“What’s that – Mary being so base?”
“Nay, I’m sorry for that,” replied Bart; “but what I meant was that I didn’t give the captain one hard un on the head.”
Chapter Seven
Gathering Clouds
In spite of the declaration made by Captain Armstrong that he had identified his assailants by the heights, voices, and – dark as was the night – their features, Abel refused to be convinced. He had taken it into his head that Mary had denounced them to her former lover, and at each examination before the Old Devon magistrates he had sullenly turned away from the poor girl, who sat gazing imploringly at the dock, and hungering for a look in return.
The captain was not much hurt; that is to say, no bones were broken. Pain he had suffered to a little extent, for there was an ugly slit in one ear, but he was not in such a condition as to necessitate his limping into court, supported by a couple of servants, and generally “got up” to look like one who had been nearly beaten to death.
All this told against Abel and Bart, as well as the fact that the captain was of good birth, and one who had lately formed an alliance with a famous old county family. In addition, the prisoners were known to the bench. Both Abel and Bart had been in trouble before, and black marks were against them for wrecking and smuggling. They were no worse than their neighbours, but the law insists upon having scarecrows, and the constables did not hesitate to make every effort to hang the son of a notorious old wrecker and his boon companion.
There was not a dissentient voice. Abel Dell and Bartholomew Wrigley were both committed for trial; and Mary made quite a sensation by rising in the court as the prisoners were about to be removed, and forcing her way to where she could catch her brother’s hand.
“Abe,” she cried, passionately, “I didn’t. I didn’t, indeed. Say good-bye.”
He turned upon her fiercely, and snatched his hand away.
“Go to your captain,” he said, savagely. “I shall be out of the way now.”
An ordinary woman would have shrunk away sobbing; but as Mary was flung off, she caught at Bart’s wrist, and clung to that.
“Bart, I didn’t! I didn’t!” she whispered, hoarsely. “Tell him I wouldn’t – I couldn’t do such a thing. It isn’t true!”
Bart’s face puckered up, and he looked tenderly down in the agitated face before him.
“Well, lass,” he said, softly, “I believe – ”
“That you turned against us!” interposed Abel, savagely, for his temper, consequent upon the way matters had gone against him, was all on edge. “Come on, Bart; she’ll have her own way now.”
A constable’s hand was on each of their shoulders, and they were hurried out of court, leaving Mary standing frowning alone, the observed of all.
Her handsome face flushed, and she drew herself up proudly, as she cast a haughtily defiant look at all around, and was about to walk away when her eyes lighted upon the captain, who was seated by the magisterial bench, side by side with his richly-dressed lady.
There was a vindictive glare in Mary Dell’s eyes as she encountered the gaze of Mistress Armstrong, the lady looking upon her as a strange, dangerous kind of creature.
“Why should she not suffer as I suffer?” thought Mary. “Poor, weak, dressed-up doll that she is! I could sting her to the heart easy. How I hate her, for she has robbed me of a husband!”
But the next moment the lady withdrew her gaze with a shiver of dread from the eyes which had seemed to scorch her; and Mary’s now lit upon those of Captain Armstrong, for he was watching her curiously, and with re-awakened interest.
Mary’s face changed again its expression, as light seemed to enter her darkened soul.
“He used to love me a little. He would not be so cruel as that. I offended him, because I was so hard and – cruel he called it. He would listen to me now. I will, I will.”
She gazed at him fixedly for a moment, and then hurried from the court.
“What a dreadful-looking woman, Jemmy!” whispered Mistress Armstrong. “She quite made me shudder. Will they hang her too?”
“No, no,” he said, rising quickly and drawing a long breath. Then, recollecting himself, he sat down again as if in pain, and held out his hand to his wife, who supported him to the carriage, into which he ascended slowly.
“Sorry for you, Armstrong; deuced sorry, egad,” said the senior magistrate, coming up to the carriage door. “Can’t help feeling glad too.”
“Oh, Sir Timothy!” cried Mistress Armstrong, who was a seventeenth cousin.
“But I am, my dear,” said the old magistrate. “Glad, because it will rid us of a couple of dreadful rascals. Trial comes on in three weeks. I wouldn’t get well too soon. Judge Bentham will hang them as sure as they’re alive.”
He nodded and walked off, with his cocked hat well balanced on his periwig. Then the heavy lumbering carriage drove out of the quaint old town, with the big dumpling horses perspiring up the hills; while, as soon as they were away from the houses, Mistress Armstrong leaned back on the cushions with a sigh of relief.
“I do hope the judge will hang them,” she said. “A pair of wicked, bad, cruel ruffians, to beat and half-kill my own dear darling Jemmy as they did. Oh, the cruel, cruel creatures! I could hang them myself! Does it hurt you anywhere now, my own sweetest boy?” she added, softly, as she passed her arm caressingly round her liege lord, who gave such a savage start that she shrank into the other corner of the carriage, with the tears starting to her eyes.
“Don’t be such a confounded fool!” her “sweetest” Jemmy roared; and then he sat back scowling, for she had interrupted a sort of day-dream in which he was indulging respecting Mary Dell, whose eyes still seemed to be fixed upon his; and as his wife’s last words fell upon his ear they came just as he was wondering whether, if they met again, Mary would, in her unprotected state, prove more kind, and not so prudish as of yore.
The honeymoon had been over some time.
Chapter Eight
Mary Begins to Plan
Mary Dell was a girl of keen wits, but her education was of the sea-shore. Among her class people talked of the great folk, and men of wealth and their power – and not without excuse – for in those days bribery, corruption, and class clannishness often carried their way to the overruling of justice – the blind; and in her ignorance she thought that if she could win over Captain Armstrong to forgive her brother, the prosecution would be at an end, and all would be well.
Consequently she determined to go up to the big house by Slapton Lea, and beg Mistress Armstrong to intercede with her husband, and ask his forgiveness; so one morning soon after the committal she set off, but met the carriage with the young married couple inside – Mistress Armstrong looking piqued and pale, and the captain as if nothing were the matter.
The sight of the young wife side by side with the man who had professed to love her was too much for Mary, and she turned off the road and descended by the face of a dangerously steep cliff to the shingly shore; where, as she tramped homeward, with her feet sinking deeply in the small loose pebbles, her feeling of bitterness increased, and she felt that it would be impossible to ask that weak, foolish-looking woman with the doll’s face to take her part.
No; she would go up to the house boldly and ask to see the captain himself; and then, with the memory of his old love for her to help her cause, he would listen to her prayer, and save her brother from the risk he ran.
Then a mental cloud came over her, and she felt that she could not go up to the big house. It was not the captain’s, it was her mother’s; and it would be like going to ask a favour of her. She could not do it; and there was no need.
Captain Armstrong would come down to the shore any evening if she sent him the