the candle.

The passage was a sort of hall with slated floor, the walls plastered and whitewashed at one time, but the wash and plaster had been picked off to about five feet from the floor wherever not strongly adhesive, giving a diseased and sore look to the wall. The slates of the floor were dirty and broken.

Judith looked along the hall for a place to which she could retreat on the return of the proprietor of the establishment. She had entered that portion of the building tenanted by the unhappy patients. The meanness of the passage, the picked walls, the situation on one side of the comfortable residence showed her this. A door there was on the right, ajar, that led into the private dwelling-house, but into that Judith did not care to enter. One further down on the left probably gave access to some apartment devoted to the “pupils,” as Mrs. Scantlebray called the patients.

There was, however, another door that was open, and from it descended a flight of brick steps to what Judith conjectured to be the cellars. At the bottom a second candle, in a tin candlestick, was guttering and flickering in the draught that blew in at the yard door, and descended to this underground story. It was obvious to the girl that Mr. Scantlebray was about to carry or roll his kegs just acquired down the brick steps to his cellar. For that purpose he had set a candle there. It would not therefore do for her, to attempt to avoid him, to descend to this lower region. She must pass the door that gave access to the cellars, a door usually locked, as she judged, for a large iron key stood in the lock, and enter the room, the door of which opened further down the passage.

She was drawing her skirts together, so as to slip past the candle on the passage floor for this purpose, when her heart stood still as though she had received a blow on it. She heard—proceeding from somewhere beneath down those steps—a moan, then a feeble cry of “Ju! Where are you? Ju! Ju! Ju!”

She all but did cry out herself. A gasp of pain and horror did escape her, and then, without a thought of how she could conceal herself, how avoid Scantlebray, she ran down the steps to the cellar.

On reaching the bottom she found that there were four doors, two of which had square holes cut in them, but with iron bars before these openings. The door of one of the others, one on the left, was open, and she could see casks and bottles. It was a wine and spirit cellar, and the smell of wine issued from it.

She stood panting, frightened, fearing what she might discover, doubting whether she had heard her brother’s voice or whether she was a prey to fancy. Then again she heard a cry and a moan. It issued from the nearest cell on her right hand.

“Jamie! my Jamie!” she cried.

“Ju! Ju!”

The door was hasped, with a crook let into a staple so that it might, if necessary, be padlocked. But now it was simply shut and a wooden peg was thrust through the eye of the crook.

She caught up the candle, and with trembling hand endeavored to unfasten the door, but so agitated was she, so blinded with horror, that she could not do so till she had put down the candle again. Then she forced the peg from its place and raised the crook. She stooped and took up the candle once more, and then, with a short breath and a contraction of the breast, threw open the door, stepped in, and held up the light.

The candle flame irradiated what was but a cellar compartment vaulted with brick, once whitewashed, now dirty with cobwebs and accumulated dust and damp stains. It had a stone shelf on one side, on which lay a broken plate and some scraps of food.

Against the further wall was a low truckle bed, with a mattress on it and some rags of blanket. Huddled on this lay Jamie, his eyes dilated with terror, and yet red with weeping. His clothes had been removed, except his shirt. His long red-gold hair had lost all its gloss and beauty, it was wet with sweat and knotted. The boy’s face was ghastly in the flickering light.

Judith dropped the candle on the floor, and rushed with outstretched arms, and a cry—piercing, but beaten back on her by the walls and vault of the cell—and caught the frightened boy to her heart.

“Jamie! O my Jamie! my Jamie!”

She swayed herself, crying, in the bed, holding him to her, with no thought, her whole being absorbed in a spasm of intensest, most harrowing pain. The tallow candle was on the slate floor, fallen, melting, spluttering, flaming.

And in the door, holding the brandy keg upon his shoulders, stood, with open eyes and mouth, Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray.

CHAPTER XXVI.

AN UNWILLING PRISONER.

Mr. Obadiah stood open-mouthed staring at the twins clasped in each other’s arms, unable at first to understand what he saw. Then a suspicion entered his dull brain, he uttered a growl, put down the keg, his heavy brows contracted, he shut his mouth, drawing in his lips so that they disappeared, and he clenched his hands.

“Wait—I’ll beat you!” he said.

The upset candle was on the floor, now half molten, with a pond of tallow burning with a lambent blue flicker trembling on extinction, then shooting up in a yellow flame.

In that uncertain, changeful, upward light the face of the man looked threatening, remorseless, so that Judith, in a paroxysm of fear for her brother and herself dropped, on her knee, and caught at the tin candlestick as the only weapon of defence accessible. It was hot and burnt her fingers, but she did not let go; and as she stood up the dissolved candle fell from it among some straw that littered the pavement. This at once kindled and blazed up into golden flame.

For a moment the cell was full of light. Mr. Obadiah at once saw the danger. His casks of brandy were hard by—the fume of alcohol was in the air—if the fire spread and caught his stores a volume of flame would sweep up the cellar stair and set his house on fire. He hastily sprang in, and danced about the cell stamping furiously at the ignited wisps. Judith, who saw him rush forward, thought he was about to strike her and Jamie, and raised the tin candlestick in self-defence; but when she saw him engaged in trampling out the fire, tearing at the bed to drag away the blankets with which to smother the embers, she drew Jamie aside from his reach, sidled, with him clinging to her, along the wall, and by a sudden spring reached the passage, slammed the door, fastened the hasp, and had the gaoler secured in his own gaol.

For a moment Mr. Scantlebray was unaware that he was a prisoner, so busily engaged was he in trampling out the fire, but the moment he did realize the fact he slung himself with all his force against the door.

Judith looked round her. There was now no light in the cellar but the feeble glimmer that descended the stair from the candle above. The flame of that was now burning steadily, for the door opening into the yard was shut, and the draught excluded.

In dragging Jamie along with her, Judith had drawn forth a scanty blanket that was about his shoulders. She wrapped it round the boy.

“Let me out!” roared Scantlebray. “Don’t understand. Fun—rollicking fun.”

Judith paid no attention to his bellow. She was concerned only to escape with Jamie. She was well aware that her only chance was by retaining Mr. Obadiah where he was.

“Let me out!” again shouted the prisoner; and he threw himself furiously against the door. But though it jarred on its hinges and made the hasp leap, he could not break it down. Nevertheless, so big and strong was the man that it was by no means improbable that his repeated efforts might start a staple or snap a hinge band, and he and the door might come together crashing down into the passage between the cells.

Judith drew Jamie up the steps, and on reaching the top shut the cellar door. Below, Mr. Scantlebray roared, swore, shouted, and beat against the door; but now his voice, and the sound of his blows were muffled, and would almost certainly be inaudible in the dwelling-house. No wonder that Judith had not heard the cries of her brother. It had never occurred to her that the hapless victim of the keeper of the asylum might be chastised, imprisoned, variously maltreated in regions underground, whence no sounds of distress might reach the street, and apprise the passers-by that all was not laughter within. Standing in the passage or hall above, Judith said:

“Oh, Jamie! where are your clothes?”

The boy looked into her face with a vacant and distressed expression. He could not answer, he did not even understand her question, so stupefied was he by his terrors, and the treatment he had undergone.

Judith took the candle from the floor and searched the hall. Nothing was there save Mr. Scantlebray’s coat, which he had removed and cast across one of the kegs when he prepared to convey them down to his cellar. Should she take that? She shook her head at the thought. She would not have it said that she had taken anything out of the house, except only—as that was an extreme necessity, the blanket wrapped about Jamie. She looked into the room that opened beyond the cellar door. It was a great bare apartment, containing only a table and some forms.

“Jamie!” she said, “we must get away from this place as we are. There is no help for it. Do you not know where your clothes were put?”

He shook his head. He clung to her with both arms, as though afraid, if he held by but one that she would slip away and vanish, as one drowning, clinging to the only support that sustained him from sinking.

“Come, Jamie! It cannot be otherwise!” She set down the candle, opened the door into the yard, and issued forth into the night along with the boy. The clouds had broken, and poured down their deluge of warm thunder rain. In the dark Judith was unable to find her direction at once, she reached the boundary wall where was no door.

Jamie uttered a cry of pain.

“What is it, dear?”

“The stones cut my feet.”

She felt along the wall with one hand till she touched the jamb, then pressed against the door itself. It was shut. She groped for the lock. No key was in it. She could as little escape from that enclosure as she could enter into it from without. The door was very solid, and the lock big and secure. What was to be done? Judith considered for a moment, standing in the pouring rain through which the lightning flashed obscurely, illumining nothing. It seemed to her that there was but one course open to her, to return and obtain the key from Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray. But it would be no easy matter to induce him to surrender it.

“Jamie! will you remain at the door? Here under the wall is some shelter. I must go back.”

But the boy was frightened at the prospect of being deserted.

“Then—Jamie, will you come back with me to the house?”

No, he would not do that.

“I must go for the key, dearest,” she said, coaxingly. “I cannot open the door, so that we can escape, unless I have the key. Will you do something for Ju? Sit here, on the steps, where you are somewhat screened from the rain, and sing to me something, one of our old songs—A jolly hawk and his wings were gray? sing that, that I may hear your voice and find my way back to you. Oh—and here, Jamie, your feet are just the size of mine, and so you shall pull on my shoes. Then you will be able to run alongside of me and not hurt your soles.”

With a little persuasion she induced him to do as she asked. She took off her own shoes and gave them to him, then went across the yard to where was the house, she discovered the door by a little streak of light below it and the well trampled and worn threshold stone. She opened the door, took up the candle and again descended the steps to the cellar floor. On reaching the bottom, she held up the light and saw that the door was still sound; at the square barred opening was the red face of Mr. Scantlebray.

“Let me out,” he roared.

“Give me the key of the garden door.”

“Will you let me out if I do?”

“No; but this I promise, as soon as I have escaped from your premises I will knock and ring at your front door till I have roused the house, and then you will be found and released. By that time we shall have got well away.”

“I will not give you the key.”

“Then here you remain,” said Judith, and began to reascend the steps. It had occurred to her, suddenly, that very possibly the key she desired was in the pocket of the coat Mr. Scantlebray had cast off before descending to the cellar. She would hold no further communication with him till she had ascertained this. He yelled after her “Let me out, and you shall have the key.” But she paid no attention to his promise. On reaching the top of the stairs, she again shut the door, and took up his coat. She searched the pockets. No key was within.

She must go to him once more.

He began to shout as he saw the flicker of the candle approach. “Here is the key, take it, and do as you said.” His hand, a great coarse hand, was thrust through the opening in the door, and in it was the key she required.

“Very well,” said she, “I will do as I undertook.”

She put her hand, the right hand, up to receive the key. In her left was the candlestick. Suddenly he let go the key that clinked down on the floor outside, and made a clutch at her hand and caught her by the wrist. She grasped the bar in the little window, or he would have drawn her hand in, dragged her by the arm up against the door, and broken it. He now held her wrist and with his strong hand strove to wrench her fingers from their clutch.

“Unhasp the door!” he howled at her.

She did not answer other than with a cry of pain, as he worked with his hand at her wrist, and verily it seemed as though the fragile bones must snap under his drag.

“Unhasp the door!” he roared again.

With his great fingers and thick nails he began to thrust at and ploughed her knuckles; he had her by the wrist with one hand, and he was striving to loosen her hold of the bar with the other.

“Unhasp the door!” he yelled a third time, “or I’ll break every bone in your fingers!” and he brought his fist down on the side of the door to show how he would pound them by a blow. If he did not do this at once it was because he dreaded by too heavy a blow to strike the bar and wound himself while crushing her hand.

She could not hold the iron stanchion for more than another instant—and then he would drag her arm in, as a lion in its cage when it had laid hold of the incautious visitor, tears him to itself through the bars.

Then she brought the candle-flame up against his hand that grasped her wrist, and it played round it. He uttered a scream of pain, and let go for a moment. But that moment sufficed. She was free. The key was on the floor. She stooped to pick it up; but her fingers were as though paralyzed, she was forced to take it with the left hand and leave the candle on the floor. Then, holding the key she ran up the steps, ran out into the yard, and heard her brother wailing, “Ju! I want you! Where are you, Ju?”

Guided by his cries she reached the door. The key she put into the lock, and with a little effort turned it. The door opened, she and Jamie were free.

The door shut behind them. They were in the dark lane, under a pouring rain. But Judith thought nothing of the darkness, nothing of the rain. She threw her arms round her brother, put her wet cheek against his, and burst into tears.

“My Jamie! O my Jamie!”

But the deliverance of her brother was not complete; she must bring him back to Polzeath. She could allow herself but a moment for the relief of her heart, and then she caught him to her side, and pushed on with him along the lane till they entered the street. Here she stood for a moment in uncertainty. Was she bound to fulfil her engagement to Mr. Obadiah? She had obtained the key, but he had behaved to her with treachery. He had not intended the key to be other than a bait to draw her within his clutch, that he might torture her into opening the door of his cell. Nevertheless, she had the key, and Judith was too honorable to take advantage of him.

With Jamie still clinging to her she went up the pair of steps to the front door, rang the night-bell, and knocked long and loud. Then, all at once her strength that had lasted gave way, and she sank on the doorsteps, without indeed losing consciousness, but losing in an instant all power of doing or thinking, of striving any more for Jamie or for herself.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A RESCUE.

A window overhead was thrown open, and a voice that Judith recognized as that of Mrs. Obadiah Scantlebray, called: “Who is there?—what is wanted?”

The girl could not answer. The power to speak was gone from her. It was as though all her faculties, exerted to the full, had at once given way. She could not rise from the steps on which she had sunk: the will to make the effort was gone. Her head was fallen against the jamb of the door and the knot of the kerchief was between her head and the wood, and hurt her, but even the will to lift her hands and shift the bandage one inch was not present.

The mill-wheel revolves briskly, throwing the foaming water out of its buckets, with a lively rattle, then its movement slackens, it strains, the buckets fill and even spill, but the wheel seems to be reduced to statuariness. That stress point is but for a moment, then the weight of the water overbalances the strain, and whirr! round plunges the wheel, and the bright foaming water is whisked about, and the buckets disgorge their contents.

It is the same with the wheel of human life. It has its periods of rapid and glad revolutions, and also its moments of supreme tension, when it is all but overstrung—when its movement is hardly perceptible. The strain put on Judith’s faculties had been excessive, and now those faculties failed her, failed her absolutely. The prostration might not last long—it might last forever. It is so sometimes when there has been overexertion; thought stops, will ceases to act, sensation dies into numbness, the heart beats slow, slower, then perhaps stops finally.

It was not quite come to that with Judith. She knew that she had rushed into danger again, the very danger from which she had just escaped, she knew it, but she was incapable of acting on the knowledge.

“Who is below?” was again called from an upper window.

