irritated him. But as she was able to speak he would address her, and not allow her to talk over his head with Jamie.
"How have you been hurt?" he asked. "Why have you tied that bandage about your head?"
"I have been cut by a stone."
"How came that!"
"A drunken man threw it at me."
"What was his name? " "I do not know."
"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. Scantlebray's 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 passively 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.
