A great wave of anger and revolt swept all through England when this thing became known. Perhaps never had she been so near to revolution as that dark November, when the people, eagerly awaiting the advent of some wonderful and semi-miraculous change in their condition, received the news that the measure which was to ensure this had been trampled under foot, and cast ignominiously to the four winds of heaven by the peers of the realm. A cry of execration and hatred ran through the country. Riots and incendiary fires broke out wherever the news penetrated. At Pentreath there was a hot demonstration of popular fury; and Saul had never so raged against his physical infirmity as when he found himself forced to remain at home, eating his heart out in silence, whilst the other men of his persuasion marched with the rioters, and committed acts of lawlessness which gratified their bitter hatred, without, as it happened, doing very much permanent harm in the place.
But the passion that can vent itself is less dangerous than that which is locked up without an outlet, and seethes and smoulders till something suddenly causes a violent explosion. Could Saul have gone with his comrades, perhaps more immediate mischief might have been done, since his was always the most daring spirit; but possibly the blackest chapter of his life might not have been written, and he might have been saved from the depth of iniquity into which he speedily fell.
There is an anger so terrible in its intensity that it works like madness in the brain; and this anger is generally the fiercest when it exists between class and class, and results in reality less from inherent ill-will between the two parties concerned, than from a constitutional and insurmountable difficulty in mutual understanding.
This hatred (which has been at the bottom of many of the world’s tragedies) was now burning with such a white heat of silent fury in Saul’s breast that there began to creep into his sombre eyes a light like that of madness. He would sit up late into the night brooding over the dying embers of the fire, and thinking thoughts that hardly bore putting into words. The wild weather had for the present put a stop to his cruises. He felt the change from the mild autumn days, and often had pain in the maimed member which had suffered from the surgeon’s knife. He was not able to get out much in the cold and wet, and this constant brooding and fierce silent thought were almost enough to turn any man’s brain.
“Revenge! revenge! revenge!” such was the burden of his thoughts; and as he sat pondering over his wild yearnings after vengeance, there would steal into his mind, like whispers from the evil one, memories of what desperate men in past days had done to bring about ruin and disaster. Great ships, containing the wealth of the proud and prosperous, had been shattered on these cruel rocks, and high-born men and women had found a grave in the dark cruel waters, a grave less cruel and dark than the one which engulfed hundreds and thousands of their helpless brothers and sisters through their own greed and selfishness. Would it not be a righteous retribution to lure some such vessel with its living freight upon those cruel “Bull’s Horns”? He knew his comrades would aid and abet such a notion, if he propounded it, for the sake of the plunder and the gain it would bring. But for him the plunder was nothing; he would not touch the gold. But he should feel he had struck a vengeful blow against the rich and the mighty of the land, and then perchance the fever-thirst of his soul would be quenched, and he could rest again.
And thus, brooding and planning and meditating, the dark days slipped by one by one, and the light of madness and unquenchable hatred burned ever brighter and brighter in Saul’s eyes.
CHAPTER XIX
THE BULL’S HORNS