Judith, with open eyes, heard that the rain was still falling heavily, heard the shoot of water from the roof plash down into the runnel of the street, felt the heavy drops come down on her from the architrave over the door, and she saw something in the roadway: shadows stealing along the same as she had seen before, but passing in a reversed direction. These were again men and beasts, but their feet and hoofs were no longer inaudible, they trod in the puddles and splashed and squelched the water and mud about, at each step. The smugglers had delivered the supplies agreed on, at the houses of those who dealt with them, and were now returning, the asses no longer laden.

And Judith heard the door behind her unbarred and unchained and unlocked. Then it was opened, and a ray of light was cast into the street, turning falling rain-drops into drops of liquid gold, and revealing, ghostly, a passing ass and its driver.

“Who is there? Is anyone there?”

Then the blaze of light was turned on Judith, and her eyes shut with a spasm of pain.

In the doorway stood Mrs. Scantlebray half-garmented, that is to say with a gown on, the folds of which fell in very straight lines from the waist to her feet, and with a night-cap on her head, and her curls in papers. She held a lamp in her hand, and this was now directed upon the girl, lying, or half-sitting in the doorway, her bandaged head leaning against the jamb, one hand in her lap, the fingers open, the other falling at her side, hanging down the steps, the fingers in the running current of the gutter, in which also was one shoeless foot.

“Why—goodness! mercy on us!” exclaimed Mrs. Scantlebray, inconsiderately thrusting the lamp close into the girl’s face. “It can never be—yet—surely it is——”

“Judith!” exclaimed a deep voice, the sound of which sent a sudden flutter through the girl’s nerves and pulses. “Judith!” and from out the darkness and falling rain plunged a man in full mantle wrapped about him and overhanging broad-brimmed hat. Without a word of excuse he snatched the light from Mrs. Scantlebray and raised it above Judith’s head.

“Merciful powers!” he cried, “what is the meaning of this! What has happened? There is blood here—blood! Judith—speak. For heaven’s sake, speak!”

The light fell on his face, his glittering eyes—and she slightly turned her head and looked at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but could form no words, but the appeal in those dim eyes went to his heart, he thrust the lamp roughly back into Mrs. Scantlebray’s hand, knelt on the steps, passed an arm under the girl, the other about her waist, lifted and carried her without a word inside the house. There was a leather-covered ottoman in the hall, and he laid her on that, hastily throwing off his cloak, folding it, and placing it as a pillow beneath her head.

Then, on one knee at her side, he drew a flask from his breast pocket, and poured some drops of spirit down her throat. The strength of the brandy made her catch her breath, and brought a flash of red to her cheek. It had served its purpose, helped the wheel of life to turn beyond the stress point at which it threatened to stay wholly. She moved her head, and looked eagerly about her for Jamie. He was not there. She drew a long breath, a sigh of relief.

“Are you better?” he asked, stooping over her, and she could read the intensity of his anxiety in his face.

She tried to smile a reply, but the muscles of her lips were too stiff for more than a flutter.

“Run!” ordered Captain Coppinger, standing up, “you woman, are you a fool? Where is your husband? He is a doctor, fetch him. The girl might die.”

“He—Captain—he is engaged, I believe, taking in his stores.”

“Fetch him! Leave the lamp here.”

Mrs. Scantlebray groped about for a candle, and having found one, proceeded to light it.

“I’m really shocked to appear before you, Captain, in this state of undress.”

“Fetch your husband!” said Coppinger, impatiently.

Then she withdrew.

The draught of spirits had acted on Judith and revived her. Her breath came more evenly, her heart beat regularly, and the blood began to circulate again. As her bodily powers returned, her mind began to work once more, and again anxiously she looked about her.

“What is it you want?” asked Captain Cruel.

“Where is Jamie?”

He muttered a low oath. Always Jamie. She could think of no one but that silly boy.

Then suddenly she recalled her position—in Scantlebray’s house, and the wife was on the way to the cellars, would find him, release him—and though she knew that Coppinger would not suffer Obadiah to injure her, she feared, in her present weakness, a violent scene. She sat up, dropped her feet on the floor, and stretched both her hands to the smuggler.

“Oh, take me! take me from here.”

“No, Judith,” he answered. “You must have the doctor to see you—after that——”

“No! no! take me before he comes. He will kill me.”

Coppinger laughed. He would like to see the man who would dare to lay a finger on Judith while he stood by.

Now they heard a noise from the wings of the house at the side that communicated with the dwelling by a door that Mrs. Scantlebray had left ajar. There were exclamations, oaths, a loud, angry voice, and the shrill tones of the woman mingled with the bass notes of her husband. The color that had risen to the girl’s cheeks left them; she put her hands on Coppinger’s breast and looking him entreatingly in the eyes, said:

“I pray you! I pray you!”

He snatched her up in his arms, drew her close to him, went to the door, cast it open with his foot, and bore her out into the rain. There stood his mare, Black Bess, with a lad holding her.

“Judith, can you ride?”

He lifted her into the saddle.

“Boy,” said he, “lead on gently; I will stay her lest she fall.”

Then they moved away, and saw through the sheet of falling rain the lighted door, and Scantlebray in it, in his shirt sleeves shaking his fists, and his wife behind him, endeavoring to draw him back by the buckle and strap of his waistcoat.

“Oh, where is Jamie? I wonder where Jamie is?” said Judith, looking round her in the dark, but could see no sign of her brother.

There were straggling houses for half a mile—a little gap of garden or paddock, then a cottage, then a cluster of trees, and an alehouse, then hedges and no more houses. A cooler wind was blowing, dispelling the close, warm atmosphere, and the rain fell less heavily. There was a faint light among the clouds like a watering of satin. It showed that the storm was passing away. The lightning flashes were, moreover, at longer intervals, fainter, and the thunder rumbled distantly. With the fresher air, some strength and life came back to Judith. The wheel though on the turn was not yet revolving rapidly.

Coppinger walked by the horse, he had his arm up, holding Judith, for he feared lest in her weakness she might fall, and indeed, by her weight upon his hand, he was aware that her power to sustain herself unassisted was not come. He looked up at her; he could hardly fail to do so, standing, striding so close to her, her wet garments brushing his face; but he could not see her, or saw her indistinctly. He had thrust her little foot into the leather of his stirrup, as the strap was too long for her to use, and he did not tarry to shorten it.

Coppinger was much puzzled to learn how Judith had come at such an hour to the door of Mrs. Obadiah Scantlebray, shoeless, and with wounded head, but he asked no questions. He was aware that she was not in a condition to answer them.

He held her up with his right hand in the saddle, and with his left he held her foot in the leather. Were she to fall she might drag by the foot, and he must be on his guard against that. Pacing in the darkness, holding her, his heart beat, and his thoughts tossed and boiled within him. This girl so feeble, so childish, he was coming across incessantly, thrown in her way to help her, and he was bound to her by ties invisible, impalpable, and yet of such strength that he could not break through them and free himself.

He was a man of indomitable will, of iron strength, staying up this girl, who had flickered out of unconsciousness and might slide back into it again at any moment, and yet he felt, he knew that he was powerless before her—that if she said to him, “Lie down that I may trample on you,” he would throw himself in the foul road without a word to be trodden under by these shoeless feet. There was but one command she could lay on him that he would not perform, and that was “Let me go by myself! Never come near me!” That he could not obey. The rugged moon revolves about the earth. Could the moon fly away into space were the terrestrial orb to bid it cease to be a satellite? And if it did, whither would it go? Into far off space, into outer darkness and deathly cold, to split and shiver into fragments in the inconceivable frost in the abyss of blackness. And Judith threw a sort of light and heat over this fierce, undisciplined man, that trembled in his veins and bathed his heart, and was to him a spring of beauty, a summer of light. Could he leave her? To leave her would be to be lost to everything that had now begun to transform his existence. The thought came over him now, as he walked along in silence—that she might bid him let go, and he felt that he could not obey. He must hold her, he must hold her not from him on the saddle, not as merely staying her up, but to himself, to his heart, as his own, his own forever.

Suddenly an exclamation from Judith: “Jamie! Jamie!”

Something was visible in the darkness, something whitish in the hedge. In another moment it came bounding up.

“Ju! oh, Ju! I ran away!”

“You did well,” she said. “Now I am happy. You are saved.”

Coppinger looked impatiently round and saw by the feeble light that the boy had come close to him, and that he was wrapped up in a blanket.

“He has nothing on him,” said Judith. “Oh, poor Jamie!”

She had revived; she was almost herself again. She held herself more firmly in the saddle and did not lean so heavily on Coppinger’s hand.

Coppinger was vexed at the appearance of the boy, Jamie; he would fain have paced along in silence by the side of Judith. If she could not speak it mattered not so long as he held her. But that this fool should spring out of the darkness and join company with him and her, and at once awake her interest and loosen her tongue, irritated him. But as she was able to speak he would address her, and not allow her to talk over his head with Jamie.

“How have you been hurt?” he asked. “Why have you tied that bandage about your head?”

“I have been cut by a stone.”

“How came that?”

“A drunken man threw it at me.”

“What was his name?”

“I do not know.”

“That is well for him.” Then, after a short pause, he asked further, “And your unshod feet?”

“Oh! I gave my shoes to Jamie.”

Coppinger turned sharply round on the boy. “Take off those shoes instantly and give them back to your sister.”

“No—indeed, no,” said Judith. “He is running and will cut his poor feet—and I, through your kindness, am riding.”

Coppinger did not insist. He asked: “But how comes the boy to be without clothes?”

“Because I rescued him, as he was, from the Asylum.”

“You—! Is that why you are out at night?”

“Yes. I knew he had been taken by the two Mr. Scantlebrays at Wadebridge, and I could not rest. I felt sure he was miserable, and was dying for me.”

“So—in the night you went to him?”

“Yes.”

“But how did you get him his freedom?”

“I found him locked in the black-hole, in the cellar.”

“And did Scantlebray look on passively while you released him?”

“Oh, no, I let Jamie out, and locked him in, in his place.”

“You—Scantlebray in the black-hole!”

“Yes.”

Then Coppinger laughed, laughed long and boisterously. His hand that held Judith’s foot and the stirrup leather shook with his laughter.

“By Heaven!—You are wonderful, very wonderful. Any one who opposes you is ill-treated, knocked down and broken, or locked into a black hole in the dead of night.”

Judith, in spite of her exhaustion, was obliged to smile.

“You see, I must do what I can for Jamie.”

“Always Jamie.”

“Yes, Captain Coppinger, always Jamie. He is helpless and must be thought for. I am mother, nurse, sister to him.”

“His providence,” sneered Coppinger.

“The means under Providence of preserving him,” said Judith.

“And me—would you do aught for me?”

“Did I not come down the cliffs for you?” asked the girl.

“Heaven forgive me that I forgot that for one moment,” he answered, with vehemence. “Happy—happy—happiest of any in this vile world is the man for whom you will think, and scheme and care and dare—as you do for Jamie.”

“There is none such,” said Judith.

“No—I know that,” he answered, gloomily, and strode forward with his head down.

Ten minutes had elapsed in silence, and Polzeath was approached. Then suddenly Coppinger let go his hold of Judith, caught the rein of Black Bess, and arrested her. Standing beside Judith, he said, in a peevish, low tone:

“I touched your hand, and said I was subject to a queen.” He bent, took her foot and kissed it. “You repulsed me as subject; you are my mistress!—accept me as your slave.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AN EXAMINATION.

Some days had elapsed. Judith had not suffered from her second night expedition as she had from the first, but the intellectual abilities of Jamie had deteriorated. The fright he had undergone had shaken his nerves, and had made him more restless, timid, and helpless than heretofore, exacting more of Judith’s attention and more trying her endurance. But she trusted these ill effects would pass away in time. From his rambling talk she had been able to gather some particulars, which to a degree modified her opinion relative to the behavior of Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray. It appeared from the boy’s own account that he had been very troublesome. After he had been taken into the wing of the establishment that was occupied by the imbeciles, his alarm and bewilderment had grown. He had begun to cry and to clamor for his release, or for the presence of his sister. As night came on, paroxysms of impotent rage had alternated with fits of whining. The appearance of his companions in confinement, some of them complete idiots, with half-human gestures and faces, had enhanced his terrors. He would eat no supper, and when put to bed in the common dormitory had thrown off his clothes, torn his sheets, and refused to lie down; had sat up and screamed at the top of his voice. Nothing that could be done, no representations would pacify him. He prevented his fellow inmates of the asylum from sleeping, and he made it not at all improbable that his cries would be overheard by passers-by in the street, or those occupying neighboring houses, and thus give rise to unpleasant surmises, and perhaps inquiry. Finally, Scantlebray had removed the boy to the place of punishment, the Black Hole, a compartment of the cellars, there to keep him till his lungs were exhausted, or his reason gained the upper hand, and Judith supposed, with some justice, that Scantlebray had done this only, or chiefly, because he himself would be up, and about the cellars, engaged in housing his supplies of brandy, and that he had no intention of locking the unhappy boy up for the entire night, in solitude, in his cellars. He had not left him in complete darkness, for a candle had been placed on the ground outside the Black Hole door.

As Judith saw the matter now, it seemed to her that though Scantlebray had acted with harshness and lack of judgment there was some palliation for his conduct. That Jamie could be most exasperating, she knew full well by experience. When he went into one of his fits of temper and crying, it took many hours and much patience to pacify him. She had spent long time and exhausted her efforts to bring him to a subdued frame of mind on the most irrational and trifling occasions, when he had been angered. Nothing answered with him then save infinite forbearance and exuberant love. On this occasion there was good excuse for Jamie’s fit, he had been frightened, and frightened out of his few wits. As Judith said to herself—had she been treated in the same manner, spirited off, without preparation, to a strange house, confined among afflicted beings, deprived of every familiar companion—she would have been filled with terror, and reasonably so. She would not have exhibited it, however, in the same manner as Jamie.

Scantlebray had not acted with gentleness, but he had not, on the other hand, exhibited wanton cruelty. That he was a man of coarse nature, likely on provocation to break through the superficial veneer of amiability, she concluded from her own experience, and she did not doubt that those of the unfortunate inmates of the asylum who overstrained his forbearance met with very rough handling. But that he took a malignant pleasure in harassing and torturing them, that she did not believe.

On the day following the escape from the asylum, Judith sent Mr. Menaida to Wadebridge with the blanket that had been carried off round the shoulders of her brother, and with a request to have Jamie’s clothes surrendered. Uncle Zachie returned with the garments, they were not refused him, and Judith and her brother settled down into the routine of employment and amusement as before. The lad assisted Mr. Menaida with his bird skins, talking a little more childishly than before, and sticking less assiduously to his task; and Judith did her needlework and occasionally played on the piano the pieces of music at which Uncle Zachie had hammered ineffectually for many years, and she played them to the old man’s satisfaction.

