"Oh, no, my dear, I will never let you go until you have consented to take my name."
In his zeal, the ungentlemanly wooer seized her hand, and his vicious little eyes glared at her with such ferocity, that she gave utterance to a shriek of fear. The tread of hurried feet fell on her ears, and through the deepening shades of twilight, she caught a glimpse of a scarlet coat, long white hair and beard and flashing jewels. Hands of iron seized Giles Peram. He was lifted into the air as if he had been an infant, and flung head first into a cluster of white thorn, where he lay for a few moments, confused and bleeding. Then Sir Albert St. Croix raised the half-fainting Rebecca from the ground and said:
"Come, my child, be not affrighted; he will not harm you."
She gazed up at the kind face and asked:
"Are you the owner of the ship Despair?"
"I am."
"Thank you, Sir Albert," she began; but he quickly interrupted her with:
"Thank not me, sweet child; but come, tell me what hath gone amiss, and have no fear, for I am powerful enough to save you from any harm."
While the villanous little coward Giles Peram crawled from the hedge and hurried back to town, the old man led the victim of his insults to the church, where they sat upon the step at the front of the vestibule. She had no fear of this good old man, whom she instinctively loved, and who seemed to wield over her a strange and mysterious influence. He asked her all about her tormentor, and she confided everything to him. She told him of the loss of her father at sea, and how they had lived through adversity until better days dawned, then of her mother's second marriage, and the trouble between her brother and Hugh Price. She did not even omit the recent uprising in which her brother had joined Bacon and the rebels in a mad blow for freedom.
"The worst has not yet come, I greatly fear," sighed the little maid. "The rebellion is not over, and my brother will yet, I fear, be hung by the governor, for Mr. Price, his bitter enemy, is a firm friend of the governor."