"'Twill go hard with Dick," said one; "the Governor is a just man, but a terror to evil-doers. I miss my guess if Dick and his brother Ralph both know not the feeling of handcuffs ere nightfall."
"Not Ralph!" interrupted another. "What justice were there in punishing the innocent with the guilty? Ralph Ingle is as frank and hearty-spoken a gentleman as there is in Maryland. He comes into my cottage and plays with the baby, and the boys run to the door as soon as ever his voice is heard."
"Ay, but how comes it he is so friendly with that rascal brother of his?"
"Why, blood is thicker than water—even holy water."
A laugh greeted this sally; but the laughers took the precaution to cross themselves.
"You would none of you exercise yourselves much over the intimacy," said a third gossip, "had ye seen as I did the two brothers talking on deck after the row with Early. Ralph told Dick he was quit of him, tired of trying to make a gentleman of him, and wished they might never meet again. He did indeed—I heard it with my own ears."
"That's the most wonderful part of it," said the first speaker; "most of the things you tell you've heard through the ears of some one else."
Gossip number three turned red and opened her mouth to deliver a crushing retort, when she discovered that the attention of her hearers had been distracted by the arrival of a new-comer.
It was Reuben Early, whose wife had bound as big a bandage as possible about his head. He came up to join the group, receiving on all sides gratifying commiserations upon the wound he had been dealt by Richard Ingle's hand; and though he had some difficulty in explaining why he had not returned it, nor made any defence after all his bold talk, he still continued to pose as a hero, and to make his townfellows feel that in his humiliation they had received an individual and collective insult.