“And where will she go? Will they drive her into the street?”
“I really do not know; but”—she considered and said timidly, “I have had it on my heart, but have been afraid to speak of it as yet to my father. There is his cottage, never or hardly ever occupied. Now I will take courage, and beg him to let your wife go into it till something can be settled; but you must keep out of danger, and you are not safe here.”
“I cannot go far till my wife and little ones are secure and have a home. Here no one know’th me, the other woodcutters are all men from the moor. There was but your father, and he did not recognise me when I axed him to take me on at felling the timber.”
“I will entreat him to allow your wife and children to go into his house till something can be done for them. You will have to escape into another part of the country.”
“Ay, I will go. If I were took, it would go bad with us all, and there’d be the shame on my little ones—that their father wor hanged. They’d never shake it off.” Then he touched Kate on the head. “My hand be but a wicked un. It hev set fire to a rick, but it be the hand o’ a hunted man, as be nigh crushed with sorrows, as was druv to wickedness thro’ his sufferin’s, and hev bitter repented it since, and swears he’ll niver do it agin, so help me God!” He raised his hand solemnly to heaven. “That’s one thing I ha’ larned, as doin’ wrong niver brings matters right. There wor just that gettin’ drunk. Then there wor the cheek to Farmer Pooke. Then my heart were all wormwood; and when my little maid died, I thought it wor his doin’; and so in a way it wor, for I’d no work and no wage, and us was just about starvin’, and I did that deed o’ fire. It’s kindled a fire in here”—he touched his heart—"that nothink can quench. The Lord ha’ pity on me. I don’t know as I’d ha’ come to this mind but for you, little Kitty Alone, as was pitiful to me when I were bound and like to be given over to gaol, and you let me go, and fed me wi’ crumbs out o’ your hand; and now you will find a house for my dear ones." He laid his hand on her head again. “Mebbe the Lord’ll hear a sinful thief o’ a man, and I ax His blessin’ on thee; an’ if I can iver do anything to show you I’m thankful, I will. Amen.”
“Hah!”
Roger. Redmore started. He was caught by a hand in his collar-band.
Kate sprang to her feet. Her uncle, Pasco Pepperill, was there. He had come up from behind unobserved, and had laid hold of the incendiary.
“I have you, you burning vagabond!” shouted he; “and by heaven! I’ll hand you over to the constables, and see you hanged, as you deserve. Kate, run away—away at once!”
“Oh, uncle, do not be cruel! Let him go.”