'How dare you, sir, speak to me in this fashion? My father shall hear of this.'
'Let me deal with him, the bloody-minded dog!' said a voice.
It was that of Walter Trenfield, who, springing forward, presented my brother's loaded fowling-piece at the minister's head. 'Listen to me, you beast in human form, you heartless fiend! I am going to send your poisonous soul to hell.'
He pulled the trigger, but the gun missed fire; then swiftly clubbing the weapon he brought it with terrific force against the clergyman's chest and knocked him off the horse. The orderly at once turned, and fled as his master fell.
The Reverend Mr Sampson lay prone upon the sward, his once red face blanched to a deathly white, and over him, with grounded gun, stood the young convict.
My brother tried to take the weapon from him, but Trenfield tossed him aside with one hand as if he were a straw. Then for a minute he looked at the prostrate man in silence; once he raised the gun by the muzzle, then he threw it aside, and, kneeling beside the clergyman, placed his face close to his.
'You dog, you dog, you damned dog! I could choke you now as you lie, you brute beast. But I will let you live, to go to hell in God's own time, you cruel, flogging wretch! You murdered Thomas May—his rotting body is not a hundred yards away. May the stink of it reach the nostrils of Almighty God—and be in yours for ever!'
He rose quickly, took the saddle and bridle off the clergyman's horse, and, striking the animal a sharp blow on the nose, sent it galloping away into the forest; then he returned and again stood over Mr Sampson, his face working with the violence of his passion.
'Are you going to murder me?' the minister asked gaspingly.
'No,' he replied savagely, kicking him again and again in the face, 'but lie there, you bloody-minded swab, till I tell you you can go.'