At last the girl ventured to induce Jamie to recommence his lessons. He resisted at first, and when she did, on a rainy day, persuade him to set to his school tasks, she was careful not to hold him to them for more than a few minutes, and to select those lessons which made him least impatient.

There was a “Goldsmith’s Geography,” illustrated with copper-plates of Indians attacking Captain Cook, the geysers, Esquimaux fishing, etc., that always amused the boy. Accordingly, more geography was done during these first days of resumption of work than history, arithmetic, or reading. Latin had not yet been attempted, as that was Jamie’s particular aversion. However, the Eton Latin grammar was produced, and placed on the table, to familiarize his mind with the idea that it had to be tackled some day.

Judith had spread the table with lesson-books, ink, slate, and writing-copies, one morning, when she was surprised at the entry of four gentlemen, two of whom she recognized immediately as the Brothers Scantlebray. The other two she did not know. One was thin faced, with red hair, a high forehead extending to the crown, with the hair drawn over it, and well pomatumed, to keep it in place, and conceal the baldness; the other a short man, in knee-breeches and tan-boots, with a red face, and with breath that perfumed the whole room with spirits.

Mr. Scantlebray, senior, came up with both hands extended. “This is splendid! How are you? Never more charmed in my life, and ready to impart knowledge, as the sun diffuses light. Obadiah, old man, look at your pupil—better already for having passed through your hands. I can see it at a glance; there’s a brightness, a Je ne sais quoi about him that was not there before. Old man, I congratulate you. You have a gift—shake hands.”

The gentlemen seated themselves without invitation. Surprise and alarm made Judith forget her usual courtesy. She feared lest the sight of his gaolers might excite Jamie. But it was not so. Whether, in his confused mind, he did not associate Mr. Obadiah with his troubles on that night of distress, or whether his attention was distracted by the sight of so many, was doubtful, but Jamie did not seem to be disconcerted; rather, on the contrary, he was glad of some excuse for escape from lessons.

“We are come,” said the red-headed man, “at Miss Trevisa’s desire—but really, Mr. Scantlebray, for shame of you. Where are your manners? Introduce me.”

“Mr. Vokins,” said Scantlebray, “and the accomplished and charming Miss Judith Trevisa, orphing.”

“And now, dear young lady,” said the red-headed man, “now, positively, it is my turn—my friend, Mr. Jukes. Jukes, man! Miss Judith Trevisa.”

Then Mr. Vokins coughed into his thin white hand, and said, “We are come, naturally—and I am sure you wish what Miss Trevisa wishes—to just look at your brother, and give our opinion on his health.”

“Oh, he is quite well,” said Judith.

“Ah! you think so, naturally, but we would decide for ourselves, dearest young lady, though—not for the world would we willingly differ from you. But, you know, there are questions on which varieties of opinions are allowable, and yet do not disturb the most heartfelt friendship. It is so, is it not, Jukes?”

The rubicund man in knee-breeches nodded.

“Shall I begin, Jukes? Why, my fine little man! What an array of books! What scholarship! And at your age, too—astounding! What age did you say you were?” This to Jamie in an insinuating tone. Jamie stared, looked appealingly at Judith, and said nothing.

“We are the same age, we are twins,” said Judith.

“Oh! it is not the right thing to appear anxious to know a lady’s age. We will put it another way, eh, Jukes?”

The red-faced man leaned his hands on his stick, his chin on his hands, and winked, as in that position he could not nod.

“Now, my fine little man! When is your birthday? When you have your cake—raisin-cake, eh?”

Jamie looked questioningly at his sister.

“Ah! Come, not the day of the month—but the month, eh?”

Jamie could not answer.

“Come now,” said the red-headed levy man, stretching his legs before him, legs vested in white trousers, strapped down tight. “Come now, my splendid specimen of humanity! In which quarter of the year? Between sickle and scythe, eh?” He waited, and receiving no answer, pulled out a pocket-book and made a note, after having first wetted the end of his pencil. “Don’t know when he was born. What do you say to that, Jukes? Will you take your turn?”

The man with an inflamed face was gradually becoming purple, as he leaned forward on his stick, and said, “Humph! a Latin grammar. Propria quæ maribus. I remember it, but it was a long time ago I learned it. Now, whipper-snapper! How do you get on? Propria quæ maribus—Go on.” He waited. Jamie looked at him in astonishment. “Come! Tribu—” again he waited. “Come! Tribuntur mascula dicas. Go on.” Again a pause. Then with an impatient growl. “Ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo. This will never do. Go on with the Scaramouch, Vokins. I’ll make my annotations.”

“He’s too hard on my little chap, ain’t he?” asked the thin man in ducks. “We won’t be done. We are not old enough——”

“He is but eighteen,” said Judith.

“He is but eighteen,” repeated the red-headed man. “Of course he has not got so far as that, but musa, musæ.”

Jamie turned sulky.

“Not musa, musæ—and eighteen years! Jukes, this is serious, Jukes; eh, Jukes?”

“Now look here, you fellows,” said Scantlebray, senior. “You are too exacting. It’s holiday time, ain’t it, Orphing? We won’t be put upon, not we. We’ll sport, and frolic, and be joyful. Look here, Scanty, old man, take the slate and draw a pictur’ to my describing. Now then, Jamie, look at him and hearken to me. He’s the funniest old man that ever was, and he’ll surprise you. Are you ready, Scanty?” Mr. Obadiah drew the slate before him, and signed with the pencil to Jamie to observe him. The boy was quite ready to see him draw.

“There was once upon a time,” began Mr. Scantlebray, senior, “a man that lived in a round tower. Look at him, draw it, there you are. That is the tower. Go on. And in the tower was a round winder. Do you see the winder, Orphing? This man every morning put his hand out of the winder to ascertain which way the wind blew. He put it in thus, and drew it out thus. No! don’t look at me, look at the slate and then you’ll see it all. Now this man had a large pond, preserved full of fish.” Scratch, scratch went the pencil on the slate. “Them’s the fish,” said Scantlebray, senior. “Now below the situation of that pond, in two huts, lived a pair of thieves. You see them pokey things my brother has drawn? Them’s the ’uts. When night set in, these wicked thieves came walking up to the pond, see my brother drawing their respective courses! And on reaching the pond, they opened the sluice, and whish! whish! out poured the water.” Scratch, scratch, squeak, squeak, went the pencil on the slate. “There now! the naughty robbers went after fish, and got a goose! Look! a goo-oose.”

“Where’s the goose?” asked Jamie.

“Where? Before your eyes—under your nose. That brilliant brother of mine has drawn one. Hold the slate up, Scanty.”

“That’s not a goose,” said Jamie.

“Not a goose! You don’t know what geese are.”

“Yes, I do,” retorted the boy, resentfully, “I know the wild goose and the tame one—which do you call that?”

“Oh, wild goose, of course.”

“It’s not one. A goose hasn’t a tail like that, nor such legs,” said Jamie, contemptuously.

Mr. Scantlebray, senior, looked at Messrs. Vokins and Jukes and shook his head. “A bad case. Don’t know a goose when he sees it—and he is eighteen.”

Both Vokins and Jukes made an entry in their pocket-books.

“Now Jukes,” said Vokins, “will you take a turn, or shall I?”

“Oh, you, Vokins,” answered Jukes, “I haven’t recovered propria quæ maribus, yet.”

“Very well, my interesting young friend. Suppose now we change the subject and try arithmetic.”

“I don’t want any arithmetic,” said Jamie, sulkily.

“No—come—now we won’t call it by that name; suppose some one were to give you a shilling.”

Jamie looked up interested.

“And suppose he were to say. There—go and buy sweeties with this shilling. Tartlets at three for two pence, and barley-sugar at three farthings a stick, and——”

“I want my shilling back,” said Jamie, looking straight into the face of Mr. Scantlebray, senior.

“And that there were burnt almonds at two pence an ounce.”

“I want my shilling,” exclaimed the boy, angrily.

“Your shilling, puff! puff!” said the red-headed man. “This is ideal, an ideal shilling, and ideal jam-tarts, almond rock, burnt almonds or what you like.”

“Give me back my shilling. I won it fair,” persisted Jamie.

Then Judith, distressed, interfered. “Jamie, dear! what do you mean? You have no shilling owing to you.”

“I have! I have!” screamed the boy. “I won it fair of that man there, because I made a rabbit, and he took it from me again.”

“Hallucinations,” said Jukes.

“Quite so,” said Vokins.

“Give me my shilling. It is a cheat!” cried Jamie, now suddenly roused into one of his fits of passion.

Judith caught him by the arm, and endeavored to pacify him.

“Let go, Ju! I will have my shilling. That man took it away. He is a cheat, a thief. Give me my shilling.”

“I am afraid he is excitable,” said Vokins.

“Like all irrational beings,” answered Jukes. “I’ll make a note. Rising out of hallucinations.”

“I will have my shilling,” persisted Jamie. “Give me my shilling or I’ll throw the ink at you.”

He caught up the ink-pot, and before Judith had time to interfere had flung it across the table, intending to hit Mr. Scantlebray, senior, but not hurt him, and the black fluid was scattered over Mr. Vokins’s white trousers.

“Bless my life!” exclaimed this gentleman, springing to his feet, pulling out his handkerchief to wipe away the ink, and only smearing it the more over his “ducks” and discoloring as well, his kerchief. “Bless my life—Jukes! a dangerous lunatic. Note at once. Clearly comes within the act. Clearly.”

In a few minutes all had left, and Judith was endeavoring to pacify her irritated brother. His fingers were blackened, and finally she persuaded him to go up-stairs and wash his hands clear of the ink.

Then she ran into the adjoining room to Mr. Menaida. “Oh, dear Mr. Menaida!” she said, “what does this mean? Why have they been here?”

Uncle Zachie looked grave and discomposed.

“My dear,” said he. “Those were doctors, and they have been here, sent by your aunt, to examine into the condition of Jamie’s intellect, and to report on what they have observed. There was a little going beyond the law, perhaps, at first. That is why they took it so easily when you carried Jamie off. They knew you were with an old lawyer; they knew that you or I could sue for a writ of Habeas Corpus.”

“But do you really think—that Aunt Dionysia is going to have Jamie sent back to that man at Wadebridge?”

“I am certain of it. That is why they came here to-day.”

“Can I not prevent it?”

“I do not think so. If you go to law——”

“But if they once get him, they will make an idiot or a madman of him.”

“Then you must see your aunt and persuade her not to send him there.”

CHAPTER XXIX.

ON A PEACOCK’S FEATHER.

As Mr. Menaida spoke, Miss Dionysia Trevisa entered, stiff, hard, and when her eyes fell on Judith, they contracted with an expression of antipathy. In the eyes alone was this observable, for her face was immovable.

“Auntie!” exclaimed Judith, drawing her into the sitting-room, and pressing her to take the arm chair.

“Oh, Auntie! I have so longed to see you—there have been some dreadful men here—doctors I think—and they have been teasing Jamie, till they had worked him into one of his temper fits.”

“I sent them here, and for good reasons. Jamie is to go back to Wadebridge.”

“No—indeed no! auntie! do not say that. You would not say it if you knew all.”

“I know quite enough. More than is pleasing to me. I have heard of your outrageous and unbecoming conduct. Hoity! toity! To think that a Trevisa—but there you are one only in name—should go out at night, about the streets and lanes, like a common stray. Bless me! you might have knocked me down with a touch, when I was told of it.”

“I did nothing outrageous and unbecoming, aunt. You may be sure of that. I am quite aware that I am a Trevisa, and a gentlewoman, and something higher than that, aunt—a Christian. My father never let me forget that.”

“Your conduct was—well I will give it no expletive.”

“Aunt, I did what was right. I was sure that Jamie was unhappy and wanted me. I cannot tell you how I knew it, but I was certain of it, and I had no peace till I went; and, as I found the garden door open, I went in, and as I went in I found Jamie locked up in the cellars, and I freed him. Had you found him there, you would have done the same.”

“I have heard all about it. I want no repetition of a very scandalous story. Against my will I am burdened with an intolerable obligation, to look after an idiot nephew and a niece that is a self-willed and perverse Miss.”

“Jamie is no idiot,” answered Judith, firmly.

“Jamie is what those pronounce him to be, who by their age, their profession, and their inquiries are calculated to judge better than an ignorant girl, not out of her teens.”

“Auntie I believe you have been misinformed. Listen to me, and I will tell you what happened. As for those men——”

“Those men were doctors. Perhaps they were misinformed when they went through the College of Surgeons, were misinformed by all the medical books they have read, were misdirected by all the study of the mental and bodily maladies of men they have made, in their professional course.”

“I wish, dear Aunt Dionysia, you would take Jamie to be with you a few weeks, talk to him, play with him, go walks with him, and you will never say that he is an idiot. He needs careful management, and also a little application——”

“Enough of that theme,” interrupted Miss Trevisa, “I have not come here to be drawn into an argument, or to listen to your ideas of the condition of that unhappy, troublesome, that provoking boy. I wish to heaven I had not the responsibility for him, that has been thrust on me, but as I have to exercise it, and there is no one to relieve me of it, I must do my best, though it is a great expense to me. Seventy pounds is not seventy shillings, nor is it seventy pence.”

“Aunt, he is not to go back to the asylum. He must not go.”

“Hoity-toity! must not indeed. You, a minx of eighteen to dictate to me! Must not, indeed! You seem to think that you, and not I, are Jamie’s guardian.”

“Papa entrusted him to me with his last words.”

“I know nothing about last words. In his will I am constituted his guardian and yours, and as such I shall act as my convenience—conscience I mean, dictates.”

“But, Aunt! Jamie is not to go back to Wadebridge. Aunt! I entreat you! I know what that place is. I have been inside it, you have not. And just think of Jamie on the very first night being locked up there.”

“He richly deserved it, I will be bound.”

“Oh, Aunt! How could he? How could he?”

“Of that Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray was the best judge. Why he had to be punished you do not know.”

“Indeed I do. He cried because the place was strange, and he was among strange faces. Aunt—if you were whipped off to Timbuctoo, and suddenly found yourself among savages, and in a rush apron, as the squaw of a black chief, or whatever they call their wives in Timbuctoo land, would you not scream?”

“Judith,” said Miss Trevisa, bridling up. “You forget yourself.”

“No, Aunt! I am only pleading for Jamie, trying to make you feel for him, when he was locked up in an asylum. How would you like it, Aunt, if you were snatched away to Barthelmy fair, and suddenly found yourself among tight-rope dancers, and Jack Puddings?”

“Judith, I insist on you holding your tongue. I object to being associated even in fancy, with such creatures.”

“Well—but Jamie was associated, not in fancy, but in horrible reality, with idiots.”

“Jamie goes to Scantlebray’s Asylum to-day.”

“Auntie!”

“He is already in the hands of the brothers Scantlebray.”

“Oh, Auntie—no—no!”

