THE SECOND TIME.
No sooner had Oliver thrown the stone with note tied round it into
Judith's room through the window, than he descended from a position
which he esteemed too conspicuous should anyone happen to be about in
the night near the house. He ensconced himself beneath the cow-shed
wall in the shadow, where concealed, but was ready should the casement
open to step forth and show himself.
He had not been there many minutes before he heard steps and voices,
one of which he immediately recognized as that of Cruel Coppinger.
Oliver had not been sufficiently long in the neighborhood to know the
men in it by their voices, but looking round the corner of the wall he
saw two figures against the horizon, one with hands in his pockets,
and by the general slouch, he thought that he recognized the sexton of
S. Enodoc.
"The Black Prince will be in before long," said Coppinger. "I mean
next week or fortnight, and I must have the goods shored here, this
time. She will stand off Porth-leze, and mind you get information
conveyed to the captain of the coast-guard that she will run her cargo
there. Remember that. We must have a clear coast here. The stores are
empty and must be refilled."
"Yes, your honor."
"You have furnished him with the key to the signals?"
"Yes, Cap'n."
"And from Porth-leze there are to be signals to the Black Prince to
come on here--but so that they may be read the other way--you
understand?"
"Yes, Cap'n."
"And what do they give you every time you carry them a bit of
information?"
"A shilling."
"A munificent government payment! and what did they give you for the
false code of signals?"
"Half a crown."
"Then here is half a guinea--and a crown for every lie you impose on
them."
Then Coppinger and the sexton went further. As soon as Oliver thought
he could escape unobserved he withdrew and returned to Polzeath.
Next day he had a talk with his father.
"I have had opinions, in Bristol," said he, "relative to the position
of Judith."
"From whom?"
"From lawyers."
"Well--and what did they say?"
"One said one thing and one another. I stated the case of her
marriage, its incompletion, the unsigned register, and one opinion was
that nevertheless she was Mrs. Coppinger. But another opinion was
that, in consequence of the incompleteness of the marriage, it was
none--she was Miss Trevisa. Father, before I went to the barristers
and obtained their opinions, I was as wise as I am now, for I knew
then, what I know now, that she is either Mrs. Coppinger, or else that
she is Miss Trevisa."
"I could have told you as much."
"It seems to me--but I may be uncharitable," said Oliver, grimly,
"that the opinion given was this way or that way according as I showed
myself interested for the legality or against the legality of the
marriage. Both of those to whom I applied regarded the case as
interesting and deserving of being thrashed out in a court of law, and
gave their opinions so as to induce me to embark in a suit. You
understand what I mean, father? When I seemed urgent that the marriage
should be pronounced none at all, then the verdict of the consulting
barrister was that it was no marriage at all, and very good reasons he
was able to produce to show that. But when I let it be supposed that
my object was to get this marriage established against certain parties
keenly interested in disputing it, I got an opinion that it was a good
and legal marriage, and very good reasons were produced to sustain
this conclusion."
"I could have told you as much--and this has cost you money?"
"Yes--naturally."
"And left you without any satisfaction?"
"Yes."
"No satisfaction is to be got out of law--that is why I took to
stuffing birds."
"What is that noise at the door?" asked Oliver.
"There is some one trying to come in, and fumbling at the hasp," said
his father.
Oliver went to the door and opened it--to find Jamie there, trembling,
white, and apparently about to faint. He could not speak, but he held
out a note to Oliver.
"What is the matter with you?" asked the young man.
The boy, however, did not answer, but ran to Mr. Menaida, and crouched
behind him.
"He has been frightened," said the old man. "Leave him alone. He will
come round presently and I will give him a drop of spirits to rouse
him up. What letter is that?"
Oliver looked at the little note given him. It had been sealed, but
torn open afterward. It was addressed to him, and across the address
was written in bold, coarse letters with a pencil, "Seen and passed.
C. C." Oliver opened the letter and read as follows:
"I pray you leave me. Do not trouble yourself about me.
Nothing can now be done for me. My great concern is for
Jamie. But I entreat you to be very cautious about yourself
where you go. You are in danger. Your life is threatened, and
you do not know it. I must not explain myself, but I warn
you. Go out of the country--that would be best. Go back to
Portugal. I shall not be at ease in my mind till I know that
you are gone, and gone unhurt. My dear love to Mr.
Menaida--Judith."
The hand that had written this letter had shaken, the letters were
hastily and imperfectly formed. Was this the hand of Judith who had
taught Jamie caligraphy, had written out his copies as neatly and
beautifully as copper-plate?
Judith had sent him this answer by her brother, and Jamie had been
stopped, forced to deliver up the missive, which Coppinger had opened
and read. Oliver did not for a moment doubt _whence_ the danger sprang
with which he was menaced. Coppinger had suffered the warning to be
conveyed to him with contemptuous indifference--it was as though he
had scored across the letter--"Be forewarned, take what precautions
you will--you shall not escape me."
The first challenge had come from old Menaida, but Coppinger passed
over that as undeserving of attention, but he proclaimed his readiness
to cross swords with the young man. And Oliver could not deny that he
had given occasion for this. Without counting the cost, without
considering the risk; nay, further, without weighing the right and
wrong in the matter, Oliver had allowed himself to slip into terms of
some familiarity with Judith, harmless enough were she unmarried, but
hardly calculated to be so regarded by a husband. They had come to
consider each other as cousins, or they had pretended so to consider
each other, so as to justify a half-affectionate, half-intimate
association, and before he was aware of it Oliver had lost his heart.
