In the Roar of the Sea Part 40

"That is well for him." Then, after a short pause, he asked further, "And your unshod feet?"

"Oh! I gave my shoes to Jamie."

Coppinger turned sharply round on the boy. "Take off those shoes instantly and give them back to your sister."

"No--indeed, no," said Judith. "He is running and will cut his poor feet--and I, through your kindness, am riding."

Coppinger did not insist. He asked: "But how comes the boy to be without clothes?"

"Because I rescued him, as he was, from the Asylum."

"You--! Is that why you are out at night?"

"Yes. I knew he had been taken by the two Mr. Scantlebrays at Wadebridge, and I could not rest. I felt sure he was miserable, and was dying for me."

"So--in the night you went to him?"

"Yes."

"But how did you get him his freedom?"

"I found him locked in the black-hole, in the cellar."

"And did Scantlebray look on pa.s.sively while you released him?"

"Oh, no, I let Jamie out, and locked him in, in his place."

"You--Scantlebray in the black-hole!"

"Yes."

Then Coppinger laughed, laughed long and boisterously. His hand that held Judith's foot and the stirrup leather shook with his laughter.

"By Heaven!--You are wonderful, very wonderful. Any one who opposes you is ill-treated, knocked down and broken, or locked into a black hole in the dead of night."

Judith, in spite of her exhaustion, was obliged to smile.

"You see, I must do what I can for Jamie."

"Always Jamie."

"Yes, Captain Coppinger, always Jamie. He is helpless and must be thought for. I am mother, nurse, sister to him."

"His providence," sneered Coppinger.

"The means under Providence of preserving him," said Judith.

"And me--would you do aught for me?"

"Did I not come down the cliffs for you?" asked the girl.

"Heaven forgive me that I forgot that for one moment," he answered, with vehemence. "Happy--happy--happiest of any in this vile world is the man for whom you will think, and scheme and care and dare--as you do for Jamie."

"There is none such," said Judith.

"No--I know that," he answered, gloomily, and strode forward with his head down.

Ten minutes had elapsed in silence, and Polzeath was approached. Then suddenly Coppinger let go his hold of Judith, caught the rein of Black Bess, and arrested her. Standing beside Judith, he said, in a peevish, low tone:

"I touched your hand, and said I was subject to a queen." He bent, took her foot and kissed it. "You repulsed me as subject; you are my mistress!--accept me as your slave."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AN EXAMINATION.

Some days had elapsed. Judith had not suffered from her second night expedition as she had from the first, but the intellectual abilities of Jamie had deteriorated. The fright he had undergone had shaken his nerves, and had made him more restless, timid, and helpless than heretofore, exacting more of Judith's attention and more trying her endurance. But she trusted these ill effects would pa.s.s away in time.

From his rambling talk she had been able to gather some particulars, which to a degree modified her opinion relative to the behavior of Mr.

Obadiah Scantlebray. It appeared from the boy's own account that he had been very troublesome. After he had been taken into the wing of the establishment that was occupied by the imbeciles, his alarm and bewilderment had grown. He had begun to cry and to clamor for his release, or for the presence of his sister. As night came on, paroxysms of impotent rage had alternated with fits of whining. The appearance of his companions in confinement, some of them complete idiots, with half-human gestures and faces, had enhanced his terrors.

He would eat no supper, and when put to bed in the common dormitory had thrown off his clothes, torn his sheets, and refused to lie down; had sat up and screamed at the top of his voice. Nothing that could be done, no representations would pacify him. He prevented his fellow inmates of the asylum from sleeping, and he made it not at all improbable that his cries would be overheard by pa.s.sers-by in the street, or those occupying neighboring houses, and thus give rise to unpleasant surmises, and perhaps inquiry. Finally, Scantlebray had removed the boy to the place of punishment, the Black Hole, a compartment of the cellars, there to keep him till his lungs were exhausted, or his reason gained the upper hand, and Judith supposed, with some justice, that Scantlebray had done this only, or chiefly, because he himself would be up, and about the cellars, engaged in housing his supplies of brandy, and that he had no intention of locking the unhappy boy up for the entire night, in solitude, in his cellars. He had not left him in complete darkness, for a candle had been placed on the ground outside the Black Hole door.

