The laws were tremendously stringent in those days when it was
considered much easier to bring an offender's bad career to an end than
to keep him at the nation's expense, and when the stealing of a sheep
was considered a crime to be punished with death, an attack upon the
sacred person of one of the king's officers by a couple of notorious
law-breakers was not likely to be looked upon leniently by a judge
well-known for stern sentences.
But a jury of Devon men was sitting upon the offence of Abel Dell and
Bart Wrigley, and feeling disposed to deal easily with a couple of young
fellows whose previous bad character was all in connection with
smuggling, a crime with the said jury of a very light dye, certainly not
black. Abel and Bart escaped the rope, and were sentenced to
transportation to one of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies,
there to do convict work in connection with plantations, or the making
of roads, as their taskmasters might think fit.
Time glided by, and Mary Dell found that her life at home had become
insupportable.
She was not long in finding that, now that she was left alone and
unprotected, she was not to be free from persecution. Her contemptuous
rejection of Captain Armstrong's advances seemed to have the effect of
increasing his persecution; and one evening at the end of a couple of
months Mary Dell sat on one of the rocks outside the cottage door,
gazing out to sea, and watching the ships sail westward, as she wondered
whether those on board would ever see the brother who seemed to be all
that was left to her in this world.
That particular night the thought which had been hatching in her brain
ever since Abel had been sent away flew forth fully fledged and ready,
and she rose from where she had been sitting in the evening sunshine,
and walked into the cottage.
Mary Dell's proceedings would have excited a smile from an observer, but
the cottage stood alone. She had heard that Captain Armstrong was from
home and not expected back for a week, and there was no fear of prying
eyes as the sturdy, well-built girl took down a looking-glass from where
it hung to a nail, and, placing it upon the table, propped it with an
old jar, and then seating herself before the glass, she folded her arms,
rested them upon the table, and sat for quite an hour gazing at herself
in the mirror.
Womanly vanity? Not a scrap of it, but firm, intense purpose: deep
thought; calm, calculating observation before taking a step that was to
influence her life.
She rose after a time and walked into her brother Abel's bed-room, where
she stayed for some minutes, and then with a quick, resolute step she
re-entered the cottage kitchen, thrust the few embers together that
burned upon the hearth, took a pair of scissors from a box, and again
seated herself before the glass.
The sun was setting, and filled the slate-floored kitchen with light
which flashed back from the blurred looking-glass, and cast a curious
glare in the girl's stern countenance, with its heavy dark brows,
sun-browned ruddy cheeks, and gleaming eyes.
_Snip_!
The sharp scissors had passed through one lock of the massive black
tresses which she had shaken over her shoulders, and which then rippled
to the cottage floor.
_Snip_!
Another cut, and two locks had fallen. Then rapidly _snip, snip,
snip_--a curious thick, sharp _snip_--and the great waves of glorious
hair kept falling as the bare, sun-burned, ruddy arm played here and
there, and the steel blades glittered and opened and closed, as if arm,
hand, and scissors formed the neck, head, and angry bill of some fierce
bird attacking that well-shaped head, and at every snap took off a thick
tress of hair.
It was not a long task, and when the hair had all fallen, to lie around,
one glorious ring of glossy black tresses, there were only a few snips
to give here and there to finish off notches and too long, untidy spots,
and then the girl rose, and with a cold, hard look upon her frowning
face she stooped, and stooped, and stooped, and at each rising cast a
great tress of hair to where the flames leaped, and seized it, torching
the locks, which writhed, and curled, and flared, and crackled as if
alive, while, as if to aid the idea that she was destroying something
living, a peculiarly pungent odour arose, as of burning flesh, and
filled the room.
An hour later, just as the red moon rose slowly above the surface of the
sea, a sturdy-looking young man, with a stout stick in one hand--the
very stick which had helped to belabour Captain Armstrong--and a bundle
tied up in a handkerchief beneath his arm, stepped out of the cottage,
changed the key from inside to outside, closed the old door, locked it,
dragged out the key, and with a sudden jerk sent it flying far out into
deep water beyond the rocks, where it fell with a dull _plash_! followed
by a peculiar hissing sound, as the waves at high water rushed back over
the fine shingle at the thrower's feet.
There was a sharp look round then; but no one was in sight; nothing to
be heard but the hissing waters, and the splashing, gasping, and
smacking sound, as the tide swayed in and out among the masses of stone.
Then the figure turned once more to the cottage, gazed at it fixedly
for a few moments, took a step or two away; but sprang back directly
with an exceeding bitter cry, and kissed the rough, unpainted woodwork
again and again with rapid action, and then dashed off to the foot of
the cliff, and climbed rapidly to the sheep-track--the faintly-seen path
that led towards Slapton Lea and the old hall, where the captain still
stayed with his young wife, and then joined the west road which led to
Plymouth town.
The risky part of the track was passed, and the open and down-like
pastures beyond the cliffs were reached; and here, with the moon
beginning to throw the shadow of the traveller far forward and in
weird-looking length, the original of that shadow strode on manfully for
another quarter of a mile, when all at once there was a stoppage, for
another figure was seen coming from the direction of Torcross, and the
moon shining full upon the face showed plainly who it was.
There was no question of identity, for that evening, after more than his
customary modicum of wine, Captain James Armstrong--whose journey had
been postponed--had snubbed his young wife cruelly, quarrelled with his
cousin Humphrey, who had been there to dine, and then left the house,
determined to go down to Mary Dell's solitary cottage.
"I'm a fool," he said; "I haven't been firm enough with the handsome
cat. She scratched. Well, cats have claws, and when I have taught her
how to purr nicely she'll keep them always sheathed. I'll bring her to
her senses to-night, once and for all.
"Who the devil's this?" muttered the captain. "Humph! sailor on the
tramp to Plymouth. Well, he won't know me. I won't turn back."
He strode on a dozen yards and then stopped short, as the figure before
him had stopped a few moments before; and then a change came over the
aspect of the captain. His knees shook, his face turned wet, and his
throat grew dry.
It was horrible; but there could be no mistake.
"Abel Dell!" he cried, hoarsely, as he leaped at the idea that the
brother had returned in spirit, to save his sister from all harm.
"Out of my path!" rang forth in answer, the voice being loud, imperious,
and fierce; and then, in a tone of intense hatred and suppressed
passion, the one word--"Dog!"
As the last word rang out there was a whistling as of a stick passing
through the air, a tremendous thud, and the captain fell headlong upon
the rocky ground.
Then there was utter silence as the young sailor placed one foot upon
the prostrate man's chest, stamped upon it savagely, and strode on right
away over the wild country bordering the sea.
The figure loomed up once in the moonlight, as the captain rose slowly
upon one elbow, and gazed after it, to see that it seemed to be of
supernatural proportions, and then he sank back again with a groan.
"It's a spirit," he said, "come back to her;" and then the poltroon
fainted dead away.