“It is no pleasure to me to have to find the money, you may well believe. Seventy pounds is not, as I said, seventy pence, it is not seventy farthings. But duty is duty, and however painful and unpleasant and costly, it must be performed.”

Then from the adjoining room, “the shop,” came Mr. Menaida.

“I beg pardon for an interruption and for interference,” said he. “I happen to have overheard what has passed, as I was engaged in the next room, and I believe that I can make a proposal which will perhaps be acceptable to you, Miss Trevisa, and grateful to Miss Judith.”

“I am ready to listen to you,” said Aunt Dionysia, haughtily.

“It is this,” said Uncle Zachie. “I understand that pecuniary matters concerning Jamie are a little irksome. Now the boy, if he puts his mind to it, can be useful to me. He has a remarkable aptitude for taxidermy. I have more orders on my hands than I can attend to. I am a gentleman, not a tradesman, and I object to be oppressed—flattened out—with the orders piled on top of me. But if the boy will help, he can earn sufficient to pay for his living here with me.”

“Oh, Mr. Menaida, dear Mr. Menaida! thank you so much,” exclaimed Judith.

“Perhaps you will allow me to speak,” said Miss Trevisa, with asperity. “I am guardian, and not you, whatever you may think from certain vague expressions breathed casually from my poor brother’s lips, and to which you have attached an importance he never gave to them.”

“Aunt, I assure you, my dear papa——”

“That question is closed. We will not reopen it. I am a Trevisa. I can’t for a moment imagine where you got those ideas. Not from your father’s family, I am sure. Tight-rope dancers and Timbuctoos, indeed!” Then she turned to Mr. Menaida, and said, in her hard, constrained voice, as though she were exercising great moral control to prevent herself from snapping at him with her teeth. “Your proposal is kind and well intentioned, but I cannot accept it.”

“Oh, Aunt! why not?”

“That you shall hear. I must beg you not to interrupt me. You are so familiar with the manners of Timbuctoo and of Barthelmy Fair, that you forget those pertaining to England and polished society.” Then, turning to Mr. Menaida, she said: “I thank you for your well-intentioned proposal, which, however, it is not possible for me to close with. I must consider the boy’s ulterior advantage, not the immediate relief to my sorely-taxed purse. I have thought proper to place Jamie with a person, a gentleman of experience, and highly qualified to deal with those mentally afflicted. However much I may value you, Mr. Menaida, you must excuse me for saying that firmness is not a quality you have cultivated with assiduity. Judith, my niece, has almost ruined the boy by humoring him. You cannot stiffen a jelly by setting it in the sun, or in a chair before the fire, and that is what my niece has been doing. The boy must be isinglassed into solidity by those who know how to treat him. Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray is the man——”

“To manufacture idiots, madam, out of simple innocents, it is worth his while at seventy pounds a year,” said Uncle Zachie, petulantly.

Miss Trevisa looked at him stonily, and said: “Sir! I suppose you know best. But it strikes me that such a statement, relative to Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray, is actionable. But you know best, being a solicitor.”

Mr. Menaida winced and drew back.

Judith leaned against the mantel-shelf, trembling with anxiety and some anger. She thought that her aunt was acting in a heartless manner toward Jamie, that there was no good reason for refusing the generous offer of Uncle Zachie. In her agitation, unable to keep her fingers at rest, the girl played with the little chimney ornaments. She must occupy her nervous, twitching hands about something; tears of distressed mortification were swelling in her heart, and a fire was burning in two flames in her cheeks. What could she do to save Jamie? What would become of the boy at the asylum? It seemed to her that he would be driven out of his few wits, by terror and ill-treatment, and distress at leaving her and losing his liberty to ramble about the cliffs where he liked. In a vase on the chimney-piece was a bunch of peacock’s feathers, and in her agitation, not thinking what she was about, desirous only of having something to pick at and play with in her hands, to disguise the trembling of the fingers, she took out one of the plumes and trifled with it, waving it and letting the light undulate over its wondrous surface of gold and green and blue.

“As long as I have responsibility for the urchin——” said Miss Dionysia.

“Urchin!” muttered Judith.

“As long as I have the charge I shall do my duty according to my lights, though they may not be those of a rush-aproned squaw in Timbuctoo, nor of a Jack Pudding balancing a feather on his nose.” There was here a spiteful glance at Judith. “When my niece has a home of her own—is settled into a position of security and comfort—then I wash my hands of the responsibility; she may do what she likes then—bring her brother to live with her if she chooses and her husband consents—that will be naught to me.”

“And in the mean time,” said Judith, holding the peacock’s feather very still before her, “in the mean time Jamie’s mind is withered and stunted—his whole life is spoiled. Now—now alone can he be given a turn aright and toward growth.”

“That entirely depends on you,” said Miss Trevisa, coldly. “You know best what opportunities have offered——”

“Aunt, what do you mean?”

“Wait,” said Uncle Zachie, rubbing his hands. “My boy Oliver is coming home. He has written his situation is a good one now.”

Miss Trevisa turned on him with a face of marble. “I entirely fail to see what your son Oliver has to do with the matter, more than the man in the moon. May I trouble you, as you so deeply interest yourself in our concerns, to step outside to Messrs. Scantlebray and that boy, and ask them to bring him in here. I have told them what the circumstances are, and they are prepared.”

Mr. Menaida left the room, not altogether unwilling to escape.

“Now,” said Aunt Dionysia, “I am relieved to find that for a minute, we are by ourselves, not subjected to the prying and eavesdropping of the impertinent and meddlesome. Mr. Menaida is a man who never did good to himself or to anyone else in his life, though a man with the best intentions under the sun. Now, Judith, I am a plain woman—that is to say—not plain, but straightforward—and I like to have everything above board. The case stands thus. I, in my capacity as guardian to that boy, am resolved to consign him immediately to the asylum, and to retain him there as long as my authority lasts, though it will cost me a pretty sum. You do not desire that he should go there. Well and good. There is but one way, but that is effectual, by means of which you can free Jamie from restraint. Let me tell you he is now in the hands of Mr. Obadiah, and gagged that he may not rouse the neighborhood with his screams.” Miss Trevisa fixed her hard eyes on Judith. “As soon as you take the responsibility off me, and on to yourself, you do with the boy what you like.”

“I will relieve you at once.”

“You are not in a condition to do so. As soon as I am satisfied that your future is secure, that you will have a house to call your own, and a certainty of subsistence for you both—then I will lay down my charge.”

“And you mean——”

“I mean that you must first accept Captain Coppinger, who has been good enough to find you not intolerable. He is—in this one particular—unreasonable, however, he is what he is, in this matter. He makes you the offer, gives you the chance. Take it, and you provide Jamie and yourself with a home, he has his freedom, and you can manage or mismanage him as you list. Refuse the chance and Jamie is lodged in Mr. Scantlebray’s establishment within an hour.”

“I cannot decide this on the spur of the moment.”

“Very well. You can let Jamie go provisionally to the asylum—and stay there till you have made up your mind.”

“No—no—no—Aunt! Never, never!”

“As you will.” Miss Trevisa shrugged her shoulders, and cast a glance at her niece like a dagger-stab.

“Auntie—I am but a child.”

“That may be. But there are times when even children must decide momentous questions. A boy as a child decides on his profession, a girl—may be—on her marriage.”

“Oh, dear Auntie! Do leave Jamie here for, say a fortnight, and in a fortnight from to-day you shall have my answer.”

“No,” answered Miss Trevisa, “I also must decide as to my future, for your decision affects not Jamie only but me also.”

Judith had listened in great self-restraint, holding the feather before her. She held it between thumb and forefinger of both hands, not concerning herself about it, and yet with her eyes watching the undulations from the end of the quill to the deep blue eye set in a halo of gold at the further end, and the feather undulated with every rise and fall of her bosom.

“Surely, Auntie! You cannot wish me to marry Cruel Coppinger?”

“I have no wishes one way or the other. Please yourself.”

“But, Auntie——”

“You profess to be ready to do all you can for Jamie and yet hesitate about relieving me of an irksome charge, and Jamie of what you consider barbarous treatment.”

“You cannot be serious—I to marry Captain Cruel!”

“It is a serious offer.”

“But papa!—what would he say?”

“I never was in a position to tell his thoughts and guess what his words would be.”

“But, Auntie—he is such a bad man.”

“You know a great deal more about him than I do, of course.”

“But—he is a smuggler, I do know that.”

“Well—and what of that. There is no crime in that.”

“It is not an honest profession. They say, too, that he is a wrecker.”

“They say!—who say? What do you know?”

“Nothing, but I am not likely to trust my future to a man of whom such tales are told. Auntie! Would you, supposing that you were——”

“I will have none of your suppositions, I never did wear a rush apron, nor act as Jack Pudding.”

“I cannot—Captain Cruel of all men.”

“Is he so hateful to you?”

“Hateful—no; but I cannot like him. He has been kind, but—somehow I can’t think of him as—as—as a man of our class and thoughts and ways, as one worthy of my own, own papa. No—it is impossible, I am still a child.”

She took the end of the peacock’s feather, the splendid eye lustrous with metallic beauty, and bowed the plume without breaking it, and, unconscious of what she was doing, stroked her lips with it. What a fragile fine quill that was on which hung so much beauty? and how worthless the feather would be when that quill was broken. And so with her—her fine, elastic, strong spirit, that when bowed sprang to its uprightness the moment the pressure was withdrawn; that on which all her charm, her beauty hung.

“Captain Coppinger has, surely, never asked you to put this alternative to me?”

“No—I do it myself. As you are a child, you are unfit to take charge of your brother. When you are engaged to be married you are a woman; I shift my load on you then.”

“And you wish it?”

“I repeat I have no wishes in the matter.”

“Give me time to consider.”

“No. It must be decided now—that is to say if you do not wish Jamie to be taken away. Don’t fancy I want to persuade you; but I want to be satisfied about my own future. I shall not remain in Pentyre with you. As you enter by the front door, I leave by the back.”

“Where will you go?”

“That is my affair.”

Then in at the door came the two Scantlebrays and Jamie between them, gagged and with his hands bound behind his back. He had run out, directly his examination was over, and had been secured, almost without resistance, so taken by surprise was he, and reduced to a condition of helplessness.

Judith leaned against the mantel-shelf, with every tinge of color gone out of her cheeks. Jamie’s frightened eyes met hers, and he made a slight struggle to speak, and to escape to her.

“You have a close conveyance ready for your patient?” asked Aunt Dionysia of the brothers.

“Oh, yes, a very snug little box on wheels. Scanty and I will sit with our young man, to prevent his feeling dull, you know.”

“You understand, gentlemen, what I told you, that in the deciding whether the boy is to go with you or not, I am not the only one to be considered. If I have my will, go he shall, as I am convinced that your establishment is the very place for him; but my niece, Miss Judith, has at her option the chance of taking the responsibility for the boy off my shoulders, and if she chooses to do that, why then, I fear she will continue to spoil him, as she has done heretofore.”

“It has cost us time and money,” said Scantlebray, senior.

“And you shall be paid, whichever way is decided,” said Miss Trevisa. “Every thing now rests with my niece.”

Judith seemed as one petrified. One hand was on her bosom, staying her heart, the other held the peacock’s feather before her, horizontally. Every particle of color had deserted, not her face only, but her hands as well. Her eyes were sunless, her lips contracted and livid. She was motionless as a parian statue, she hardly seemed to breathe. She perfectly understood what her aunt had laid upon her, her bodily sensations were dead whilst a conflict of ideas raged in her brain. She was the arbiter of Jamie’s fate. She did not disguise from herself that if consigned to the keeper of the asylum, though only for a week or two, he would not leave his charge the same as he entered. And what would it avail her or him to postpone the decision a week or a fortnight.

The brothers Scantlebray knew nothing of the question agitating her, but they saw that the determination at which she was resolving was one that cost her all her powers. Mr. Obadiah’s heavy mind did not exert itself to probe the secret, but the more eager intellect of his elder brother was alert, and wondering what might be the matter that so affected the girl, and made it so difficult for her to pronounce the decision. The hard eyes of Miss Trevisa were fixed on her. Judith’s answer would decide her future—on it depended Othello Cottage, and an annuity of fifty pounds. Jamie looked through a veil of tears at his sister, and never for a moment turned them from her, from the moment of his entry into the room. Instinctively the boy felt that his freedom and happiness depended on her.

One or the other must be sacrificed. That Judith saw Jamie was dull of mind, but there were possibilities of development in it. And, even if he remained where he was, he was happy, happy and really harmless, if a little mischievous; an offer had been made which was likely to lead him on into industrious ways, and to teach him application. He loved his liberty, loved it as does the gull. In an asylum he would pine, his mind become more enfeebled, and he would die. But then—what a price must be paid to save him? Oh, if she could have put the question to her father. But she had none to appeal to for advice. If she gave to Jamie liberty and happiness, it was at the certain sacrifice of her own. But there was no evading the decision, one or the other must go.

She stretched forth the peacock’s feather, laid the great indigo blue eye on the bands that held Jamie, on his gagged lips, and said: “Let him go.”

“You agree!” exclaimed Miss Trevisa.

Judith doubled the peacock’s feather and broke it.

CHAPTER XXX.

THROUGH THE TAMARISKS.

For some time after Judith had given her consent, and had released Jamie from the hands of the Scantlebrays, she remained still and white. Uncle Zachie missed the music to which he had become used, and complained. She then seated herself at the piano, but was distraught, played badly, and the old bird-stuffer went away grumbling to his shop.

Jamie was happy, delighted not to be afflicted with lessons, and forgot past troubles in present pleasures. That the recovery of his liberty had been bought at a heavy price, he did not know, and would not have appreciated it had he been told the sacrifice Judith had been ready to make for his sake.

In the garden behind the cottage was an arbor, composed of half a boat set up, that is to say, an old boat sawn in half, and erected so that it served as a shelter to a seat, which was fixed into the earth on posts. From one side of this boat a trellis had been drawn, and covered with eschalonia, and a seat placed here as well, so that in this rude arbor it was possible for more than one to find accommodation. Here Judith and Jamie often sat; the back of the boat was set against the prevailing wind from the sea, and on this coast the air is unusually soft at the same time that it is bracing, enjoyable wherever a little shelter is provided against its violence. For violent it can be, and can buffet severely, yet its blows are those of a pillow.

Here Judith was sitting one afternoon, alone, lost in a dream, when Uncle Zachie came into the garden with his pipe in his mouth, to stretch his legs, after a few minutes’ work at stuffing a cormorant.

In her lap lay a stocking Judith was knitting for her brother, but she had made few stitches, and yet had been an hour in the summer-house. The garden of Mr. Menaida was hedged off from a neighbor’s grounds by a low wall of stone and clay and sand, in and out of which grew roughly strong tamarisks now in their full pale pink blossom. The eyes of Judith had been on these tamarisks, waving like plumes in the sea-air, when she was startled from her reverie by the voice of Uncle Zachie.