As Judith saw the matter now, it seemed to her that though Scantlebray had acted with harshness and lack of judgment there was some palliation for his conduct. That Jamie could be most exasperating, she knew full well by experience. When he went into one of his fits of temper and crying, it took many hours and much patience to pacify him.

She had spent long time and exhausted her efforts to bring him to a subdued frame of mind on the most irrational and trifling occasions, when he had been angered. Nothing answered with him then save infinite forbearance and exuberant love. On this occasion there was good excuse for Jamie's fit, he had been frightened, and frightened out of his few wits. As Judith said to herself--had she been treated in the same manner, spirited off, without preparation, to a strange house, confined among afflicted beings, deprived of every familiar companion--she would have been filled with terror, and reasonably so.

She would not have exhibited it, however, in the same manner as Jamie.

Scantlebray had not acted with gentleness, but he had not, on the other hand, exhibited wanton cruelty. That he was a man of coa.r.s.e nature, likely on provocation to break through the superficial veneer of amiability, she concluded from her own experience, and she did not doubt that those of the unfortunate inmates of the asylum who overstrained his forbearance met with very rough handling. But that he took a malignant pleasure in hara.s.sing and torturing them, that she did not believe.

On the day following the escape from the asylum, Judith sent Mr.

Menaida to Wadebridge with the blanket that had been carried off round the shoulders of her brother, and with a request to have Jamie's clothes surrendered. Uncle Zachie returned with the garments, they were not refused him, and Judith and her brother settled down into the routine of employment and amus.e.m.e.nt as before. The lad a.s.sisted Mr.

Menaida with his bird skins, talking a little more childishly than before, and sticking less a.s.siduously to his task; and Judith did her needlework and occasionally played on the piano the pieces of music at which Uncle Zachie had hammered ineffectually for many years, and she played them to the old man's satisfaction.

At last the girl ventured to induce Jamie to recommence his lessons.

He resisted at first, and when she did, on a rainy day, persuade him to set to his school tasks, she was careful not to hold him to them for more than a few minutes, and to select those lessons which made him least impatient.

There was a "Goldsmith's Geography," ill.u.s.trated with copper-plates of Indians attacking Captain Cook, the geysers, Esquimaux fishing, etc., that always amused the boy. Accordingly, more geography was done during these first days of resumption of work than history, arithmetic, or reading. Latin had not yet been attempted, as that was Jamie's particular aversion. However, the Eton Latin grammar was produced, and placed on the table, to familiarize his mind with the idea that it had to be tackled some day.

Judith had spread the table with lesson-books, ink, slate, and writing-copies, one morning, when she was surprised at the entry of four gentlemen, two of whom she recognized immediately as the Brothers Scantlebray. The other two she did not know. One was thin faced, with red hair, a high forehead extending to the crown, with the hair drawn over it, and well pomatumed, to keep it in place, and conceal the baldness; the other a short man, in knee-breeches and tan-boots, with a red face, and with breath that perfumed the whole room with spirits.

Mr. Scantlebray, senior, came up with both hands extended. "This is splendid! How are you? Never more charmed in my life, and ready to impart knowledge, as the sun diffuses light. Obadiah, old man, look at your pupil--better already for having pa.s.sed through your hands. I can see it at a glance; there's a brightness, a _Je ne sais quoi_ about him that was not there before. Old man, I congratulate you. You have a gift--shake hands."

The gentlemen seated themselves without invitation. Surprise and alarm made Judith forget her usual courtesy. She feared lest the sight of his gaolers might excite Jamie. But it was not so. Whether, in his confused mind, he did not a.s.sociate Mr. Obadiah with his troubles on that night of distress, or whether his attention was distracted by the sight of so many, was doubtful, but Jamie did not seem to be disconcerted; rather, on the contrary, he was glad of some excuse for escape from lessons.

"We are come," said the red-headed man, "at Miss Trevisa's desire--but really, Mr. Scantlebray, for shame of you. Where are your manners?

Introduce me."