Mary Dell was a girl of keen wits, but her education was of the
sea-shore. Among her class people talked of the great folk, and men of
wealth and their power--and not without excuse--for in those days
bribery, corruption, and class clannishness often carried their way to
the overruling of justice--the blind; and in her ignorance she thought
that if she could win over Captain Armstrong to forgive her brother, the
prosecution would be at an end, and all would be well.
Consequently she determined to go up to the big house by Slapton Lea,
and beg Mistress Armstrong to intercede with her husband, and ask his
forgiveness; so one morning soon after the committal she set off, but
met the carriage with the young married couple inside--Mistress
Armstrong looking piqued and pale, and the captain as if nothing were
the matter.
The sight of the young wife side by side with the man who had professed
to love her was too much for Mary, and she turned off the road and
descended by the face of a dangerously steep cliff to the shingly shore;
where, as she tramped homeward, with her feet sinking deeply in the
small loose pebbles, her feeling of bitterness increased, and she felt
that it would be impossible to ask that weak, foolish-looking woman with
the doll's face to take her part.
No; she would go up to the house boldly and ask to see the captain
himself; and then, with the memory of his old love for her to help her
cause, he would listen to her prayer, and save her brother from the risk
he ran.
Then a mental cloud came over her, and she felt that she could not go up
to the big house. It was not the captain's, it was _her_ mother's; and
it would be like going to ask a favour of her. She could not do it; and
there was no need.
Captain Armstrong would come down to the shore any evening if she sent
him the old signal, a scrap of dry sea-weed wrapped in paper. Scores of
times she had done this when Abel had gone to sea in his boat, with Bart
for companion; and Mary's cheeks flushed at the recollection of those
meetings.
Yes; she would send him the old signal by one of the fishermen's
children.
No; only if all other means failed. He was better now, and would be
about. She would watch for him, and, as she called it, meet him by
accident, and then plead her cause.
And so a week glided away, and there was only about one more before the
judge would arrive, and Abel and his companion be brought up in the
assize court. Mary had haunted every road and lane leading toward the
big house, and had met the captain riding and walking, but always with
Mistress Armstrong, and she could not speak before her.
There was nothing for it but to take the bold step, and after long
hesitation that step was taken; the piece of sea-weed was wrapped up in
paper, entrusted to a little messenger, and that evening Mary Dell left
the cottage and walked round the western point towards Torcross, her
cheeks flushed, her eyes unusually bright, and her heart full of care.
She was not long in reaching the well-known spot--their old
trysting-place, where the coarse sand was white, and the rocks which
shut in the retired tiny cove rough with limpet, barnacle, and weed.
This was the first time she had been there since James Armstrong had
wearied of the prude, as he called her, and jilted her for his wealthy
wife; and now the question arose; Would he come?
The evening was glorious; but one thought filled Mary's breast--Abel
shut up behind the prison bars, still obdurate, and believing her false
to him, and his faithful friend.
The grey look on the face of the sea was reflected upon that of the
watcher; and as the sky grew dark, so grew Mary Dell's eyes, only that
there was a lurid light now and then glowing in their depths.
"He will not come," she said. "He hates me now as I hate him, and--"
She stopped short, for her well-trained ear caught the sound of a pebble
falling as if from a height upon the strand below, and gazing fixedly
above the direction of the sound, she made out something dark moving
high up on the cliff track.
Mary's heart began to beat wildly, and she drew a long breath; but she
would not let hope carry her away for a few moments till she could be
certain, and then a faint cry of joy escaped her, but only to be
succeeded by a chilling sensation, as something seemed to ask her why he
had come.
"I'm late," cried a well-known voice directly after. "Why, Mary, just
in the old spot. It's like old times. My darling!" He tried to clasp
her in his arms, his manner displaying no trace of his injuries; but she
thrust him sharply away, half surprised and yet not surprised, for she
seemed now to read the man's character to the full.
"Captain Armstrong!" she cried, hoarsely.
"Why, my dear Mary, don't be so prudish. You are not going to carry on
that old folly?"
"Captain Armstrong, don't mistake me."
"Mistake you! No. You are the dearest, loveliest woman I ever saw.
There, don't be huffed because I was so long. I couldn't get away. You
know--" and he again tried to seize her.
"Captain Armstrong--"
"Now, what nonsense! You sent for me, and I have come."
"Yes. I sent for you because there was no other way of speaking to you
alone."
"Quite right, my darling; and what could be better than here alone?
Mary, sweet, it will be dark directly."
"Sir, I sent for you here that I might beg of you to save my brother and
poor Bart."
"Curse your brother and Bart!" said the captain, angrily. "It was not
their fault that they did not kill me. They're better out of our way."
"Captain Armstrong--James--for our old love's sake will you save them?"
"No," he cried, savagely. "Yes," he added, catching Mary's wrist; "not
for our old love's sake, but for our new love--the love that is to come.
Mary, I love you; I always did love you, and now I find I cannot live
without you."
"Captain Armstrong!"
"James--your lover. Mary, you are everything to me. Don't struggle.
How can you be so foolish? There, yes, I will. I'll do everything.
I'll refuse to appear against them if you wish me to. I'll get them set
free; but you will not hold me off like this?"
"You will save my brother?"
"Yes."
"And his friend?"
"Yes."
"Then I will always be grateful to you, and pray for your happiness."
"And be mine, Mary, my love, my own?"
"You villain! you traitor!" hissed Mary, as, taking advantage of a
momentary forgetfulness, he clasped her in his arms and showered kisses
on her lips, her cheeks, her hair.
But Captain Armstrong had made a mistake. It was like caressing a
Cornish wrestler. There was a sharp struggle, during which he found
that Mary's thews and sinews were, softly rounded as she was, strong as
those of a man. She had been accustomed to row a boat in a rough sea by
the hour together, and there was additional strength given to her arm by
the indignation that made her blood course hotly through her veins.
How dare he, a miserable traitor, insult her as he did?
The question made the girl's blood seem to boil; and ere he could place
another kiss upon her lips Mary had forgotten brother, friend, the trial
everything but the fact that James Armstrong, Mistress Armstrong's
husband, had clasped her in his arms; and in return she clasped him
tightly in hers.
They swayed here for a moment, then there, and the next the captain was
lifted completely from the shingle and literally jerked sideways, to
fall with a crash and strike his head against a piece of rock. Then a
sickening sensation came over him and all seemed dark, while, when he
recovered a few minutes later, his head was bleeding and he was alone,
and afraid with his swimming head to clamber up the rough cliff path.
"The cursed jade!" he muttered, as he recovered after a time, and went
cautiously back after tying up his head, "I wish I could lay her
alongside her brother in the gaol."
"Yes; I'll save him," he said with a mocking laugh, as he reached the
top of the cliff and looked down at the faint light seen in the old
wrecker's cottage. "I'll save him; and, in spite of all, it'll be a
strange thing if Mary Dell isn't lost.
"Curse her, how strong she is!" he said after a pause.
"What shall I say! Humph! a slip on the path and a fall. I'm weak yet
after the assault. Some one will have to plaster her dearest Jemmy's
head--a sickly fool!"