“Why, Miss Judith! What is the matter with you? Dull, eh? Ah—wait a bit, when Oliver comes home we shall have mirth. He is full of merriment. A bright boy and a good son; altogether a fellow to be proud of, though I say it. He will return at the fall.”

“I am glad to hear it, Mr. Menaida. You have not seen him for many years.”

“Not for ten.”

“It will be a veritable feast to you. Does he remain long in England?”

“I cannot say. If his employers find work for him at home, then at home he will tarry, but if they consider themselves best served by him at Oporto, then to Portugal must he return.”

“Will you honor me by taking a seat near me—under the trellis?” asked Judith. “It will indeed be a pleasure to me to have a talk with you; and I do need it very sore. My heart is so full that I feel I must spill some of it before a friend.”

“Then indeed I will hold out both hands to catch the sweetness.”

“Nay—it is bitter, not sweet, bitter as gall, and briny as the ocean.”

“Not possible; a little salt gives savor.”

She shook her head, took up the stocking, did a couple of stitches, and put it down again. The sea-breeze that tossed the pink bunches of tamarisk waved stray tresses of her red-gold hair, but somehow the brilliancy, the burnish, seemed gone from it. Her eyes were sunken, and there was a greenish tinge about the ivory white surrounding her mouth.

“I cannot work, dear Mr. Menaida; I am so sorry that I should have played badly that sonata last night. I knew it fretted you, but I could not help myself, my mind is so selfishly directed that I cannot attend to anything even of Beethoven’s in music, nor to stocking-knitting even for Jamie.”

“And what are the bitter—briny thoughts?”

Judith did not answer at once, she looked down into her lap, and Mr. Menaida, whose pipe was choked, went to the tamarisks and plucked a little piece, stripped off the flower and proceeded to clear the tube with it.

Presently, while Uncle Zachie’s eyes were engaged on the pipe, Judith looked up, and said hastily, “I am very young, Mr. Menaida.”

“A fault in process of rectification every day,” said he, blowing through the stem of his pipe. “I think it is clear now.”

“I mean—young to be married.”

“To be married! Zounds!” He turned his eyes on her in surprise, holding the tamarisk spill in one hand and the pipe in the other, poised in the air.

“You have not understood that I got Jamie off the other day only by taking full charge of him upon myself and relieving my aunt.”

“But—good gracious, you are not going to marry your brother.”

“My aunt would not transfer the guardianship to me unless I were qualified to undertake and exercise it properly, according to her ideas, and that could be only by my becoming engaged to be married to a man of substance.”

“Goodness help me! what a startlement! And who is the happy man to be? Not Scantlebray, senior, I trust, whose wife is dying.”

“No—Captain Coppinger.”

“Cruel Coppinger!” Uncle Zachie put down his pipe so suddenly on the bench by him that he broke it. “Cruel Coppinger! never!”

She said nothing to this, but rose and walked, with her head down, along the bank, and put her hands among the waving pink bunches of tamarisk bloom, sweeping the heads with her own delicate hand as she passed. Then she came back to the boat arbor and reseated herself.

“Dear me! Bless my heart! I could not have credited it,” gasped Mr. Menaida, “and I had such different plans in my head—but there, no more about them.”

“I had to make my election whether to take him and qualify to become Jamie’s guardian, or refrain, and then he would have been snatched away and imprisoned in that odious place again.”

“But, my dear Miss Judith—” the old man was so agitated that he did not know what he was about; he put the stick of tamarisk into his mouth in place of his pipe, and took it out to speak, put down his hand, picked up the bowl of his pipe, and tapped the end of the tamarisk spill with that; “mercy save me! What a world we do live in. And I had been building for you a castle—not in Spain, but in a contiguous country—who’d have thought it? And Cruel Coppinger, too! Upon my soul I don’t want to say I am sorry for it, and I can’t find in my heart to say I’m glad.”

“I do not expect that you will be glad—not if you have any love for me.”

The old man turned round, his eyes were watering and his face twitching.

“I have, Heaven knows! I have—yes—I mean Miss Judith.”

“Mr. Menaida,” said the girl, “you have been so kind, so considerate, that I should like to call you what every one else does—when speaking of you to one another—not to your face—Uncle Zachie.”

He put out his hand, it was shaking, and caught hers. He put the ends of the fingers to his lips; but he kept his face averted, and the water that had formed in his eyes ran down his cheeks. He did not venture to speak. He had lost command over his voice.

“You see, uncle, I have no one of whom to ask counsel. I have only aunt, and she—somehow—I feel that I cannot go to her, and get from her the advice best suited to me. Now papa is dead I am entirely alone, and I have to decide on matters most affecting my own life, and that of Jamie. I do so crave for a friend who could give me an opinion—but I have no one, if you refuse.”

He pressed her hand.

“Not that now I can go back from my word. I have passed that to Aunt Dionysia, and draw back I may not; but somehow, as I sit and think, and think, and try to screw myself up to the resolution that must be reached of giving up my hand and my whole life into the power of—of that man, I cannot attain to it. I feel like one who is condemned to cast himself down a precipice and shrinks from it, cannot make up his mind to spring, but draws back after every run made to the edge. Tell me—uncle—tell me truly, what do you think about Captain Coppinger? What do you know about him? Is he a very wicked man?”

“You ask me what I think, and also what I know,” said Mr. Menaida, releasing her hand. “I know nothing, but I have my thoughts.”

“Then tell me what you think.”

“As I have said, I know nothing. I do not know whence he comes. Some say he is a Dane, some that he is an Irishman. I cannot tell, I know nothing, but I think his intonation is Irish, and I have heard that there is a family of that name in Ireland. But this is all guesswork. One thing I do know, he speaks French like a native. Then, as to his character, I believe him to be a man of ungovernable temper, who, when his blood is roused will stick at nothing. I think him a man of very few scruples. But he has done liberal things—he is open-handed, that all say. A hard liver, and with a rough tongue, and yet with some of the polish of a gentleman; a man with the passions of a devil, but not without in him some sparks of divine light. That is what I think him to be. And if you ask me further, whether I think him a man calculated to make you happy—I say decidedly that he is not.”

Rarely before in his life had Mr. Menaida spoken with such decision.

“He has been kind to me,” said Judith. “Very kind.”

“Because he is in love with you.”

“And gentle—”

“Have you ever done aught to anger him!”

“Yes. I threw him down and broke his arm and collar-bone.”

“And won his heart by so doing.”

“Uncle Zachie, he is a smuggler.”

“Yes—there is no doubt about that.”

“Do you suppose if I were to entreat him that he would abandon smuggling? I have already had it in my heart to ask him this, but I could not bring the request over my lips.”

“I have no doubt if you asked him to throw up his smuggling that he would promise to do so. Whether he would keep his promise is another matter. Many a girl has made her lover swear to give up gambling, and on that understanding has married him; but I reckon none have been able to keep their husbands to the engagement. Gambling, smuggling, and poaching, my dear, are in the blood. A man brings the love of adventure, the love of running a risk, into the world with him. If I had been made by my wife to swear when I married never to touch a musical instrument, I might out of love for her have sworn, but I could not have kept my oath. And you—if you vowed to keep your fingers from needle and thread, and saw your gown in rags, or your husband’s linen frayed—would find an irresistible itch in the finger ends to mend and hem, and you would do it, in spite of your vows. So with a gambler, a poacher, and a smuggler, the instinct, the passion is in them and is irresistible. Don’t impose any promise on Captain Cruel, it will not influence him.”

“They tell me he is a wrecker.”

“What do you mean by a wrecker! We are all wreckers, after a storm, when a merchantman has gone to pieces on the rocks, and the shore is strewn with prizes. I have taken what I could, and I see no harm in it. When the sea throws treasures here and there, it is a sin not to take them up and use them and be thankful.”

“I do not mean that. I mean that he has been the means of luring ships to their destruction.”

“Of that I know nothing. Stories circulate whenever there is a wreck not in foul weather or with a wind on shore. But who can say whether they be true or false?”

“And about that man, Wyvill. Did he kill him?”

“There also I can say nothing, because I know nothing. All that can be said about the matter is that the Preventive man Wyvill was found at sea—or washed ashore without his head. A shark may have done it, and sharks have been found off our coast. I cannot tell. There is not a shadow of evidence that could justify an indictment. All that can be stated that makes against Coppinger is that the one is a smuggler, the other was a Preventive man, and that the latter was found dead and with his head off, an unusual circumstance, but not sufficient to show that he had been decapitated by any man, nor that the man who decapitated him was Coppinger.”

Then Mr. Menaida started up: “And—you sell yourself to this man for Jamie?”

“Yes, uncle, to make a man of Jamie.”

“On the chance, Judith, on the very doubtful chance of making a man of Jamie, you rush on the certainty of making a ruin of yourself. That man—that Coppinger to be trusted with you! A fair little vessel, richly laden, with silken sail, and cedar sides, comes skimmering over the sea, and—Heaven forgive me if I judge wrongly—but I think he is a wrecker, enticing, constraining you on to the reefs where you will break up, and all your treasures will—not fall to him—but sink; and all that will remain of you will be a battered and broken hull, and a draggled discolored sail. I cannot—I cannot endure the thought.”

“Yet it must be endured, faced and endured by me,” said Judith. “You are a cruel comforter, Uncle Zachie. I called you to encourage me, and you cast me down; to lighten my load, and you heap more on.”

“I can do no other,” gasped Mr. Menaida. Then he sprang back, with open mouth, aghast. He saw Cruel Coppinger on the other side of the hedge, he had put his hands to the tamarisk bushes, and thrust them apart and was looking through.

“Goldfish!” called Captain Coppinger, “Goldfish, come!”

Judith knew the voice and looked in the direction whence it came, and saw the large hands of Coppinger holding back the boughs of tamarisk, his dark face in the gap. She rose at once and stepped toward him.

“You are ill,” he said, fixing his sombre eyes on her.

“I am not ill in body. I have had much to harass my mind.”

“Yes, that Wadebridge business.”

“What has sprung out of it?”

“Shall I come to you, or will you to me!—through the tamarisks?”

“As you will, Captain Coppinger.”

“Come, then—up on to the hedge and jump—I will catch you in my arms. I have held you there ere this.”

“Yes, you have taken me up, now must I throw——” She did not finish the sentence; she meant, must she voluntarily throw herself into his arms?

She caught hold of the bushes and raised herself to the top of the hedge.

“By Heaven!” said he. “The tamarisk flowers have more color in them than your face.”

She stood on the summit of the bank, the tamarisks rising to her knees, waving in the wind about her. Must she resign herself to that man of whom she knew so little, whom she feared so greatly? There was no help for it. She must. He held out his arms. She sprang, and he caught her.

“I have you now,” he said, with a laugh of triumph. “You have come to me, and I will never give you up.”

CHAPTER XXXI.

AMONG THE SAND-HEAPS.

Coppinger held her in his arms, shook her hair out that it streamed over his arm, and looked into her upturned face. “Indeed you are light, lighter than when I bore you in my arms before; and you are thin and white, and the eyes, how red. You have been crying. What! this spirit, strong as a steel spring, so subdued that it gives way to weeping!”

Judith’s eyes were closed against the strong light from the sky above, and against the sight of his face bent over hers, and the fire glint of his eyes, dark as a thundercloud and as charged with lightnings. And now there was a flashing of fire from them, of love and pride and admiration. The strong man trembled beneath his burden in the vehemence of his emotion. The boiling and paining of his heart within him, as he held the frail child in his arms, and knew she was to be his own, his own wholly, in a short space. It was for the moment to him as though all earth and sea and heaven were dissolved with nebulous chaos, and the only life—the only pulses in the universe—were in him and the little creature he held to his breast. He looked into her face, down on her as Vesuvius must have looked down on lovely, marble, white Pompeii, with its gilded roofs and incense-scented temples, and restrained itself, as long as restrain its molten heart it could, before it poured forth its fires and consumed the pearly city lying in its arms.

He looked at her closed eyelids with the long golden lashes resting on the dark sunken dip beneath, at the delicate mouth drawn as with pain, at the white temples in which slowly throbbed the blue veins, at the profusion of red-gold hair streaming over his arm and almost touching the ground.

She knew that his eyes—on fire—were on her, and she dared not meet them, for there would be a shrinking—from him, no responsive leap of flame from hers.

“Shall I carry you about like this!” he asked. “I could and I would, to the world’s end, and leap with you thence into the unfathomed abyss.”

Her head, leaning back on his arm, with the gold rain falling from it, exposed her long and delicate throat of exquisite purity of tint and beauty of modelling, and as it lay a little tuft of pink tamarisk blossom, brushed off in her lap into his arms, and then caught in the light edging of her dress, at the neck.

“And you come to me of your own will?” he said.

Then Judith slightly turned her head to avoid his eyes, and said, “I have come—it was unavoidable. Let me down, that we may speak together.”

He obeyed with reluctance. Then, standing before him, she bound up and fastened her hair.

“Look!” said he, and threw open his collar. A ribbon was tied about his throat. “Do you see this?” He loosed the band and held it to her. One delicate line of gold ran along the silk, fastened to it by threads at intervals. “Your own hair. The one left with me when you first heard me speak of my heart’s wish, and you disdained me and went your way. You left me that one hair, and that one hair I have kept wound round my neck ever since, and it has seemed to me that I might still have caught my goldfish, my saucy goldfish that swam away from my hook at first.”

Judith said calmly; “Let us walk together somewhere—to St. Enodoc, to my father’s grave, and there, over that sand-heap we will settle what must be settled.”

“I will go with you where you will. You are my Queen, I your subject—it is my place to obey.”

“The subject has sometimes risen and destroyed the Queen; it has been so in France.”

“Yes, when the subject has been too hardly treated, too down-trodden, not allowed to look on and adore the Queen.”

“And,” said Judith further, “let us walk in silence, allow me the little space between here and my father’s grave to collect my thoughts, bear with me for that short distance.”

“As you will. I am your slave, as I have told you, and you my mistress have but to command.”

“Yes, but the slave sometimes becomes the master, and then is all the more tyrannous because of his former servitude.”

So they walked together, yet apart, from Polzeath to St. Enodoc, neither speaking, and it might have been a mourner’s walk at a funeral. She held her head down, and did not raise her eyes from the ground, but he continued to gaze on her with a glow of triumph and exultation in his face.

They reached at length the deserted church, sunken in the sands; it had a hole broken in the wall under the eaves in the south, rudely barricaded, through which the sacred building might be entered for such functions as a marriage, or the first part of the funeral office that must be performed in a church.

The roof was of pale gray slate, much broken, folding over the rafters like the skins on the ribs of an old horse past work. The church-yard was covered with plain sand. Gravestones were in process of being buried like those whom they commemorated. Some peeped above the sand, with a fat cherub’s head peering above the surface. Others stood high on the land side, but were banked up by sand toward the sea. Here the church-yard surface was smooth, there it was tossed with undulations, according as the sand had been swept over portions tenanted by the poor who were uncommemorated with head-stones, or over those where the well-to-do lay with their titles and virtues registered above them.

