style="font-size:15px;"> A PATCHED PEACE
“Look at her!” cried Coppinger, with his back against the house door, and pointing to Judith with his stick.
She was standing near the piano, with one hand on it, and was half turned toward him. She was in black, but had a white kerchief about her neck. The absence of all color in her dress heightened the lustre of her abundant and glowing hair.
Coppinger remained for a moment, pointing with a half sneer on his dark face. Mr. Menaida had nervously complied with his demand, and had removed the hat from the smuggler, and his dark hair fell about his face. That face was livid and pale; he had evidently suffered much, and now every movement was attended with pain. Not only had some of his bones been broken, but he was bruised and strained.
“Look at her!” he shouted again, in his deep commanding tones, and he fixed his fierce eyes on her and knitted his brows. She remained immovable, awaiting what he had to say. Though there was a flutter in her bosom, her hand on the piano did not shake.
“I am very sorry, Captain Coppinger,” said Judith, in a low, sweet voice, in which there was but a slight tremulousness. “I profess that I believe I acted wrongly yesterday, and I repeat that I am sorry – very sorry, Captain Coppinger.”
He made no reply. He lowered the stick that had been pointed at her, and leaned on it. His hand shook because he was in pain.
“I acted wrongly yesterday,” continued Judith, “but I acted under provocation that, if it does not justify what I did, palliates the wrong. I can say no more – that is the exact truth.”
“Is that all?”
“I am sorry for what was wrong in my conduct – frankly sorry that you are hurt.”
“You hear her?” laughed Coppinger, bitterly. “A little chit like that to speak to me thus” – then, turning sharply on her, “Are you not afraid?”
“No, I am not afraid; why should I be?”
“Why? Ask any one in S. Enodoc – any one in Cornwall – who has heard my name.”
“I beg your pardon. I do not want to ask any one else in S. Enodoc, any one else in Cornwall. I ask you.”
“Me? You ask me why you should be afraid of me?” He paused, drew his thick brows together till they formed a band across his forehead. “I tell you that none has ever wronged me by a blade of grass or a flock of wool but has paid for it a thousand-fold. And none has ever hurt me as you have done – none has ever dared to attempt it.”
“I have said that I am sorry.”
“You talk like one cold as a mermaid. I do not believe in your fearlessness. Why do you lean on the piano. There, touch the wires with the very tips of your fingers, and let me hear if they give a sound – and sound they will if you tremble.”
Judith exposed some of the wires by raising the top of the piano. Then she smiled, and stood with the tips of her delicate fingers just touching the chords. Coppinger listened, so did Uncle Zachie, and not a vibration could they detect.
Presently she withdrew her hand, and said, “Is not that enough? When a girl says, ‘I am sorry,’ I supposed the chapter was done and the book closed.”
“You have strange ideas.”
“I have those in which I was brought up by the best of fathers.”
Coppinger thrust his stick along the floor.
“Is it due to the ideas in which you have been brought up that you are not afraid – when you have reduced me to a wreck?”
“And you? – are you afraid of the wreck that you have made?”
The dark blood sprang into and suffused his whole face. Uncle Zachie drew back against the wall and made signs to Judith not to provoke their self-invited visitor; but she was looking steadily at the Captain, and did not observe the signals. In Coppinger’s presence she felt nerved to stand on the defensive, and more, to attack. A threat in his whole bearing, in his manner of addressing her, roused every energy she possessed.
“I tell you,” said he, harshly, “if any man had used the word you threw at me yesterday, I would have murdered him; I would have split his skull with the handle of my crop.”
“You raised your hand to do it to me,” said Judith.
“No!” he exclaimed, violently. “It is false; come here, and let me see if you have the courage, the fearlessness you affect. You women are past-masters of dissembling. Come here; kneel before me and let me raise my stick over you. See; there is lead in the handle, and with one blow I can split your skull and dash the brains over the floor.”
Judith remained immovable.
“I thought it – you are afraid.”
She shook her head.
He let himself, with some pain, slowly into a chair.
“You are afraid. You know what to expect. Ah! I could fell you and trample on you and break your bones, as I was cast down, trampled on, and broken in my bones yesterday – by you, or through you. Are you afraid?”
She took a step toward him. Then Uncle Zachie waved her back, in great alarm. He caught Judith’s attention, and she answered him, “I am not afraid. I gave him a word I should not have given him yesterday. I will show him that I retract it fully.” Then she stepped up to Coppinger and sank on her knees before him. He raised his whip, with the loaded handle, brandishing it over her.
“Now I am here,” she said, “I again ask your forgiveness, but I protest an apology is due to me.”
He threw his stick away. “By heaven, it is!” Then in an altered tone, “Take it so, that I ask your forgiveness. Get up; do not kneel to me. I could not have struck you down had I willed, my arm is stiff. Perhaps you knew it.”
He rose with effort to his feet again. Judith drew back to her former position by the piano, two hectic spots of flame were in her cheek, and her eyes were preternaturally bright.
Coppinger looked steadily at her for a while, then he said, “Are you ill? You look as if you were.”
“I have had much to go through of late.”
“True.”
He remained looking at her, brooding over something in his mind. She perplexed him; he wondered at her. He could not comprehend the spirit that was in her, that sustained a delicate little frame, and made her defy him.
His eyes wandered round the room, and he signed to Uncle Zachie to give him his stick again.
“What is that?” said he, pointing to the miniature on the stand for music, where Mr. Menaida had put it, over a sheet of the music he had been playing, or attempting to play.
“It is my son, Oliver,” said Uncle Zachie.
“Why is it there? Has she been looking at it? Let me see it.”
Mr. Menaida hesitated, but presently handed it to the redoubted Captain, with nervous twitches in his face. “I value it highly – my only child.”
Coppinger
