“Ah, sir,” said she, “it is hard for you to understand, and I doubt not we must seem perverse in your eyes. But do but place yourself in imagination where we stand, and consider whether your own feelings would not be the same as ours, did you but live our life, and have your home among these poor folk as we have. Remember, sir, we have had our abode here since I was but an infant. When my mother died, and my father was left with me, a babe of but a few months old, on his hands, all the country-folk for miles round offered to nurse me, tend me, do what they could to help the pastor they already loved. I was taken to a farmhouse where this very Tom, whom we sheltered from your soldiers, was running about, a little lad who could scarce speak plain. He was my companion ere I could walk; he would carry me in his arms to see the ducks in the pond, fetch me the early primroses, rock me to sleep in the cradle which was placed for warmth by the big farmhouse fireplace. Think you, sir, those are memories one can ever forget? Think you I would suffer the man who was my playmate all those years ago to be imprisoned, hanged, while I could put out a hand to save him? No, sir. Poor Tom’s no villain. And even if he were, I would not give him up, no, nor the sons and brothers of the kind-hearted women who tended me in my childhood!”
And Joan’s proud eyes flashed on him a look of passionate defiance, of noble enthusiasm, which for a moment struck him dumb.
“Madam,” he said at last, almost humbly, “’tis very true we cannot look upon these men, nay, nor even upon these deeds, with the same eyes. I only pray that you will make allowance for my point of view, as I do for yours; and that you will suffer that we may be foes, if we must be foes, after the most indulgent manner.”
Joan, who had suffered her attention to be diverted from her troublesome charges during her harangue, now perceived that they had wandered some distance away. She therefore curtsied hastily to the lieutenant, and saying briefly, but with a merry laugh, “Ay, sir, we will be the most generous of foes!” she ran off to gather her flock together again.
Tregenna would have liked to follow and help her in her task, but he hardly dared, after the reception he had met with at her hands. Without being positively unfriendly, she had been defiant, daring, audacious; she had let him see that there was a barrier between them which she, at least, regarded as insurmountable. And piqued more than ever, conscious that he admired her more than he had done before, Tregenna was obliged to turn reluctantly in the direction of the shore.
October had come, bringing with it a succession of misty evenings when the marshes were covered with a low-lying cloud of whitish vapor, while a gray haze hung over sea and shore, making it difficult to keep a proper lookout for smuggling craft, and for the experienced and cunning natives in charge of them.
Before Tregenna reached the creek where his boat was waiting, the sun was going down red on his right, over the land, while on every side, but especially on the left, where the marshes lay, the gray mist was getting thicker, the outlines of tree and rock, cottage and passing ship more blurred and faint.
He was but a few hundred yards from the creek when there came to his ears certain sounds, deadened and muffled by the fog, which woke him with a start to the sudden knowledge that there was a conflict of some sort going on a little way off, in the direction of the marshes.
Shouts, oaths, the sharp report of a pistol, followed by a duller sound like that of blows or the fall of a heavy body; all these struck upon his ears as he ran, at the top of his speed, in the direction whence the noise came.
It was at a point where the cliff dipped gradually, to rise again in one last frowning rock over the marshes beyond, that he came suddenly upon the combatants, and found, as he had expected, that he was in the midst of a fray between his own crew on the one hand and the smugglers on the other.