him to frighten horses and endanger men’s lives.”
“I am sorry for what Jamie has done. I will pick up the things he has thrown down.”
Cruel Coppinger’s eyes glistened with wrath. He gathered the lash of his whip into his palm along with the handle, and gripped them passionately.
“Curse the fool! My Bess was frightened, dashed up the bank, and all but rolled over. Do you know he might have killed me?”
“You must excuse him; he is a very child.”
“I will not excuse him. I will cut the flesh off his back if I catch him.”
He put the end of the crop handle into his mouth, and, putting his right hand behind him, gathered the reins up shorter and wound them more securely about his left hand.
Judith walked backward, facing him, and he turned with his horse and went after her. She stooped and gathered up a splinter of glass. The sun striking through the gaps in the hedge had flashed on these scraps of broken mirror and of white bone, or burnished brass buttons, and the horse had been frightened at them. As Judith stooped and took up now a buckle, then a button, and then some other shining trifle, she hardly for an instant withdrew her eyes from Coppinger; they had in them the same dauntless defiance as when she encountered him on the stairs of the rectory. But now it was she who retreated, step by step, and he who advanced, and yet he could not flatter himself that he was repelling her. She maintained her strength and mastery unbroken as she retreated.
“Why do you look at me so? Why do you walk backward?”
“Because I mistrust you. I do not know what you might do were I not to confront you.”
“What I might do? What do you think I would do?”
“I cannot tell. I mistrust you.”
“Do you think me capable of lashing at you with my crop?”
“I think you capable of anything.”
“Flattering that!” he shouted, angrily.
“You would have lashed at Jamie.”
“And why not? He might have killed me.”
“He might have killed you, but you should not have touched him – not have thought of touching him.”
“Indeed! Why not?”
“Why not?” She raised herself upright and looked straight into his eyes, in which fire flickered, flared, then decayed, then flared again.
“You are no Dane, or you would not have asked ‘Why not?’ twice. Nay, you would not have asked it once.”
“Not a Dane?” His beard and mustache were quivering, and he snorted with anger.
“A Dane, I have read in history, is too noble and brave to threaten women and to strike children.”
He uttered an oath and ground his teeth.
“No; a Dane would never have thought of asking why not? – why not lash a poor little silly boy?”
“You insult me! You dare to do it?”
Her blood was surging in her heart. As she looked into this man’s dark and evil face she thought of all the distress he had caused her father, and a wave of loathing swept over her, nerved her to defy him to the uttermost, and to proclaim all the counts she had against him.
“I dare do it,” she said, “because you made my own dear papa’s life full of bitterness and pain – ”
“I! I never touched him, hardly spoke to him. I don’t care to have to do with parsons.”
“You made his life one of sorrow through your godless, lawless ways, leading his poor flock astray, and bidding them mock at his warnings and despise his teachings. Almost with his last breath he spoke of you, and the wretchedness of heart you had caused him. And then you dared – yes – you dared – you dared to burst into our house where he lay dead, with shameful insolence to disturb its peace. And now – ” she gasped, “and now, ah! you lie when you say you are a Dane, and talk of cutting and lashing the dead father’s little boy on his father’s burial day. You are but one thing I can name – a coward!”
Did he mean it? No! But blinded, stung to madness by her words, especially that last, he raised his right arm with the crop.
Did she mean it? No! But in the instinct of self-preservation, thinking he was about to strike her, she dashed the basket of buttons in his face, and they flew right and left over him, against the head of Black Bess, a rain of fragments of mirror, brass, steel, mother-of-pearl, and bone.
The effect was instantaneous. The mare plunged, reared, threw Coppinger backward from off his feet, dashed him to the ground, dragged him this way, that way, bounded, still drawing him about by the twisted reins, into the hedge, then back, with her hoofs upon him, near, if not on, his head, his chest – then, released by the snap of the rein, or through its becoming disengaged, Bess darted down the lane, was again brought to a standstill by the glittering fragments on the ground, turned, rushed back in the direction whence she had come, and disappeared.
Judith stood panting, paralyzed with fear and dismay. Was he dead, broken to pieces, pounded by those strong hoofs?
He was not dead. He was rolling himself on the ground, struggling clumsily to his knees.
“Are you satisfied?” he shouted, glaring at her like a wild beast through his tangled black hair that had fallen over his face. “I cannot strike you nor your brother now. My arm and the Lord knows what other bones are broken. You have done that – and I owe you something for it.”
CHAPTER VI
UNCLE ZACHIE
The astonishment, the consternation of Mrs. Trevisa at what had occurred, which she could not fully comprehend, took from her the power to speak. She had seen her niece in conversation with Cruel Coppinger, and had caught snatches of what had passed between them. All his words had reached her, and some of Judith’s. When, suddenly, she saw the girl dash the basket of buttons in the face of the Captain, saw him thrown to the ground, drawn about by his frantic horse, and left, as she thought, half dead, her dismay was unbounded. It might have been that Coppinger threatened Judith with his whip, but nothing could excuse her temerity in resisting him, in resisting him and protecting herself in the way she did. The consequences of that resistance she could not measure. Coppinger was bruised, bones were broken, and Aunt Dionysia knew the nature of the man too well not to expect his deadly animosity, and to feel sure of implacable revenge against the girl who had injured him – a revenge that would envelop all who belonged to her, and would therefore strike herself.
The elderly spinster had naturally plenty of strength and hardness that would bear her through most shocks without discomposure, but such an incident as that which had just taken place before her eyes entirely unnerved and dismayed her.
Coppinger was conveyed home by men called to the spot, and Mrs. Trevisa walked on with her niece and nephew in silence to the house of Mr. Zachary Menaida. Jamie had escaped over the hedge, to put a stone-and-earth barrier between himself and his assailant directly Judith interposed between him and Coppinger. Now that the latter was gone, he came, laughing, over the hedge again. To him what had occurred was fun.
At Menaida’s
