c' 
 
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 'hem, such a s 
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 irday Rtvitw. 
 
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 j u-^ gs**^ ^»*rt — ■ »*-**„ — Jwt ^~»ir^ a** 8 ^ i~nr m i ±-*n-~j ^>>0 ■— * <
 
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 ACQUITTED.
 
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 ACaUITTED. 
 
 % 11*1. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. GORDON SMYTHIES, 
 
 AtJTHOK OF "COF/SIN GF.OFFHET," " THE JILT," " THE LIFE OF A BSAUir, 
 "TBCE TO THE LAST," &C. 
 
 •• Faith is the star that gleams above, 
 Hope is the flower that buds below ; 
 Twin tokens of celestial love 
 
 That out from Nature's bosom grow, 
 And still alike in sky aud sod, 
 That star aud blossom ever point to God." 
 
 Poems by Charles Kent. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 TINSLEY BBOTSEBS, 13, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND 
 1870. 
 
 [All rightt of Translation and Reproduction are reierved.]
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SAVILL, ELWABDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 
 COTENT GARDEN.
 
 3« 
 
 Bcbuatton, 
 
 My dear De. Hastings, 
 
 Allow me to dedicate to you, a work 
 which was commenced in happier days, and 
 when it seemed probable that your match- 
 less skill and zealous care, would have suc- 
 ceeded in saving the (to me) unutterably 
 precious life, of my young and only girl. 
 
 You will remember with what a lively 
 interest, and what an innocent and young 
 delight, that good, gifted, and beautiful 
 being, anticipated my dedicating this work 
 to you, in acknowledgment, of her recovery. 
 
 To the last, it was her firm conviction (as 
 'it is mine) that had she been under your
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 care at an earlier stage of that sad malady — 
 the scourge of our land, and which seems 
 ever to select for its victims the loveliest and 
 the best — you would have saved her, as you 
 have done so many similarly afflicted. 
 
 It was by the earnest advice of some of 
 those whose dearest ones had been snatched 
 from the grave by your science and your skill, 
 that I brought my darling to you. Many of 
 your best-authenticated cures were spoken 
 of as almost miraculous, even by members 
 of the Faculty, who do not believe, as you 
 do, in " the curability of consumption," and 
 until a very severe winter was followed by 
 a most inclement and blighting spring, we 
 were all high in hope, that my darling's 
 name would be added to a list of which you 
 are so justly proud. 
 
 Alas, though you did so much to alleviate 
 her sufferings. " the worm i' the bud" had
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 been at his deadly work too long, for even you 
 to save that precious one ! But through your 
 genius and your untiring care, the last year 
 of that dear spotless life was one of freedom 
 from pain and bodily discomfort, and one 
 of mental peace and happiness; and when 
 at last that pure and pious young spirit was 
 summoned to its reward and to its rest, 
 she passed away as calmly and as pain- 
 lessly as a fair and spotless lily, the flower 
 she so truly resembled. 
 
 A mother's " long despair" has hitherto 
 prevented my completing a work, so mixed 
 up with the lovely memory of one, the 
 shadow of whose early tomb must for ever 
 darken my path of life, save in those hap- 
 pier hours when I can realize the blessed 
 fact, that what is such loss to me, must be 
 such gain to her ! But now that four long 
 years have mellowed the wildest anguish
 
 viii DEDICATION. 
 
 into a bearable sorrow, and that I am able 
 to resume my work, I feel that I am doing 
 what my grateful and beloved girl would 
 wish done, in thus publicly recognising your 
 anxious care and wonderful skill, and re- 
 cording at once her gratitude and mine. 
 
 I am, my dear Dr. Hastings, with every 
 sentiment of respect and affection, 
 
 Your faithful friend and servant, 
 H. M. Gordon Smythies. 
 
 To John Hastings. Esq., M.D. 
 London, 10th May, 1870.
 
 ACQUITTED 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 May the winds blow till they have wakened Death, 
 And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas 
 Olympus high, and duck again as low 
 As hell's from heaven." — Shakspeare. 
 
 T was the middle of August. 
 
 The day had been sullen, close, 
 and lowering, like an angry man 
 biding his time, and watching his oppor- 
 tunity to give vent to his wrath. 
 
 At midnight the pent-up fury of the 
 elements burst forth. 
 
 The wind howled, moaned, and sobbed; 
 the thunder roared and bellowed in furious 
 response. 
 