He could not and he would not regard Judith as the wife of Coppinger,
because he knew that she absolutely refused to be so regarded by him,
by herself, by his father, though by appearing at the ball with
Coppinger, by living in his house, she allowed the world to so
consider her. Was she his wife? He could not suppose it when she had
refused to conclude the marriage ceremony, when there was no
documentary evidence for the marriage. Let the question be mooted in a
court of law; what could the witnesses say, but that she had fainted,
and that all the latter portion of the ceremony had been performed
over her when unconscious, and that on her recovery of her faculties
she had resolutely persisted in resistance to the affixing of her
signature to the register.
With respect to Judith's feelings toward himself Oliver was ignorant.
She had taken pleasure in his society, because he had made himself
agreeable to her, and his company was a relief to her after the
solitude of Pentyre and the association there with persons with whom
she was wholly out of sympathy.
His quarrel with Coppinger had shifted ground. At first he had
resolved, should occasion offer, to conclude with him the contest
begun on the wreck, and to chastise him for his conduct on that night.
Now, he thought little of that cause of resentment, he desired to
punish him for having been the occasion of so much misery to Judith.
He could not now drive from his head the scene of the girl's wan face
at the window, looking up at the moon.
Oliver would shrink from doing anything dishonorable, but it did not
seem to him that there could be aught wrong and unbecoming a gentleman
in endeavoring to snatch this hapless child from the claws of the wild
beast that had struck it down.
"No, father," said he hastily, as the old fellow was pouring out a
pretty strong dose of his great specific and about to administer it to
Jamie, "no father, it is not that the boy wants; and remember how
strongly Judith objects to his being given spirits."
"Dear, dear!" exclaimed Uncle Zachie, "to be sure she does, and she
made me promise not to give him any. But this is an exceptional case."
"Let him come to me, I will soothe him. The child is frightened, or
stay, get him to help you with that kittiwake. Jamie, father can't get
the bird to look natural; his head does not seem to me to be right.
Did you ever see a kittiwake turn his neck in that fashion? I wish you
would put your fingers to the throat, and bend it about, and set the
wadding where it ought to be. Father and I can't agree about it."
"It is wrong," said Jamie. "Look, this is the way." His mind was
diverted. Always volatile, always ready to be turned from one thing to
another, Oliver had succeeded in interesting him, and had made him
forget for a moment the terrors that had shaken him.
After Jamie had been in the house for half an hour, Oliver advised him
to return to the Glaze. He would give him no message, verbal or
written. But the thought of having to return renewed the poor child's
fears, and Oliver could hardly allay them by promising to accompany
him part of the way.
Oliver was careful not to speak to him on the subject of his alarm,
but he gathered from his disjointed talk that Judith had given him the
note and impressed on him that it was to be delivered as secretly as
possible; that Coppinger had intercepted him, and suspecting
something, had threatened and frightened him into divulging the truth.
Then Captain Cruel had read the letter, scored over it some words in
pencil, given it back to him, and ordered him to fulfil his
commission, to deliver the note.
"Look you here, Jamie," was Mr. Menaida's parting injunction to the
lad as he left the house, "there's no reason for you to be idle when
at Pentyre. You can make friends with some of the men and get birds
shot. I don't advise your having a gun, you are not careful enough.
But if they shoot birds you may amuse your leisure in skinning them,
and I gave Judith arsenic for you. She keeps it in her workbox, and
will let you have sufficient for your purpose as you need it. I would
not give it to you, as it might be dangerous in your hands as a gun.
It is a deadly poison, and with carelessness you might kill a man. But
go to Judith when you have a skin ready to dress and she will see that
you have sufficient for the dressing. There, good-by, and bring me
some skins shortly."
Oliver accompanied the boy as far as the gate that led into the lane
between the walls enclosing the fields of the Pentyre estate. Jamie
pressed him to come farther, but this the young man would not do. He
bade the poor lad farewell, bid him divert himself as his father had
advised, with bird stuffing, and remained at the gate watching him
depart. The boy's face and feebleness touched and stirred the heart of
Oliver. The face reminded him so strongly of his twin sister, but it
was the shadow, the pale shadow of Judith only, without the
intelligence, the character, and the force. And the helplessness of
the child, his desolation, his condition of nervous alarm roused the
young man's pity. He was startled by a shot, that struck his gray hat
simultaneously with the report.
In a moment he sprang over the hedge in the direction whence the smoke
rose, and came upon Cruel Coppinger with a gun.
"Oh, you!" said the latter, with a sneer, "I thought I was shooting a
rabbit."
"This is the second time," said Oliver.
"The first," was Coppinger's correction.
"Not so--the second time you have levelled at me. The first was on the
wreck when I struck up your hand."
Coppinger shrugged his shoulders. "It is immaterial. The third time is
lucky, folks say."
The two men looked at each other with hostility.
"Your father has insulted me," said Coppinger. "Are you ready to take
up his cause? I will not fight an old fool."
"I am ready to take up his cause, mine also, and that of----" Oliver
checked himself.
"And that of whom?" asked Coppinger, white with rage, and in a
quivering voice.
"The cause of my father and mine own will suffice," said Oliver.
"And when shall we meet?" asked Captain Cruel, leaning on his gun and
glaring at his young antagonist over it.
"When and where suits me," answered Oliver, coldly.
"And when and where may that be?"
"When and where!--when and where I can come suddenly on you as you
came on me upon the wreck. With such as you--one does not observe the
ordinary rules."
"Very well," shouted Coppinger. "When and where suits you, and when
and where suits me--that is, whenever we meet again--we meet finally."
Then each turned and strode away.