There was as yet no monument erected over the grave of the Reverend Peter Trevisa, sometime rector of St. Enodoc. The mound had been turfed over and bound down with withes. The loving hands of his daughter had planted some of the old favorite flowers from the long walk at the rectory above where he lay, but they had not as yet taken to the soil, the sand ill agreed with them, and the season of the year when their translation had taken place dissatisfied them, and they looked forlorn, drooping, and doubted whether they would make the struggle to live.

Below the church lay the mouths of the Camel, blue between sand-hills, with the Doom Bar, a long and treacherous band of shifting sands in the midst.

On reaching the graveyard Judith signed to Captain Coppinger to seat himself on a flat tombstone on the south side of her father’s grave, and she herself leaned against the headstone that marked her mother’s tomb.

“I think we should come to a thorough understanding,” she said, with composure, “that you may not expect of me what I cannot give, and know the reason why I give you anything. You call me Goldfish. Why?”

“Because of your golden hair.”

“No—that was not what sprung the idea in your brain, it was something I said to you, that you and I stood to each other in the relation of bird of prey to fish, belonging to distinct modes of life and manner of thinking, and that we could never be to one another in any other relation than that, the falcon and his prey, the flame and its fuel, the wreckers and the wrecked.”

Coppinger started up and became red as blood.

“These are strange words,” he said.

“It is the same that I said before.”

“Then why have you given yourself to me?”

“I have resigned myself to you, as I cannot help myself any more than the fish can that is pounced on by the sea-bird, or the fuel that is enveloped by the flame, or the ship that is boarded by the wrecker.”

She looked at him steadily; he was quivering with excitement, anger, and disappointment.

“It is quite right that you should know what to expect, and make no more demands on me that I am capable of answering. You cannot ask of me that I should become like you, and I do not entertain the foolish thought that you could be brought to be like me—to see through my eyes, feel with my heart. My dead father lies between us now, and he will ever be between us—he a man of pure life, noble aspirations, a man of books, of high principle, fearing God and loving men. What he was he tried to make me. Imperfectly, faultily, I follow him, but though unable to be like him, I strive after what he showed me should be my ideal.”

“You are a child. You will be a woman, and new thoughts will come to you.”

“Will they be good and honorable and contented thoughts? Shall I find those in your house?”

Coppinger did not reply, his brows were drawn together and his face became dark.

“Why, then, have you promised to come to me?”

“Because of Jamie.”

He uttered an oath, and with his hands clenched the upper stone of the tomb.

“I have promised my aunt that I will accept you, if you will suffer my poor brother to live where I live, and suffer me to be his protector. He is helpless and must have someone to think and watch for him. My aunt would have sent him to Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray’s asylum, and that would have been fatal to him. To save him from that I said that I would be yours, on the condition that my home should be his home. I have passed my word to my aunt, and I will not go from it, but that does not mean that I have changed my belief that we are unfitted for each other, because we belong to different orders of being.”

“This is cold comfort.”

“It is cold as ice, but it is all that I have to give to you. I wish to put everything plainly before you now, that there may be no misapprehension later, and you may be asking of me what I cannot give, and be angry at not receiving what I never promised to surrender.”

“So! I am only accepted for the sake of that boy, Jamie.”

“It is painful for me to say what I do—as painful as it must be for you to hear it, but I cannot help myself. I wish to put all boldly and hardly before you before an irrevocable step is taken such as might make us both wretched. I take you for Jamie’s sake. Were his happiness, his well-being not in the scale, I would not take you. I would remain free.”

“That is plain enough,” exclaimed Coppinger, setting his teeth, and he broke off a piece of the tombstone on which he was half sitting.

“You will ask of me love, honor, and obedience. I will do my best to love you—like you I do now, for you have been kind and good to me, and I can never forget what you have done for me. But it is a long leap from liking to loving, still I will try my best, and if I fail it will not be for lack of effort. Honor is another matter. That lies in your own power to give. If you behave as a good and worthy man to your fellows, and justly toward me, of course I shall honor you. I must honor what is deserving of honor, and where I honor there I may come to love. I cannot love where I do not honor, so perhaps I may say that my heart is in your hands, and that if those hands are clean and righteous in their dealings it may become yours some time. As to obedience—that you shall command. That I will render to you frankly and fully in all things lawful.”

“You offer me an orange from which all the juice has been squeezed, a nut without a kernel.”

“I offer you all I have to offer. Is it worth your while having this?”

“Yes!” said he angrily, starting up, “I will have what I can and wring the rest out of you, when once you are mine.”

“You never will wring anything out of me. I give what I may, but nothing will I yield to force.”

He looked at her sullenly and said, “A child in years with an old head and a stony heart.”

“I have always lived with my father, and so have come to think like one that is old,” said Judith, “and now, alone in the world, I must think with ripened wits.”

“I do not want that precocious, wise soul, if that be the kernel. I will have the shell—the glorious shell. Keep your wisdom and righteousness and piety for yourself. I do not value them a rush. But your love I will have.”

“I have told you there is but one way by which that may be won. But indeed, Captain Coppinger, you have made a great mistake in thinking of me. I am not suited to you to make you happy and content; any more than you are suited to me. Look out for some girl more fit to be your mate.”

“Of what sort? Come, tell me!” said Coppinger scornfully.

“A fine, well-built girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with cheeks like apricots, lively in mood, with nimble tongue, good-natured, not bookish, not caring for brush or piano, but who can take a rough word and return it; who will not wince at an oath, and shrink away at coarse words flung about where she is. All these things you know very well must be encountered by your wife, in your house. Did you ever read ‘Hamlet,’ Captain Coppinger?”

He made no answer, he was plucking at the slab-cover of the tomb and grinding his heels into the sand.

“In ‘Hamlet,’ we read of a king poisoned by his queen, who dipped the juice of cursed hebenon into his ears, and it curdled all his blood. It is the same with the sort of language that is found in your house when your seamen are there. I cannot endure it, it curdles my heart—choose a girl who is indifferent.”

“You shall not be subjected to it,” said Coppinger, “and as to the girl you have sketched—I care not for her—such as you describe are to be found thick as whortle-berries on a moor. Do you not know that man seeks in marriage not his counterpart but his contrast? It is because you are in all things different from me that I love you.”

“Then will naught that I have said make you desist?”

“Naught.”

“I have told you that I take you only so as to be able to make a home for Jamie.”

“Yes.”

“And that I do not love you and hardly think I can ever.”

“Yes.”

“And still you will have me?”

“Yes.”

“And that by taking me you wreck my life—spoil my happiness.”

He raised his head, then dropped it again and said, “Yes.”

She remained silent, also looking on the ground. Presently she raised her head and said: “I gave you a chance, and you have cast it from you. I am sorry.”

“A chance? What chance?”

“The chance of taking a first step up the ladder in my esteem.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Therefore I am sorry.”

“What is your meaning?”

“Captain Coppinger,” said Judith, firmly, looking straight into his dark face and flickering eyes, “I am very, very sorry. When I told you that I accepted your offer only because I could not help myself, because I was a poor, feeble orphan, with a great responsibility laid on me, the charge of my unfortunate brother; that I only accepted you for his sake when I told you that I did not love you, that our characters, our feelings were so different that it would be misery to me to become your wife—that it would be the ruin of my life, then—had you been a man of generous soul, you would have said—I will not force myself upon you, but I will do one thing for you, assist you in protecting Jamie from the evil that menaces him. Had you said that I would have honored you, and as I said just now, where I honor, there I may love. But you could not think such a thought, no such generous feeling stirred you. You held me to my bond.”

“I hold you to your bond,” exclaimed Coppinger, in loud rage. “I hold you, indeed. Even though you can neither love nor honor me, you shall be mine. You likened me to a bird of prey that must have its prey or die, to a fire—and that must have its fuel—to a wrecker, and he must have his wreck, I care not. I will have you as mine, whether you love me or not.”

“So be it, then,” said Judith, sadly. “You had your opportunity and have put it from you. We understand each other. The slave is master—and a tyrant.”

CHAPTER XXXII.

A DANGEROUS GIFT.

“I do love a proper muddle, cruel bad, I do,” said Jump, and had what she loved, for the preparations for Judith’s marriage threw Mr. Menaida’s trim cottage into a “proper muddle.” There were the cakes to be baked, and for a while the interior of the house was pervaded by that most delicious aroma of baking bread superior to frangipani, jockey club, and wood violet. Then came the dusting, and after that the shaking and beating of the rugs and sofa and chairs. Then it was discovered that the ceilings and walls would be the better for white and color-wash. This entailed the turning out of every thing previously dusted and tidied and arranged. Neither Mr. Menaida nor Jump had any other idea of getting things into order than throwing all into a muddle in the hopes that out of chaos, exactness and order might spring.

A dressmaker had been engaged and material purchased, for the fabrication of a trousseau. This naturally interested Jamie vastly, and Jump paid repeated visits to the dressmaker, whilst engaged on her work. On one such occasion she neglected the kitchen and allowed some jam to become burnt. On another she so interested the needlewoman and diverted her attention from her work, whilst cutting out that the latter cut out two right arms to the wedding gown. This involved a difficulty, as it was not practicable either to turn the one sleeve, and convert it into a left arm, nor to remove Judith’s left arm and attach it to the right side of her body, and so accommodate her to the gown. The mercer at Camelford was communicated with, from whom the material had been procured, but he was out of it, he however was in daily expectation of a consignment of more of the same stuff. A fortnight later he was able to supply the material, sufficient for a left sleeve, but unfortunately of a different color. The gown had to be laid aside till some one could be found of Judith’s size and figure with two right arms, and also who wanted a wedding dress, and also would be disposed to take this particular one at half the cost of the material, or else to let the gown stand over till after the lapse of a century or thereabouts, when the fashion would prevail for ladies to wear sleeves of a different substance and color from their bodies and skirts.

“’Taint a sort o’ a courtin’ as I’d give a thankee for,” said Jump. “There was Camelford goose fair, and whether he axed her to go wi’ him and pick a goose I can’t tell, but I know her never went. Then o’ Sundays they don’t walk one another out. And he doesn’t come arter her to the back garden, and she go to him, and no whisperings and kissings. I’ve listened a score o’ times a hoping and a wishing to see and hear the likes, and never once as I’m a Christian and a female. There were my sister Jane, when she was going to be married, her got that hot and blazin’ red that I thought it were scarletine, but it was naught but excitement. But the young mistress, bless ’ee, her gets whiter and colder every day, and I’d say, if such a thing were possible, that her’d rather her never was a going to be married. But you see that ain’t in natur’, leastways wi’ us females. I tell ’ee I never seed him once put his arm round her waist. If this be courtin’ among gentlefolks, all I say is preserve and deliver me from being a lady.”

It was as Jump, in her vulgar way, put it. Judith alone in the house appeared to take no interest in the preparations. It was only after a struggle with her aunt that she had yielded to have the wedding in November. She had wished it postponed till the spring, but Cruel Coppinger and Aunt Dionysia were each for their several ends desirous to have it in the late autumn. Coppinger had the impatience of a lover; and Miss Trevisa the desire to be free from a menial position and lodged in her new house before winter set in. She had amused herself over Othello Cottage ever since Judith had yielded her consent, and her niece saw little of her accordingly.

It suited Coppinger’s interest to have a tenant for the solitary cottage, and that a tenant who would excite no suspicions, as the house was employed as a store for various run goods, and it was understood between him and Miss Trevisa, that he was still to employ the garret for the purposes that suited him.

Had Othello Cottage remained long unoccupied, it was almost certain to attract the attention of the Preventive men, awake their suspicions, and be subjected to a visit. Its position was convenient, it was on the cliff of that cove where was the cave in which the smugglers’ boats were concealed.

Coppinger visited Polzeath and saw Judith whenever he came to Mr. Menaida’s house, but his wooing met with no response. She endured his attentions, shrinking from the slightest approach to familiarity, and though studiously courteous was never affectionate. It would take a heavy charge of self-conceit to have made the Captain blind to the fact that she did not love him, that in truth she viewed her approaching marriage with repugnance. Coppinger was a proud, but not a conceited man, and her coldness and aversion aroused his anger, for it galled his pride. Had he been a man of noble impulse, he would have released her, as she had already told him, but he was too selfish, too bent on carrying out his own will to think of abandoning his suit.

Her lack of reciprocation did not abate his passion, it aggravated it. It enlisted his self-esteem in the cause, and he would not give her up, because he had set his mind upon obtaining her, and to confess his defeat would have been a humiliation insufferable to his haughty spirit. But it was not merely that he would not, it was also that he could not. Coppinger was a man who had, all his life long, done what he willed, till his will had become in him the mainspring of his existence, and drove him to execute his purposes in disregard of reason, safety, justice, and opposition. He would eat out his own furious heart in impotent rage, if his will were encountered by impossibility of execution. And he was of a sanguine temperament. Hitherto every opposition had been overthrown before him, therefore he could not conceive that the heart of a young girl, a mere child, could stand out against him permanently. For a while it might resist, but ultimately it must yield, and then the surrender would be absolute, unconditional.

Every time he came to see her, he came with hopes, almost with confidence, that the icy barrier would dissolve, but when in her presence the chill from it struck him, numbed his heart, silenced his tongue, deadened his thoughts. Yet no sooner was he gone from the house, than his pulses leaped, his brain whirled, and he was consumed with mortified pride and disappointed love. He could not be rough, passionate or imperious with her. A something he could not understand, certainly not define, streamed from her that kept him at a distance and quelled his insolence. It was to him at moments as if he hated her; but this hate was but the splutter of frustrated love. He recalled the words she had spoken to him, and the terms she had employed in speaking of the relation in which they stood to each other, the only relations to her conceivable in which they could stand to each other, and each such word was a spark of fire, a drop of flaming phosphorus on his heart, torturing it with pain, and unquenchable. A word once spoken can never be recalled, and these words had been thrown red hot at him, had sunk in and continued to consume where they had fallen. He was but a rapacious bird and she the prey, he the fire and she the fuel, he the wrecker and she the wreck. There could be no reciprocity between them, the bird in the talons of the hawk, rent by his beak could do no other than shiver and shriek and struggle to be free. The fuel could but expect to be consumed to ashes in the flames; and the wrecked must submit to the wrecker. He brooded over these similes, he chafed under the conviction that there was truth in them, he fought against the idea that a return of his love was impossible—and then his passion raged and roared up in a fury that was no other than hatred of the woman who could not be his in heart. Then, in another moment, he cooled down, and trusted that what he dreaded would not be. He saw before him the child, white as a lily, with hair as the anthers of the lily—so small, so fragile, so weak; and he laughed to think that one such, with no experience of life, one who had never tasted love, could prove insensible to his devouring passion. The white asbestos in the flame glows, and never loses its delicacy and its whiteness.

