“I must see if I cannot stop this before it has come to a matter for the magistrates,” said Mr. Tremodart, with a firm look upon his face; “if things go too far, it becomes a hanging matter for the ringleaders—examples are made, and the people intimidated by the hanging of those who lead them. We must not let Abner’s grandson finish his life upon the gallows if we can help it. So come with me, Lady Bride; I will see you to the gate of your home, and then go and meet these lads if they do pay us a visit. They will most likely take the direct road for some distance, and the night is very still. I think I shall find them out by the tramp of their feet. I have good ears for sound.”
Bride knew that, and walked rapidly by his side up the steep road trending upwards towards the castle; but when the lodge gate was reached, and he would have opened it for her, she paused and placed her hand upon his arm.
“I cannot,” she said; “I must go on. I must see the end of this. Indeed, I shall get no harm. Nobody will lay a finger on me. No, do not refuse me; do not think me self-willed, but I must go with you. Something within me tells me I must. Mr. Tremodart, it has been the doing of a Marchmont that Saul Tresithny and these poor ignorant fishermen are abroad with evil intent to-night. You must not hinder me from striving to do my share to avert the threatened danger, and I know I shall not be hurt. You will be with me, and no one will lay a finger on either of us. They may not listen to us; but they will not hurt us. Our West-Country men are not savages.”
Mr. Tremodart rubbed his chin and shook his head in some perplexity. He did not think the delicate girl was suited to the task in hand, and he rather feared what the Duke might say when this night’s work came to his ears; but then it was very difficult for him to overcome the resistance of Lady Bride, whose rank and standing gave her an importance of her own quite independent of that exercised by her strong personality.
“I will tell my father that it was my own doing,” said Bride quietly, observing his hesitation, and taking his arm, she led him onwards, he yielding the point, because he did not exactly know what else to do, having no authority over her to insist on her return.
The walk was a swift but silent one. The road lay white beneath their feet, and the moon, which was now sinking in the sky, threw long strange shadows over the world. The track grew rougher as it rose upon the down-land, but both were good walkers, and did not heed. The great hound paced silently behind them as they moved, till all at once it lifted up its huge head, and after sniffing the air suspiciously for a while, broke into a low deep bay.
At that sound both pedestrians stopped and listened intently, and in a few brief moments they heard a noise. It was not the sound of the measured tramping they had expected first to hear, but rather that of voices—voices in confabulation or dispute, sometimes low and confused, sometimes rising higher and higher, as if in angry debate—the voices of a multitude, as was testified by the continual hum, in addition to the more distinct sounds of argument or strife. The moon just now had passed behind a cloud, and the moor was very dark, but Mr. Tremodart and Bride walked swiftly and silently forward, leaving the road for the soft grass, as they deflected their course, so as to come near to the spot where the colloquy was being held. Their footsteps made no sound, and Bride held the hound by the collar and hushed him into silence. Very soon they had approached near enough to hear what was passing, and to catch every word of a harangue being delivered in a voice which both of them knew only too well.
“I tell yu yu are cowards to think only of duing what is safest and easiest for yourselves. Are we fighting for ourselves, or for our miserable and oppressed brothers? Men, we are bound together in a great undertaking; and if we stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight, and are true tu ourselves and tu each other all over the land, no power can stand against us. We are bound together tu overthrow tyrants and oppressors—the great ones of the earth, who fatten upon our misery and grind us to the very dust. Those are our enemies, and all of yu know it as well as I. And now to-night, when the power is in our hands, are we to disgrace our cause by falling upon men only a little better off than ourselves, and wrecking their goods and bringing them to misery? No—I say no. I say that would be a coward act. And those who want to go to yon upland farm, and ruin a man who was once as one of us, till by his industry he raised himself to comfort, or his father before him, must go alone. I will not be with him. There is one man only in these parts upon whose goods I will lay a hand, and that is the Duke of Penarvon. He is the type tu us of that wealth and power we are banded together tu overthrow, and I will lead yu on tu his place and lay down my life in the struggle with all joy. But I will knock down the first man who tries to go to the farm, and yu men in the crowd who owe the farmer a grudge and hound the rest on to attack him, yu best know whether or not I can keep my word!”
There was dead silence after this speech, which was evidently the culminating oration of a hot debate, and a voice from the crowd called out—
“Us ban’t agwain’ vur tu be a-killed by the Duke’s men an’ theer guns—we’m had enough o’ guns. We’ll de dalled ef we du! Ef we can’t have a slap at t’old varmer’s ’chines, us’ll gwo home tu our beds. Be yu agwaine to take we theer or ban’t yu?”