“To forget? never!” interrupted he, with a strange flash in his eyes. “I will never forget, ay! and never forgive, to the end of my days. Stacked like pigs in a stye, crowded together in hunger and dirt, and wretchedness unspeakable, the best man amongst them hanged by the neck till he died, and all for preaching the gospel of truth to a down-trodden people, that is what England has to look for from her rulers! That is what we have to look forward to who strive to raise our brothers from abject misery and degradation. Forget! No, I will never forget. I will avenge those months of misery, and the death of my best and truest friend; ay! I will avenge it on the proud heads of the tyrants of this land. Don’t come near me, don’t speak to me, Lady Bride. I would not hurt you willingly; but there is that within me that may prompt me to do you a mischief if you stand there much longer. Go, I say, go! You are a woman; I believe you are a good and a merciful woman; but you come of a race that is doomed. Go, let me never see you here again! Look to yourself, and let your father look to himself, for they have made a Cain and an Ishmaelite of me; and I will be in very truth what they have made me. I will give them cause to tremble!”
But Bride looked at him with quiet fearlessness, sorrowful, yet not afraid. That the fever and weakness, combined with long months of brooding and suffering, had partially clouded his brain, she could well understand. His threats did not alarm her. She knew he would never lay a finger upon her.
“I am very grieved for you, Saul,” she said again. “It has been very hard to bear, and the more so because all the while you believed you were doing right. That is what is so hard to understand in this world—how to do right without doing wrong too; and there is only one Power that can help us to know that. I hope some day you will learn to know that Power, and see with unclouded eyes. Meantime, if you will let me, I should like to help you and to be your friend. I think you know that you may trust me, even though you may not be able to help hating me.”
He looked at her with a strange expression in his hollow eyes that sometimes burned so brightly, and sometimes were clouded over with a mist of bewilderment and semi-delirious imaginings. He looked at her as though about to speak, but then suddenly closing his lips, he turned hastily away and walked rapidly, though a little unsteadily, in the opposite direction; whilst a woman from a neighbouring cottage came hurrying out, and Bride saw that Mother Clat was approaching.
“’Tidden wise o’ yu tu talk wi’ yon lad out heer alone, Laady Bride. He be maazed wi’ t’ prison vever, he be,” she said anxiously, with a backward glance over her shoulder at the retiring figure of Saul. “Duee go tu home now, and letten ’lone tu coom tu hisself. Yu’ll on’y be aggin’ he on to du wusser ef zo be as yu try to talk un zoft.”
“I am very sorry for him. He looks very ill,” said Bride compassionately. “Do you know where he is living now?”
“He du be bidin’ wi’ me these past tu daays,” answered the woman; “I wunt zay how long he’ll bide. He’s gotten zome money, an’ he’s a rare hand wi’ th’ bwoats. I reckon he can maake a shift to live down along wi’ we, ef zo be as he’s got a mind tu.”
“Take care of him, then,” said Bride pleadingly. “I think he wants care and good food whilst he looks so thin and gaunt. Give him all you think he needs, and I will take care you are no loser. Don’t say a word to him, but just let me know. See, I will leave this crown with you now. Get him everything he ought to have. I never saw anybody so dreadfully changed before.”
The woman took the coin and nodded. She was perfectly to be trusted, despite the peculiarity of her position in St. Bride as the known ally of smugglers, and the cleverest hider and concealer of contraband goods in the place. Bride perfectly recognised the distinction between general dishonesty and this particular sin, so common in those days amongst men otherwise upright and trustworthy. She left the bay a little comforted by learning that Saul had at least a roof over his head, and was amongst men who liked and trusted him. Mother Clat was, with all her witch-like aspect and rough speech, a kind-hearted woman, and would do her best for her lodger. Saul was better here by the salt sea waves than in some poor lodging in Pentreath. Evidently the death of the cobbler and the scattering of the little band of malcontents had for the time shattered his dream of becoming a semi-professional agitator. The fascination of the blue sea, the boundless sky, and the tossing salt waves had drawn him back to St. Bride’s. If only some gentler influence could be brought to bear upon him, he might yet become a changed character with patience and time.
“If Eustace could see his pupil now, what would he think?” questioned the girl to herself, as she rode up the rough beach path; and she wondered to herself whether his influence, could it be brought to bear, would be for good or for ill—though this seemed but idle speculation, as Eustace was far away in London, and she did not think he would visit Penarvon for long enough to come. Musing thus, she turned in at the lodge gate and rode quietly up the zigzag track through the pine wood, till, arriving at the point where the road divided, she took the right-hand fork and rode direct to the stable-yard, and three minutes later reined in her pony in the big enclosure, a groom coming forward to assist her to dismount.