And Judith was, as Jump observed, becoming paler and more silent as her marriage drew on. The repugnance with which she had viewed it instead of abating intensified with every day. She woke in the night with a start of horror, and a cold sweat poured from her. She clasped her hands over her eyes and buried her face in her pillow and trembled, so that the bed rattled. She lost all appetite. Her throat was contracted when she touched food. She found it impossible to turn her mind to the preparations that were being made for her wedding, she suffered her aunt to order for her what she liked, she was indifferent when told of the blunder made by the dressmaker in her wedding-gown. She could not speak at meals. When Mr. Menaida began to talk, she seemed to listen, but her mind was elsewhere. She resumed lessons with Jamie, but was too abstracted to be able to teach effectually. A restlessness took hold of her and impelled her to be out of doors and alone. Any society was painful to her, she could endure only to be alone; and when alone, she did nothing save pluck at her dress, or rub her fingers one over the other—the tricks and convulsive movements of one on the point of death.

But she did not yield to her aversion without an effort to accustom herself to the inevitable. She rehearsed to herself the good traits she had observed in Coppinger, his kindness, his forbearance toward herself, she took cognizance of his efforts to win her regard, to afford her pleasure, his avoidance of everything that he thought might displease her. And when she knew he was coming to visit her, she strove with herself; and formed the resolution to break down the coldness, and to show him some of that semblance of affection which he might justly expect. But it was in vain. No sooner did she hear his step, or the first words he uttered, no sooner did she see him, than she turned to stone, and the power to even feign an affection she did not possess left her. And when Coppinger had departed, there was stamped red hot on her brain the conviction that she could not possibly endure life with him.

She prayed long and often, sometimes by her father’s grave, always in bed when lying wakeful, tossing from side to side in anguish of mind; often, very often when on the cliffs looking out to sea, to the dark, leaden, sullen sea, that had lost all the laughter and color of summer. But prayer afforded her no consolation. The thought of marriage to such a man, whom she could not respect, whose whole nature was inferior to her own, was a thought of horror. She could have nerved herself to death by the most excruciating of torments, but for this, not all the grace of heaven could fortify her.

To be his mate, to be capable of loving him, she must descend to his level, and that she neither could nor would do. His prey, his fuel, his wreck—that she must become, but she could be nothing else—nothing else. As the day of her marriage approached her nervous trepidation became so acute that she could hardly endure the least noise. A strange footfall startled her and threw her into a paroxysm of trembling. The sudden opening of a door made her heart stand still.

When her father had died, poignant though her sorrow had been, she had enjoyed the full powers of her mind. She had thought about the necessary preparations for the funeral, she had given orders to the servants, she had talked over the dear father to Jamie, she had wept his loss till her eyes were red. Not so now; she could not turn her thoughts from the all-absorbing terror; she could not endure an allusion to it from anyone, least of all to speak of it to her brother, and the power to weep was taken from her. Her eyes were dry; they burnt, but were unfilled by tears.

When her father was dead she could look forward, think of him in paradise, and hope to rejoin him after having trustily executed the charge imposed on her by him. But now she could not look ahead. A shadow of horror lay before her, an impenetrable curtain. Her father was covering his face, was sunk in grief in his celestial abode; he could not help her. She could not go to him with the same open brow and childish smile as before. She must creep to his feet, and lay her head there, sullied by association with one against whom he had warned her, one whom he had regarded as the man that had marred his sacred utility, one who stood far below the stage of virtue and culture that belonged to his family and on which he had firmly planted his child. What was in her heart Judith could pour out before none; certainly not before Aunt Dionysia, devoid of a particle of sympathy with her niece. Nor could she speak her trouble to Uncle Zachie, a man void of resources, kind, able for a minute or two to sympathize, but never to go deeply into any trouble and understand more of a wound than the fester on the surface. Besides, of what avail to communicate the anguish of her heart to anyone, when nothing could be done to alter the circumstances. She could not now draw back. Indeed it never occurred to her to be possible to go back from her undertaking. To save Jamie from an idiot asylum she had passed her word to give her hand at the altar to Cruel Coppinger, and her word was sacred. Aunt Dionysia trusted her word. Coppinger held to it, knowing that she gave it on compulsion and reluctantly, yet he showed his perfect confidence in its security.

“My dear Judith,” said Mr. Menaida, “I am so sorry about losing you, and what is more, losing Jamie, for I know very well that when he is at the Glaze he will find plenty to amuse him without coming to see me, or anyhow, coming to work with me.”

“I hope not, dear uncle.”

“Yes, I lose a promising pupil.” Then turning to the boy, he said: “Jamie, I hope you will not give up stuffing birds, or, if you have not the patience to do that, that you will secure the skins and prepare them for me.”

“Yes, I will,” said Jamie.

“Yes, yes, my dear boy,” said Menaida, “but don’t you fancy I am going to trust you with arsenic for preparing the skins. I shall give that to your sister and she will keep the supply, eh, will you not, Judith?”

“Yes. I will take charge of it.”

“And let him have it as needed; never more than is needed.”

“Why not?” asked Jamie.

“Because it is a dangerous thing to have lying about.” Menaida ran into the workshop, and came back with a small tin box of the poison. “Look here! here is a little bone spoon. Don’t get the powder over your fingers. Why, a spoonful would make a man very ill, and two would kill him. So, Judith, I trust this to you. When Jamie has a skin to prepare he will go to you, and you will let him have only so much as he requires.”

“Yes, uncle.”

She took the little tin of arsenic and put it in her workbox, under the tray that contained reels and needles.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HALF A MARRIAGE.

One request Judith had made, relative to her marriage, and one only, after she had given way about the time when it was to take place, and this request concerned the place. She desired to be married, not in the parish church of S. Minver, but in that of S. Enodoc, in the yard of which lay her father and mother, and in which her father had occasionally ministered.

It was true that no great display could be made in a building half-filled with sand, but neither Judith nor Coppinger, nor Aunt Dionysia desired display, and Jump, the sole person who wished that the wedding should be in full gala, was not consulted in the matter.

November scowled over sea and land, perverting the former into lead and blighting the latter to a dingy brown.

The wedding-day was sad. Mist enveloped the coast, wreathed the cliffs, drifted like smoke over the glebe, and lay upon the ocean, dense and motionless, like a mass of cotton-wool. Not a smile of sun, not a glimmer of sky, not a trace of outline in the haze overhead. The air was full of minute particles of moisture flying aimlessly, lost to all sense of gravity, in every direction. The mist had a fringe but no seams, and looked as if it were as unrendable as felt. It trailed over the soil, here lifting a ragged flock or tag of fog a few feet above the earth, there dropping it again and smearing water over all it touched. Vapor condensed on every twig and leaf, but only leisurely, and slowly dripped from the ends of thorns and leaves; but the weight of the water on some of the frosted and sickly foliage brought the leaves down with it. Every stone in every wall was lined with trickles of water like snail crawls. The vapor penetrated within doors, and made all articles damp, of whatever sort they were. Fires were reluctant to kindle, chimneys smoked. The grates and irons broke out into eruptions of rust, mildew appeared on walls, leaks in roofs. The slate floors became dark and moist. Forks and spoons adhered to the hands of those who touched them, and on the keys of Mr. Menaida’s piano drops formed.

What smoke did escape from a chimney trailed down the roof. Decomposed leaves exhaled the scent of decay. From every stack-yard came a musty odor of wet straw and hay. Stable yards emitted their most fetid exudations that oozed through the gates and stained the roads. The cabbages in the kail-yards touched by frost announced that they were in decomposition, and the turnips that they were in rampant degeneration and rottenness. The very seaweed washed ashore impregnated the mist with a flavor of degeneration.

The new rector, the Reverend Desiderius Mules had been in residence at St. Enodoc for three months. He had received but a hundred and twenty-seven pounds four and ninepence farthing for dilapidations, and was angry, declared himself cheated, and vowed he would never employ the agent Cargreen any more. And a hundred and twenty-seven pounds four and ninepence farthing went a very little way in repairing and altering the rectory to make it habitable to the liking of the Reverend Desiderius. The Reverend Peter Trevisa and his predecessors had been West Country men, and as such loved the sun, and chose to have the best rooms of the house with a southern aspect. But the Reverend Desiderius Mules had been reared in Barbadoes, and hated the sun, and elected to have the best rooms of the house to look north. This entailed great alterations. The kitchen had to be converted into parlor, and the parlor into kitchen, the dining-room into scullery, and the scullery into study, and the library enlarged to serve as dining-room. All the down-stairs windows had to be altered. Mr. Desiderius Mules liked to have French windows opening to the ground.

In the same manner great transformations were made in the garden. Where Mr. Peter Trevisa had built up and planted a hedge there Mr. Desiderius Mules opened a gate, and where the late rector had laid down a drive there the new rector made garden beds. In the same manner shrubberies were converted into lawns, and lawns into shrubberies. The pump was now of no service outside the drawing-room window; it had to be removed to the other side of the house, and to serve the pump with water a new well had to be dug, and the old well that had furnished limpid and wholesome water was filled up. The site of the conservatory was considered the proper one for the well, and this entailed the destruction of the conservatory. Removal was intended, with a new aspect to the north, as a frigidarium, but when touched it fell to pieces, and in so doing furnished Mr. Desiderius Mules with much comment on the imposition to which he had been subjected, for he had taken this conservatory at a valuation, and that valuation had been for three pounds seven and fourpence ha’penny, whereas its real value was, so he declared, three pounds seven and fourpence without the ha’penny at the end or the three pounds before.

When the Reverend Desiderius Mules heard that Captain Coppinger and Judith Trevisa were to be married in his church, “By Jove,” said he, “they shall pay me double fees as extra parochial. I shall get that out of them at all events. I have been choused sufficiently.”

A post-chaise from Wadebridge conveyed Judith, Miss Trevisa, Uncle Zachie, and Jamie from Polzeath.

The bride was restless. At one moment she leaned back, then forward; her eyes turned resolutely through the window at the fog. Her hands plucked at her veil or at her gloves; she spoke not a word throughout the drive. Aunt Dionysia was also silent. Opposite her sat Mr. Menaida in blue coat with brass buttons, white waistcoat outside a colored one, and white trousers tightly strapped. Though inclined to talk, he was unable to resist the depressing influence of his vis-a-vis, Miss Trevisa, who sat scowling at him with her thin lips closed. Jamie was excited, but as no one answered him when he spoke he also lapsed into silence.

When the church-yard gate of St. Enodoc was reached, Mr. Menaida jumped out of the chaise with a sigh of relief, and muttered to himself that, had he known what to expect, he would have brought his pocket-flask with him, and have had a nip of cognac on the way.

A good number of sight-seers had assembled from Polzeath and St. Enodoc, and stood in the church-yard, magnified by the mist to gigantic size. Over the graves of drowned sailors were planted the figure-heads of wrecked vessels, and these in the mist might have been taken as the dead risen and mingling with the living to view this dreary marriage.

The bride herself looked ghostlike, or as a waft of the fog, but little condensed, blown through the graveyard toward the gap in the church wall, and blown through that also within.

That gap was usually blocked with planks from a wreck, supported by beams; when the church was to be put in requisition, then the beams were knocked away, whereupon down clattered the boards and they were tossed aside. It had been so done on this occasion, and the fragments were heaped untidily among the graves under the church wall. The clerk-sexton had, indeed, considered that morning, with his hands in his pockets, whether it would be worth his while, assisted by the five bell-ringers, to take this accumulation of wreckage and pile it together out of sight, but he had thought that, owing to the fog, a veil would be drawn over the disorder, and he might be saved this extra trouble.

Within the sacred building, over his boots in sand, stamped, and frowned, and paced, and growled the Reverend Desiderius Mules, in surplice, hood, and stole, very ill at ease and out of humor because the wedding-party arrived unpunctually, and he feared he might catch cold from the wind and fog that drifted in through the hole in the wall serving as door.

The sand within was level with the sills of the windows; it cut the tables of commandments in half; had blotted away the majority of inhibitions against marriage within blood relationship and marriage kinship. The altar-rails were below the surface. The altar-table had been fished up and set against the east wall, not on this day for the marriage, but at some previous occasion. Then the sexton had placed two pieces of slate under the feet on one side, and not having found handy any other pieces, had thought that perhaps it did not matter. Consequently the two legs one side had sunk in the sand, and the altar-table formed an incline.

A vast number of bats occupied the church, and by day hung like little moleskin purses from the roof. Complaints had been made of the disagreeableness of having these creatures suspended immediately over the head of the officiant, accordingly the sexton had knocked away such as were suspended immediately above the altar and step—a place where the step was, beneath the sand; but he did not think it necessary to disturb those in other parts of the church. If they inconvenienced others, it was the penalty of curiosity, coming to see a wedding there. Toward the west end of the church some wooden pew-tops stood above the sand, and stuck into a gimlet-hole in the top rail of one was a piece of holly, dry and brown as a chip. It had been put there as a Christmas decoration the last year that the church was used for divine worship, at the feast of Noel; when that was, only the oldest men could remember. The sexton had looked at it several times with his hands in his pockets and considered whether it were worth while pulling his hands out and removing the withered fragment, and carrying it outside the church, but had arrived at the conclusion that it injured no one, and might therefore just as well remain.

There were fragments of stained glass in the windows, in the upper light of the perpendicular windows saints and angels in white and gold on ruby and blue grounds. In one window a fragment of a Christ on the cross. But all were much obscured by cobwebs. The cobwebs, after having entangled many flies, caught and retained many particles of sand, became impervious to light and obscured the figures in the painted glass. The sexton had looked at these cobwebs occasionally and mused whether it would be worth his while to sweep them down, but as he knew that the church was rarely used for divine offices, and never for regular divine worship, he deemed that there was no crying necessity for their destruction. Life was short, and time might be better employed—to whit in talking to a neighbor, in smoking a pipe, in drinking a pint of ale, in larruping his wife, in reading the paper. Consequently the cobwebs remained.

Had Mr. Desiderius Mules been possessed of antiquarian tastes, he might have occupied the time he was kept waiting in studying the bosses of carved oak that adorned the wagon-roof of the church, which were in some cases quaint, in the majority beautiful, and no two the same. And he might have puzzled out the meaning of three rabbits with only three ears between them forming a triangle, or three heads united in one neck, a king, a queen, a bishop and a monk, or of a sow suckling a dozen little pigs.

