Joan, The Curate/Chapter 6
On the following day Tregenna sent word to General Hambledon that he had better search the neighborhood of Rede Hall for "Gardener Tom," who had escaped him at the Parsonage on the previous evening.
But he had very little hope of any result; and his fears were justified when, a few days later, he met the brigadier, who had, of course, been as completely fooled by the artful Ann as Tregenna himself had been.
Ann, whom the general had found with her arms in the wash-tub, placid, stolid, and as amiable as ever, had made profuse apologies for her behavior to Tregenna, whom she professed herself ashamed to meet. She had had no idea, she said, that there was any one hidden in the cart until the lieutenant had got out in search of the lost whip. Then a man had started up from under the hay, put a pistol to her head, and threatened her with instant death if she did not drive on, which she was thus forced to do. After crossing the river, he had jumped out at the first bend of the road, and she had no idea what had become of him.
Even the brigadier seemed to have his doubts about the entire truth of Ann's story; but Tregenna, who knew it was a tissue of falsehoods, said nothing. He perceived already that General Hambledon's precious plan of "getting hold of the women, my boy," only had the result of letting the women get hold of him.
Then there came a lull in the excitement of the times. Ben the Blast had disappeared from the neighborhood, without Tregenna's having been able to identify him with the owner of the blood-stained knife. There were no more raids; there were no more discoveries, things seemed to have settled down, and it appeared impossible to suspect the peaceful-looking carters and plowmen who went stolidly about their work in the fields, looking as placid and unenterprising as their own oxen, of having had any hand in the lawless practises which the soldiers and the cutter's men had been sent to quell.
The cutter was generally cruising about, keeping a sharp lookout on the coast for suspicious-looking craft, so that Tregenna got very little time ashore. On the rare occasions when he did get as far inland as the village of Hurst, he always felt a longing to call at the Parsonage and twit Joan with her lawless behavior in helping a criminal to escape.
He was returning to the shore one day, after paying a duty visit to Hurst Court, where the ladies' sympathy with him had been quite overwhelming, though he shrewdly guessed that their silken frocks had been cheaply come by, when he saw Mistress Joan, with a small flock of sheep before her, and a long osier wand in her hand, coming across the high ground from the marsh.
She instantly checked her pace, as if to give him an opportunity to pass before she and her flock came up with him. But he, of course, checked his speed too, and raised his hat with a deep bow as soon as she came near.
Joan threw back the heavy folds of her hooded cloak, and curtsied politely, but with a certain stately bashfulness which showed that his anxiety to meet her had scarcely been reciprocated.
Tregenna, however, was not to be daunted. He could not help feeling a strong interest in the spirited young creature, and his heart had leapt up at the chance of speaking with her again.
"Turned shepherdess, I perceive, Mistress Joan!" said he, leaving the road to meet her as he spoke.
"And not a very skilful one, I fear," replied she, keeping her gaze fixed on the sheep, who showed a decided inclination to wander. "They belong to an old dame that lives on the edge of the marsh yonder; and I offered to bring them into the village, and to fold them for the night in our own meadow, that they might go to market to-morrow morning with those of a neighbor."
"May I not assist you in your task? 'Tis no easy one, I see."
"And have you no fear, sir, lest they should be the property of smugglers, or lest the wool which covers them be the receptacle of contraband goods, even as innocent hay may be?" asked she, with a certain demure mischief in her tone which piqued him.
"Well, madam, since you challenge me," retorted Tregenna, "I own I may have reason for such thoughts; for you have shown a marked tenderness, if I must say so, towards the breakers of the law, even to assisting a criminal to escape, that had a warrant out against him."
A change came over Joan's handsome face. The look of mutinous mischief in her eyes gave place to a certain wistful kindliness even more attractive. And she spoke in such a tender, pleading, gentle voice that, if Tregenna had harbored any resentful feelings towards her, he must have been disarmed.
