'Phillipson you mean, Mary; and as like as not he has been the cause of the wrong, if wrong there be. Do you really think the charge is true?'
'I scarcely know what to think, Grace. Sometimes I cast the thought from me as I would hurl away a viper, and then again it twines round my heart with such irresistible power that I start at my suspicions, as though I were guilty myself. One thing I know—the merchant gave Stauncy a sum of money the very day he sailed, and I would rather have had a pest in the house than that fifty-pound note.'
Her visitor was silent for a while. This revelation perplexed her; but, knowing how to be candid without being unkind, she replied, 'I can't a-bear that roguish, wicked Phillipson, Mary: I've suffered too much from his grasping, cruel heart to think that any good can come with his gifts. You may depend upon it, he is at the bottom of all this; and at any rate it helps to make a bright lining to the dark clouds. Whatever Stauncy may have done, it will be traced to the merchant, and, as he has money and friends enough to rescue him even from the fangs of the law, he must carry the cap'n with him. He'll be high and dry after all, Mary.'
'God grant it!' she answered; 'but— There's a knock at the door, Grace;' and, deeming that signal of approach sufficient, the door was opened by the very gentleman whose merits they were discussing.
'Good afternoon, Mrs. Stauncy,' he said, standing in the middle of the room, 'I came to tell you not to trouble yourself about the cap'n. That good-for-nothing fellow, Jim Ortop, has been lying, as usual, and his father is vowing vengeance because Stauncy threatened him; but I'll see all made right, and punish the scamps, as sure as my name's Phillipson.'
'Sir,' said Mary, 'you know more than I do about it, and can tell whether you are trifling with me or not; but do you think Squire Hart would have suffered my poor James to be taken to jail like a criminal on the word of Jim Ortop? Who was the gentleman that said so much, and insisted in such a way, that the magistrate couldn't help himself?'
'Gentleman?' said the merchant quickly; 'what do you mean?'
'I mean,' she answered, 'that a strange gentleman, who has been about here for more than a week, obliged the squire to commit him for trial, and insisted on his being sent off to Exeter directly.'
'I never heard of it,' the merchant replied, with a frown on his brow; 'but I'll make that gentleman, whoever he is, eat up his words faster than he uttered them, and you shall see whether the service of the Phillipson family isn't proof against all the magistrates and lawyers of the country. This is Friday: on Monday I'll go to Exeter, and drive you down too, if you like.'
The prospect thus held out so filled her mind on the instant that she could say no more; but her worthy friend relieved her of the necessity by telling him as much of her own thoughts as she considered fitting.