Then I remembered I was twenty-one that day, and that my father had been dead barely two years. Thus, on my twenty-first birthday, I was pilloried as a vagabond and a street brawler, while this beauteous girl looked at me.
"Where does he live?" she asked again, as though she were interested in me.
"Up to a year ago he lived in St. Eve's parish," replied Nick. "He managed to stay by fraud on Elmwater Barton; he was a brute then, and tried to kill me. He would have succeeded, too, but for Jacob Buddle. I hope the man who flogs him will lay it on hard."
She gave me one more look, and in it I saw wonder and pity and fear. Then she said, "Let us go away, Nick. I do not care to stay longer."
"No, we will not go yet!" cried Nick; "let us see him get his lashes. He will be taken down in a few minutes. There, the constables are coming."
I saw the tears start to her eyes, while her lips trembled, and at that moment I did not feel the sting of the lies Nick had told.
The whipping-post was close to the place where the pillory had been set up, and I saw that the constable held the rope with which I was to be tied. Then two men came and unfastened the piece of wood which had confined my head and hands. At first I felt no strength either to hold up my head or to move my hands, but while they were untying my legs the blood began to flow more freely, and I knew that my strength was coming back. The ropes being removed I was allowed to stand a minute, so that my numbed body might become sensitive to the lash of the whip, but I thought not of it. I kept my eyes steadily on Naomi Penryn, and fed upon the look of pity on her face. I knew that she must think of me as a savage brute, and yet she felt kindly toward me. She did not ask to go away again; she seemed to be held by a strange fascination, and watched while the rope was fastened to the ring in the whipping-post. Then I saw Richard Tresidder come up. He had a scar on his cheek, and from his eyes flashed a look of anger, as though he gloated over the thought of my shame and suffering. No sooner did she see him than she came to him and asked that I might be spared the whipping, but Tresidder would not listen to her.
"He deserves to be hanged, my dear," he said; "if such low fellows as he are allowed to bully gentlemen in the streets, what is to become of us?"
Now this was hard to bear, for as all the world knows the Pennington family is one of the best in the county, but I saw that he wanted to embitter her mind against me.
Then I saw Lawyer Trefry come up, and two justices with him, and while my old friend did not speak to me, I knew that he thought of me kindly.