"He harmed us all, Dinah, and I beg you'll keep your temper," answered Arthur. "You're talking far ways short of sense and you don't know what we saved you from."
"Be you shadows, or real people, you grinning men?" she asked, turning upon the others. "Do you know what you've done in your clumsy, brutal strength? Do you know you've wronged and tortured a man whose boots you ain't worthy to black?"
"Hear the truth and don't be an idiot!" answered John Bamsey.
"'Truth'! What do you know of the truth? You—shallow, know-naught creatures, that go by spoken words and make words stand for truth? It's a lie to say he's wedded. Is every man wedded that's married? Have none of you ever seen married people that never felt or knew the meaning of marriage? 'Tis for pity to the likes of you, beyond the power of understanding, that we took these pains; and now we shan't run away behind your backs, but go before your faces—a parcel of zanies, that think because a thing be said it must be true."
"Let the man speak," said Mr. Chaffe. "I command that you speak, Lawrence Maynard. The woman's beside herself and dead to reason. 'Tis your bounden duty to speak for yourself."
"Loose him then and he'll speak fast enough," cried Dinah. "Who be you—a cowardly, hulking pack of ignorant clods to lay fingers on him! If you had sense and decency and any proper Christianity in you, you'd have gone to work very different and spared me this wicked outrage, and him too. You'd have come to us and bid us speak. What do you make us? Loose him, I tell you—ban't one among you man enough to understand that I know all there is to know about this—that it's my work we're going, my work—me that loves him and worships him, and knows the big-hearted, patient, honourable chap he is. God! If you could see yourselves as I see you—meddling, nasty-minded bullies, you'd sink in the earth. Loose him and then listen to him. You're not worth the second thought of a man like him."
Lawrence spoke quietly to Robert Withycombe.
"You see how it is. Don't keep me trussed here no longer. I'm in pain and no good can come of it. If you care to listen, then I'll speak. I'm very glad to let you know how things are, for you've got a credit for sense; so has Mr. Chaffe."
"It's a free country," said Mr. Callicott, "You chaps seem as if you'd made trouble where there isn't none. Pity you didn't look into this first and play your games after."
He opened a knife to sever the ropes that held Maynard. None attempted to stop him save John, and then the sailor came between.