'You are greatly changed, I perceive, and not by years alone.'
'Ah, sir!' Tears started to the eyes of both mother and daughter. 'Would you,' added the woman, 'step in a moment. Perhaps a few words from you might have effect.' She looked, whilst thus speaking, at her weak, consumptive-looking husband, who was seated by the fireplace with a large green baize-covered Bible open before him on a round table. There is no sermon so impressive as that which gleams from an apparently yawning and inevitable grave; and none, too, more quickly forgotten, if by any resource of art, and reinvigoration of nature, the tombward progress be arrested, and life pulsate joyously again. I was about to make some remark upon the suicidal folly of persisting in a course which almost necessarily led to misery and ruin, when the but partially-closed doorway was darkened by the burly figure of Wyatt.
'A very nice company, by jingo!' growled the ruffian; 'you only want the doctor to be quite complete. But hark ye, Ransome,' he continued, addressing the sick man, who cowered beneath his scowling gaze like a beaten hound—'mind and keep a still tongue in that calf's head of yourn, or else prepare yourself to—to take—to take—what follows. You know me as well as I do you. Good-night.'
With this caution, the fellow disappeared; and after a few words, which the unfortunate family were too frightened to listen to, or scarcely to hear, I also went my way.
The information received from Dr Lee relative to the contemplated run near Hurst Castle proved strictly accurate. The surprise of the smugglers was in consequence complete, and the goods, the value of which was considerable, were easily secured. There occurred also several of the ordinary casualties that attend such encounters—casualties which always excited in my mind a strong feeling of regret, that the revenue of the country could not be assured by other and less hazardous expedients. No life was, however, lost, and we made no prisoners. To my great surprise I caught, at the beginning of the affray, a glimpse of the bottle-green coat, drab knee-cords, with gaiter continuations, of the doctor. They, however, very quickly vanished; and till about a week afterwards, I concluded that their owner had escaped in a whole skin. I was mistaken.
I had passed the evening at the house whither my steps were directed when I escorted Mary Ransome home, and it was growing late, when the servant-maid announced that a young woman, seemingly in great trouble, after inquiring if Lieutenant Warneford was there, had requested to see him immediately, and was waiting below for that purpose. It was, I found, Mary Ransome, in a state of great flurry and excitement. She brought a hastily-scribbled note from Dr Lee, to the effect that Wyatt, from motives of suspicion, had insisted that both he and Ransome should be present at the attempt near Hurst Castle; that the doctor, in his hurry to get out of harm's way, had attempted a leap which, owing to his haste, awkwardness, and the frosty atmosphere and ground, had resulted in a compound fracture of his right leg; that he had been borne off in a state of insensibility; on recovering from which he found himself in Wyatt's power, who, by rifling his pockets, had found some memoranda that left no doubt of Lee's treason towards the smuggling fraternity. The bearer of the note would, he said, further explain, as he could not risk delaying sending it for another moment—only he begged to say his life depended upon me.
'Life!' I exclaimed, addressing the pale, quaking girl; 'nonsense! Such gentry as Wyatt are not certainly particular to a shade or two, but they rarely go that length.'
'They will make away with father as well as Dr Lee,' she shudderingly replied: 'I am sure of it. Wyatt is mad with rage.' She trembled so violently, as hardly to be able to stand, and I made her sit down.
'You cannot mean that the scoundrel contemplates murder?'
'Yes—yes! believe me, sir, he does. You know the Fair Rosamond, now lying off Marchwood?' she continued, growing every instant paler and paler.