About three o'clock in the afternoon, however, my plans became altered. As I stood at a street corner, I saw Richard Tresidder, with his son Nick, besides several other gentlemen, coming down the street. Scarcely realising what I did, for the very sight of him made me mad, I went toward them, and as Richard Tresidder came up I spat in his face.
"Who's a thief? Who's a cheat? Who got Pennington by cheatery and lying?" I shouted.
"Get out of the way, you blackguard," cried Nick Tressider, the lawyer.
"I'll not get out of the way," I cried; "I'll tell what's the truth. He killed my grandfather; he hocussed him into making a false will, and he and you have robbed me. Ah, you lying cowards, you know that what I say is true!"
Then Richard Tresidder lifted his heavy stick and struck me, and before the bystanders knew what had happened there was a street brawl; for I struck Richard Tresidder a heavy blow on the chin which sent him reeling backward, and when his son Nick sprang upon me I threw him from me with great force, so that he fell to the ground, and I saw the blood gush from his nose. After that I remember nothing distinctly. I have a dim recollection of fighting madly, and that I was presently overpowered and taken to the lock-up.
I remained in the lock-up till the next morning, when I was taken before the magistrates. I don't know what was said, and at the time I did not care. I was angry with myself for not biding my time and flogging the Tresidders in the way I had planned, and yet I was pleased because I had disgraced Tresidder – at least, I thought I had – before the whole town. I have an idea that questions were asked about me, and that one of the magistrates who knew my grandfather said it was a pity that a Pennington should come to such a pass. Richard Tresidder and his friends tried to get an extreme sentence passed upon me, but the end of it all was that I was sentenced to be pilloried for six hours, and then to be publicly flogged.
Soon after I was taken to the market-place, where the pillory was set up, and I, in face of the jeering crowd, was tied to a pole. Then on the top of this pole, about six feet from the platform on which I stood, a stout piece of board was placed, which had three hollow places cut out. My neck was pressed into one socket and my wrists in the two others. Then another stout piece of board, with hollow places cut out to correspond with the other, was placed on the top of it. This pressed my neck very hardly, and strained it so that I could hardly breathe; it also fastened my hands, and hurt my wrists badly. I know of nothing nearer crucifixion than to be pilloried, for the thing was made something like a cross, and my head and arms were crushed into the piece of board which corresponds with the arms of a cross in such a way that to live was agony.
And there I stood while the jeering crowd stood around me, some howling, some throwing rotten eggs at me, and others pelting me with cabbage stumps and turnips. After I had stood there about three hours some one came and made the thing easier, or I should not have lived through the six hours, and after that time, the mob having got tired of pelting me, I was left a little time in peace.
When the six hours were nearly up, I saw Nick Tresidder come to the market-place with two maidens. One I saw was his sister, the other was a stranger to me. I knew they had come to add to my shame, and the sight of them made me mad again. I tried to speak, but the socket was too small, and I could not get enough breath to utter a word. Still, anger, I am sure, glared from my eyes as I looked at Nick and his sister; but when I looked at the other maiden, a feeling which I cannot describe came over me. She was young – not, I should think, quite eighteen – and her face was more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. Her eyes were large and brown, while her hair was also brown, and hung in curls down her back. Her face, thank God! was not like that of the Tresidders; it was kind and gentle, and she looked at me in a pitying way.
"What has he done?" she asked, in a voice which, to me, was as sweet as the sound of a brook purling its way through a dell in a wood.
"Done!" said Nick Tresidder. "He is a blackguard; he nearly killed both me and my father."
She looked at me steadfastly, and as she did so my heart throbbed with a new feeling, and tears came into my eyes in spite of myself.
"Surely no," she replied; "he has a kind, handsome face, and he looks as though he might be a gentleman."
"Gentleman!" cried Nick. "He will be flogged presently, then you will see what a cur he is."
"Flogged! Surely no."
"But he will be, and I wish that I were allowed to use the whip. Why, he belongs to the scum of the earth."
By this time I felt my degradation as I had never felt it before, for I felt that I would give worlds, did I possess them, to tell her the whole truth. I wondered who she was, and I writhed at the thought of Nick poisoning her mind against me.
Seeing them there others came up, and I heard one ask who this beauteous maiden was.
"Don't you know?" was the reply. "She is Mistress Naomi Penryn."
"What is his name?" asked this maiden, presently.
"Can't you see?" replied Nick. "Ah! the eggs have almost blotted out the name. It is Jasper Pennington, street brawler and vagabond."
And this was the way I first met Naomi Penryn.
CHAPTER IV
I ESCAPE FROM THE WHIPPING-POST, AND FIND MY WAY TO GRANFER FRADDAM'S CAVE
No words can describe the shame I felt at the time. Before Naomi Penryn came there and looked upon me I was mad with rage and desire for vengeance. I longed to get to a place where I could meet the whole Tresidder brood face to face. But now a new feeling came to me. Had I not after all been a brute, and had I not acted like a maniac? For the look on her face made me love goodness and beauty. I could do nothing, however; my hands were numb, and my tongue was dry and parched. All I was capable of at this moment was to listen and to look into the fair maid's face, and feel a great longing that she might not despise me as Nick Tresidder evidently intended that she should.
The crowd did not pelt me while she stood there; I think it was because there was something in her presence that hindered them. Every one could see at a glance that she was different from the host of laughing things that cared nothing for my disgrace.
I waited eagerly for her to speak again; her words seemed to ease my pain, and to make me feel that I, too, was a man in spite of all I had suffered.
"Jasper Pennington," she said, presently; "why, Pennington is the name of your house, Nick!"
"Yes," replied Nick, savagely.
"He's young, too," she continued, looking at me curiously, and yet with a pitying look in her eyes.
Then I remembered I was twenty-one that day, and that my father had been dead barely two years. Thus, on my twenty-first birthday, I was pilloried as a vagabond and a street brawler, while this beauteous girl looked at me.
"Where does he live?" she asked again, as though she were interested in me.
"Up to a year ago he lived in St. Eve's parish," replied Nick. "He managed to stay by fraud on Elmwater Barton; he was a brute then, and tried to kill me. He would have succeeded, too, but for Jacob Buddle. I hope the man who flogs him will lay it on hard."
She gave me one more look, and in it I saw wonder and pity and fear. Then she said, "Let us go away, Nick. I do not care to stay longer."
"No, we will not go yet!" cried Nick; "let us see him get his lashes. He will be taken down in a few minutes. There, the constables are coming."
I saw the tears start to her eyes, while her lips trembled, and at that moment I did not feel the sting of the lies Nick had told.
The whipping-post was close to the place where the pillory had been set up, and I saw that the constable held the rope with which I was to be tied. Then two men came and unfastened the piece of wood which had confined my head and hands. At first I felt no strength either to hold up my head