"But justice demands it," replied Mr. Hunter, after a pause. "It behoves all loyal subjects of her Majesty to aid in discovering the offenders: especially you, sir, a sworn magistrate."
"It behoves me to protect the poor fishermen, who look to me for protection, who have looked to me for it for years; ay, and received it," was the warm reply, "better than it behoves you, sir, to presume to teach me my duty! Richard, leave me to speak. I tell you, sir, I do not believe this concocted story. I am the chief of the place, sir, and I will not believe it. The coast-guard and the fishermen are at variance; always have been; and I will not allow the poor fellows to be traduced and put upon, treated as if they were thieves and rogues. Neither I nor mine shall take part in it; no, nor any man who is under my roof eating the bread of friendliness. I hope you hear me, sir."
Robert Hunter stood confounded. All his golden visions of discoveries, that should make his name famous and put feathers in his cap, were vanishing into air. But the curious part was the justice's behaviour; that struck him as being very strange, not to say unreasonable.
"It is not the first time, sir, that the coast-guard have tried it on," pursued Mr. Thornycroft. "When the last superintendent was appointed, Dangerfield, he took something of the sort in his head, and came to me to assist him in an investigation. 'Investigate for yourself,' I said to him. 'I shall not aid you to tarnish the characters of the fishermen.' It may be presumed that his investigation did not come to much," was the ironical conclusion; "since I heard no more about the smugglers from him all the years he was stationed here."
"And you think, sir, that Mr. Kyne is also mistaken?" cried Robert Hunter, veering round.
"What I think, and what I do not think, you may gather from my words," was the haughty reply. "I tell you that no man living under my roof shall encourage by so much as a word, let alone an act, anything of the sort. Mr. Kyne can pursue his own business without us."
"If it were one of my own brothers who did so, I would shoot him dead," said Richard, with a meaning touch at his gun. "So I warn him."
"And commit murder?" echoed Robert Hunter, who did not admire this semi-threat of Richard's.
"It would not be murder, sir; it would be justifiable homicide," interposed the justice, rather to Robert Hunter's surprise. "When I was a young man, a guest abused my father's hospitality. My brother challenged him. They went out with their seconds, and my brother shot him. That was not murder."
"But, papa, that must have been a different thing altogether," said Mary Anne, who had stood transfixed at the turn the conversation was taking. "It----"