But Mr. Desiderius Mules had no artistic or archaeological faculty developed in him. His one object on the present occasion was to keep draught and damp from the crown of his head, where the hair was so scanty as hardly to exist at all. He did not like to assume his hat in the consecrated building, so he stamped about in the sand holding a red bandanna handkerchief on the top of his head, and grumbling at the time he was kept waiting, at the Cornish climate, at the way in which he had been “choused” in the matter of dilapidations for the chancel of the church, at the unintelligible dialect of the people, and at a good many other causes of irritation, notably at a bat which had not reverenced his bald pate, when he ventured beyond the range of the sexton’s sweeping.

Presently the clerk, who was outside, thrust in his head through the gap in the wall, and in a stage whisper announced, “They’s a-coming.”

The Reverend Mules growled, “There ought to be a right to charge extra when the parson is kept waiting—sixpence a minute, not a penny less. But we are choused in this confounded corner of the world in every way. Ha! there is a mildew-spot on my stole—all come of this villainous damp.”

In the tower stood five men, ready to pull the ropes and sound a merry peal when the service was over, and earn a guinea. They had a firkin of ale in a corner, with which to moisten their inner clay between each round. Now that they heard that the wedding party had arrived they spat on their hands and heaved their legs out of the sand.

Through the aperture in the wall entered the bridal party, a cloud of fog blowing in with them and enveloping them. They stepped laboriously through the fine sand, at this place less firm than elsewhere, having been dug into daily by the late rector in his futile efforts to clear the church.

Mr. Mules cast a suspicious look into the rafters above him to see that no profane bat was there, and opened his book.

Mr. Menaida was to act as father to the bride, and there was no other bride’s-maid than Miss Trevisa. As they waded toward the alter, Judith’s strength failed, and she stood still. Then Uncle Zachie put his arm round her and half carried her over the sand toward the place where she must stand to give herself away. She turned her head and thanked him with her eyes, she could not speak. So deathly was her whiteness, so deficient in life did she seem, that Miss Trevisa looked at her with some anxiety, and a little doubt whether she would be able to go through the service.

When Judith reached her place, her eyes rested on the sand. She did not look to her left side, she could hear no steps, for the sand muffled all sound of feet, but she knew by the cold shudder that thrilled through her, that Captain Coppinger was at her side.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here—now then order, if you please, and quiet, we are twenty-five minutes after time,” said Mr. Desiderius Mules.

The first few words, seven in all were addressed to the wedding party, the rest to a number of men and women and children who were stumbling and plunging into the church through the improvised door, thrusting each other forward, with a “get along,” and “out of the road,” all eager to secure a good sight of the ceremony, and none able to hurry to a suitable place because of the sand that impeded every step.

“Now then—I can’t stay here all day!”

Mr. Mules sniffed and applied the bandanna to his nose, as an indication that he was chilled, and that this rheum would be on the heads of the congregation, were he made ill by this delay.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered,” he began again, and he was now able to proceed.

“Cruel,” said he in loud and emphatic tones, “wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her so long as ye both shall live?”

The response of Coppinger went through the heart of Judith like a knife. Then the rector addressed her. For answer she looked up at him and moved her lips. He took her hand and placed it in that of Coppinger. It was cold as ice and quivering like an aspen leaf. As Captain Coppinger held it, it seemed to drag and become heavy in his hand, whilst he pronounced the words after the rector, making oath to take Judith as his own. Then the same words were recited to her, for her to repeat in order after the priest. She began, she moved her lips, looked him pleadingly in the face, her head swam, the fog filled the whole church and settled between her and the rector. She felt nothing save the grip of Coppinger’s hand, and sank unconscious to the ground.

“Go forward,” said Cruel. Mr. Menaida and Aunt Dionysia caught Judith and held her up. She could neither speak nor stir. Her lips were unclosed, she seemed to be gasping for breath like one drowning.

“Go on,” persisted Cruel, and holding her left hand he thrust the ring on her fourth finger, repeating the words of the formula.

“I cannot proceed,” said the Reverend Desiderius.

“Then you will have to come again to-morrow.”

“She is unconscious,” objected the rector.

“It is momentary only,” said Aunt Dionysia; “be quick and finish.”

Mr. Mules hesitated a moment. He had no wish to return in like weather on another day; no wish again to be kept waiting five and twenty minutes. He rushed at the remainder of the office and concluded it at a hand gallop.

“Now,” said he, “the registers are at the rectory. Come there.”

Coppinger looked at Judith.

“Not to-day. It is not possible. She is ill—faint. To-morrow. Neither she nor I nor the witnesses will run away. We will come to you to-morrow.”

Uncle Zachie offered to assist Judith from the church.

“No,” said Cruel, peremptorily, “she is mine now.”

She was able with assistance to walk, she seemed to recover for a moment in the air outside, but again lapsed into faintness on being placed in the chaise.

“To Pentyre Glaze,” ordered Coppinger; “our home.”

CHAPTER XXXIV.

A BREAKFAST.

“She has been over-exerted, over-excited,” said Miss Trevisa. “Leave her to recover; in a few days she will be herself again. Remember, her father died of heart complaint, and though Judith resembles her mother rather than a Trevisa, she may have inherited from my brother just that one thing she had better have let him carry to his grave with him.”

So Judith was given the little room that adjoined her aunt’s, and Miss Trevisa postponed for a week her migration to Othello Cottage.

Aunt Dionysia was uneasy about her niece; perhaps her conscience did suffer from some qualms when she saw how Judith shrank from the union she had driven her into for her own selfish convenience. She treated her in the wisest manner, now she had brought her to the Glaze, for she placed her in her old room next her own, and left her there to herself. Judith could hear her aunt walking about and muttering in the adjoining chamber, and was content to be left alone to recover her composure and strength.

Uncle Zachie and Jump were, however, in sore distress; they had made the trim cottage ready, had prepared a wedding breakfast, engaged a helping hand or two, and no one had come to partake. Nor was Mr. Desiderius Mules in a cheerful mood. He had been invited to the breakfast, and was hungry and cold. He had to wait while Mr. Menaida ran up to Pentyre to know whether any one was going to honor his board. While he was away the rector stamped about the parlor, growling that he believed he was about to be “choused out of his breakfast. There was really no knowing what these people in this out-of-the-world corner might do.” Then he pulled off his boots and shook the sand out, rang for Jump, and asked at what hour precisely the breakfast was to be eaten, and whether it was put on table to be looked at only.

From Pentyre Glaze Mr. Menaida was not greatly successful in obtaining guests. He found some wild-looking men there in converse with Coppinger, men whom he knew by rumor to belong to a class that had no ostensible profession and means of living.

Mr. Menaida had ordered in clotted cream, which would not keep sweet many days. It ought to be eaten at once. He wanted to know whether Coppinger, the bride, Miss Trevisa, anyone was coming to his house to consume the clotted cream. As Jamie was drifting about purposeless, and he alone seemed disposed to accompany Uncle Zachie, the old gentleman carried him off.

“I s’pose I can’t on the spur of the moment go in and ask over St. Minver parson?” asked Menaida, dubiously, of the St. Enodoc parson. “You see I daresay he’s hurt not to have had the coupling of ’em himself.”

“Most certainly not,” said Mr. Mules; “an appetite is likely to go into faintness unless attended to at once. I know that the coats of my stomach are honeycombed with gastric juice. Shall I say grace? Another half-hour of delay will finish me.”

Consequently but three persons sat down to a plentiful meal; but some goose, cold, had hardly been served, when in came Mr. Scantlebray, the agent, with a cheery salutation of “Hulloa, Menaida, old man! What, eating and drinking? I’ll handle a knife and fork with you, unasked. Beg pardon, Mr. Mules. I’m a rough man, and an old acquaintance of our good friend here. Hope I see you in the enjoyment of robust health, sir. Oh, Menaida, old man! I didn’t expect such a thing as this. Now I begin to see daylight, and understand why I was turned out of the valuership, and why my brother lost this promising young pupil. Ah, ha! my man, you have been deprived of fun, such fun, roaring fun, by not being with my brother Scanty. Well, sir,” to Mr. Mules, “what was the figure of the valuation? You had a queer man on your side. I pity you. A man I wouldn’t trust myself. I name no names. Now tell me, what did you get?”

“A hundred and twenty-seven pounds four and ninepence farthing. Monstrous—a chouse.”

“As you say, monstrous. Why that chancel, show me the builder who will contract to do that alone at a hundred and twenty-seven pounds? And the repairs of the vestry—are they to be reckoned at four and ninepence farthing? It is a swindle. I’d appeal. I’d refuse. You made a mistake, sir, let me tell you, in falling into certain hands. Yes—I’ll have some goose, thank you.”

Mr. Scantlebray ate heartily, so did the Reverend Desiderius, who had the honeycomb cells of his stomach coats to fill.

Both, moreover, did justice to Mr. Menaida’s wine, they did not spare it; why should they? Those for whom the board was spread had not troubled to come to it, and they must make amends for their neglect.

“Horrible weather,” said the rector. “I suppose this detestable sort of stuff of which the atmosphere is composed is the prevailing abomination one has to inhale throughout three-quarters of the year. One cannot see three yards before one.”

“It’s bad for some and good for others,” answered Scantlebray. “There’ll be wrecks, certainly, after this, especially if we get, as we are pretty sure to get, a wind ashore.”

“Wrecks!” exclaimed the Rector, “and pray who pays the fees for drowned men I may be expected to bury?”

“The parish,” answered Uncle Zachie.

“Oh, half-a-crown a head,” said Mr. Mules, contemptuously.

“There are other things to be had besides burial fees out of a wreck,” said Scantlebray; “but you must be down early before the coast-guard are there. Have you donkeys?”

“Donkeys! What for?”

“I have one, a gray beauty,” exclaimed Jamie; “Captain Coppinger gave her to me.”

“Well, young man, then you pick up what you can, when you have the chance, and lade her with your findings. You’ll pick up something better than corpses, and make something more than burial half-crowns.”

“But why do you suppose there will be wrecks?” inquired the rector of St. Enodoc. “There is no storm.”

“No storm, certainly, but there is fog, and in the fog vessels coming up the Channel to Bristol get lost as to their bearings, get near our cliffs without knowing it, and then—if a wind from the west spring up and blows rough—they are done for, they can’t escape to the open. That’s it, old man. I beg your Reverence’s pardon, I mean, sir. When I said that such weather was bad for some and good for others you can understand me now—bad for the wrecked, good for the wreckers.”

“But surely you have no wreckers here?”

Mr. Scantlebray laughed. “Go and tell the bridegroom that you think so. I’ll let you into the knowledge of one thing”—he winked over his glass—“there’s a fine merchantman on her way to Bristol.”

“How do you know?”

“Know! Because she was sighted off St. Ives, and the tidings has run up the coast like fire among heather. I don’t doubt it that it has reached Hartland by this; and with a thick fog like to-day there are a thousand hearts beating with expectation. Who can say? She may be laden with gold-dust from Africa, or with tin from Barca, or with port from Oporto.”

“My boy Oliver is coming home,” said Mr. Menaida.

“Then let’s hope he is not in this vessel, for, old man, she stands a bad chance in such weather as this. There is Porth-quin, and there is Hayle Bay ready to receive her, or Doom Bar on which she may run, all handy for our people. Are you anything of a sportsman, sir?”

“A little—but I don’t fancy there is much in this precious country—no cover.”

“What is fox-hunting when you come to consider—or going after a snipe or a partridge? A fox! it’s naught, the brush stinks, and a snipe is but a mouthful. My dear sir, if you come to live among us, you must seek your sport not on the land but at sea. You’ll find the sport worth something when you get a haul of a barrel of first-rate sherry, or a load of silver ingots. Why, that’s how Penwarden bought his farm. He got the money after a storm—found it on the shore out of the pocket of a dead man. Do you know why the bells of St. Enodoc are so sweet? Because, so folks say, melted into them are ingots of Peruvian silver from a ship wrecked on Doom Bar.”

“I should like to get some silver or gold,” said Jamie.

“I daresay you would, and so perhaps you may if you look out for it. Go to your good friend, Captain Coppinger, and tell him what you want. He has made his pickings before now on shore and off wrecks, and has not given up the practice.”

“But,” said Mr. Mules, “do you mean to tell me that you people in this benighted corner of the world live like sharks, upon whatever is cast overboard?”

“No, I do not,” answered Scantlebray. “We have too much energy and intelligence for that. We don’t always wait till it is cast overboard, we go aboard and take what we want.”

“What, steal!”

“I don’t call that stealing when Providence and a southwest wind throws a ship into our laps, when we put in our fingers and pick out the articles we want. What are Porth-quin and Hayle Bay but our laps, in which lie the wrecks heaven sends us? And Doom Bar, what is that but a counter on which the good things are spread, and those first there get the first share?”

“And pray,” said Mr. Desiderius Mules, “have the owners of the vessels, the passengers, the captains, no objections to make?”

“They are not there. Don’t wait for our people. If they do—so much the worse for them.” Then Scantlebray laughed. “There’s a good story told of the Zenobia, lost four years ago. There was a lady on board. When she knew the vessel was on Doom Bar she put on all her jewelry, to escape with it. But some of our people got to the wreck before she got off it, and one lobe of her ears got torn off.”

“Torn off?”

“Yes—in pulling the earrings off her.”

“But who pulled the earrings off her?”

“Our people.”

“Gracious heavens! Were they not brought to justice?”

“Who did it? no one knew. What became of the jewelry? no one knew. All that was known was that Lady Knighton—that was her name—lost her diamonds and the lobe of her right ear as well.”

“And it was never recovered?”

“What! the lobe of her ear?”

“No, the jewelry.”

“Never.”

“Upon my word I have got among a parcel of scoundrels. It is high time that I should come and reform them. I’ll set to work at once. I’ll have St. Enodoc dug out and restored, and I’ll soon put an end to this sort of thing.”

“You think so?”

“You don’t know me. I’ll have a bazaar. I’ll have a ball in the Assembly Rooms at Wadebridge. The church shall be excavated. I’m not going in there again with the bats, to have my boots filled with sand, I can tell you—everything shall be renovated and put to rights. I’ll see to it at once. I’ll have a pigeon shooting for the sake of my chancel—I daresay I shall raise twenty pounds by that alone—and a raffle for the font, and an Aunt Sally for the pulpit. But the ball will be the main thing, I’ll send and get the county people to patronize. I’ll do it, and you barbarians in this benighted corner of the world shall see there is a man of energy among you.”

“You’d best try your hand on a wreck. You’ll get more off that.”

“And I’ll have a bran pie for an altar-table.”

“You won’t get the parishioners to do anything for the restoration of the church. They don’t want to have it restored.”

“The Decalogue is rotten. I ran my umbrella through the Ten Commandments this morning. I’ll have a gypsy camp and fortune-telling to furnish me with new Commandments.”

“I’ve heard tell,” said Scantlebray, “that at Ponghill, near Stratton, is a four-post bed of pure gold came off a wreck in Bude Bay.”[C]

[C] An exaggeration. The bed of seventeenth century Italian work, is gilt. It is now in a small farmhouse.

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