"Ah, sir," said she, "it is hard for you to understand, and I doubt not we must seem perverse in your eyes. But do but place yourself in imagination where we stand, and consider whether your own feelings would not be the same as ours, did you but live our life, and have your home among these poor folk as we have. Remember, sir, we have had our abode here since I was but an infant. When my mother died, and my father was left with me, a babe of but a few months old, on his hands, all the country-folk for miles round offered to nurse me, tend me, do what they could to help the pastor they already loved. I was taken to a farmhouse where this very Tom, whom we sheltered from your soldiers, was running about, a little lad who could scarce speak plain. He was my companion ere I could walk; he would carry me in his arms to see the ducks in the pond, fetch me the early primroses, rock me to sleep in the cradle which was placed for warmth by the big farmhouse fireplace. Think you, sir, those are memories one can ever forget? Think you I would suffer the man who was my playmate all those years ago to be imprisoned, hanged, while I could put out a hand to save him? No, sir. Poor Tom's no villain. And even if he were, I would not give him up, no, nor the sons and brothers of the kind-hearted women who tended me in my childhood!"
And Joan's proud eyes flashed on him a look of passionate defiance, of noble enthusiasm, which for a moment struck him dumb.
"Madam," he said at last, almost humbly, "'tis very true we cannot look upon these men, nay, nor even upon these deeds, with the same eyes. I only pray that you will make allowance for my point of view, as I do for yours; and that you will suffer that we may be foes, if we must be foes, after the most indulgent manner."
Joan, who had suffered her attention to be diverted from her troublesome charges during her harangue, now perceived that they had wandered some distance away. She therefore curtsied hastily to the lieutenant, and saying briefly, but with a merry laugh, "Ay, sir, we will be the most generous of foes!" she ran off to gather her flock together again.
Tregenna would have liked to follow and help her in her task, but he hardly dared, after the reception he had met with at her hands. Without being positively unfriendly, she had been defiant, daring, audacious; she had let him see that there was a barrier between them which she, at least, regarded as insurmountable. And piqued more than ever, conscious that he admired her more than he had done before, Tregenna was obliged to turn reluctantly in the direction of the shore.
October had come, bringing with it a succession of misty evenings when the marshes were covered with a low-lying cloud of whitish vapor, while a gray haze hung over sea and shore, making it difficult to keep a proper lookout for smuggling craft, and for the experienced and cunning natives in charge of them.
Before Tregenna reached the creek where his boat was waiting, the sun was going down red on his right, over the land, while on every side, but especially on the left, where the marshes lay, the gray mist was getting thicker, the outlines of tree and rock, cottage and passing ship more blurred and faint.
He was but a few hundred yards from the creek when there came to his ears certain sounds, deadened and muffled by the fog, which woke him with a start to the sudden knowledge that there was a conflict of some sort going on a little way oft, in the direction of the marshes.
Shouts, oaths, the sharp report of a pistol, followed by a duller sound like that of blows or the fall of a heavy body; all these struck upon his ears as he ran, at the top of his speed, in the direction whence the noise came.
It was at a point where the cliff dipped gradually, to rise again in one last frowning rock over the marshes beyond, that he came suddenly upon the combatants, and found, as he had expected, that he was in the midst of a fray between his own crew on the one hand and the smugglers on the other.
As he came over the crest of the hill towards the combatants, and, drawing his sword, shouted to the smugglers to surrender, hoping they might think he was supported by an approaching force behind, there arose out of the mist, from among the struggling, scuffling mass of cursing, fighting men, the figure of a lad, stalwart but supple, clothed in loose fisherman's clothes and cap, and surmounted by a pale face, in which blazed a pair of steely gray eyes, surrounded by a shoulder-length crop of raven-black hair.
There was something so wild, so ferocious in the whole aspect of the lad, young as he was, that Tregenna watched him even as he ran, with singular interest.
Springing down the slope at a great pace, he drew his pistol, and pointed it at the lad, who was watching him intently with a lowering face.
"Surrender!" cried the lieutenant, as he ran.
But, instead of answering, the lad, after waiting, motionless, for him to come within range, suddenly leapt out from among the rest of the struggling men with a bound like an antelope, knocked up the pistol, and, with a savage cry, drew out a cutlass, and made a dash for Tregenna's throat.