 The forked lightning flashed ; the rain 
 vol. i. 1
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 poured clown in torrents ; and by the 
 electric light, as it illuminated for a moment 
 the vast expanse of sea and sky, the black 
 clouds might be seen gathering together 
 from all parts of the heavens, like coun- 
 sellors in their long robes meeting to con- 
 sult what was to be done at this terrible 
 crisis. 
 
 The fierce waves and the raging winds 
 met in mid-air to contend for the mastery; 
 but the waves spent their strength in froth 
 and foam, and the winds lifted them in their 
 strong invisible arms, and dashed them to 
 pieces against those giant sentinels, the 
 rocks that guard the coast of Cornwall. 
 
 Curiously wedged in a fissure of these 
 rocks, which indeed formed its side-walls, 
 was a fisherman's cottage. 
 
 It was situated in one of the wildest and 
 most lonely parts of that wild coast, and 
 was inhabited by a young fisherman named 
 Nathaniel (commonly called Xatt) Lynn, 
 and Polly, his pretty, tidy little wife.
 
 ACQUITTED, 
 
 This young couple had not long since 
 taken possession of this cottage, which had 
 been left to Natt Lynn by his quaint old 
 bachelor uncle (also a fisherman), who had 
 built it in his youth, and had lived in it to 
 extreme old age, and died there. 
 
 On this night of fierce storm the rain 
 beat against the diamond-panes of the 
 cottage windows. 
 
 The wind smote and rattled at the door 
 like an impatient traveller craving shelter. 
 
 The thunder bellowed among the rocks 
 and caves, and every now and then the 
 interior of the cottage was illumined by the 
 forked lightning's flash. 
 
 And lo ! in strong and solemn contrast to 
 the wild life and hurry and tumult in the 
 sky and on the waters, was the still, rigid 
 form of a little female infant — the first-born 
 child of Xatt and Polly Lynn — who had 
 long been ailing, and who, amid the roar of 
 the elements and the loud voices of the 
 storm, had uttered its last little moan of 
 
 1—2
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 pain, and breathed its last almost inaudible 
 sigh. 
 
 The young mother, loving it all the better 
 for the care and trouble it had caused her 
 almost from its birth, had borne bravely 
 up, hoping against hope, until the very last. 
 
 She had not given way to her grief 
 while there was yet anything to be 
 done. 
 
 It was not till she had rendered the last 
 sad offices to her heart's darling that she 
 had quite realized the dreadful fact that all 
 was indeed over. 
 
 With sublime courage — a courage at 
 which Natt Lynn marvelled — she had pre- 
 pared the little wasted form for its coffin ; 
 she had closed the eyes, straightened the 
 limbs, laid it out on a small table, stripped 
 the plants in the windows of their blossoms 
 (the lovely plants to be found in every cottage 
 window in Cornwall), to deck the little 
 corpse, and covered it with a white linen 
 cloth.
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 When all this was done, and it lay there 
 stiff and cold, and her eye fell on its vacant 
 cradle by her bedside, the anguish that had 
 long been gathering in her heart burst forth 
 in torrents of tears. 
 
 She fell on her knees by the bed, threw 
 her arms wildly up, and crying, " Polly ! 
 Polly ! Oh, my baby ! oh, my darling ! shall 
 I never see thee, never hear thee more ?" 
 she buried her face in the bed-clothes, and 
 sobbed convulsively. 
 
 Natt Lynn, scarcely less afflicted than 
 his wife, knelt down by her side, and tried 
 to comfort her. 
 
 " Don't'ee give way, lass," he said. 
 " Don't'ee, for my sake. Am I not more 
 to thee than many daughters ? Why, 
 thou'rt cold, cold as" — he was going to say 
 " Death" — but he thought that word 
 would renew her grief, and set her off 
 again, so he only said, " cold as ever cold. 
 Come to the fire, dear wife ; I'll soon make 
 it burn up — come."
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 *'0h, Natt," said the poor young mother, 
 rising and hiding her hot, tear-blistered 
 face on his breast. " Oh, Natt ! dost hear 
 the thunder roar, and the winds rage ? Oh, 
 to think her blessed little spirit should be 
 abroad on such a night as this ?" 
 
 Polly, like all people of strong piety and 
 half cultivated minds, mingled the real and 
 the ideal in her speculations on a future 
 state. 
 
 " It's not abroad, lass," said Natt. " It's 
 with Him who said, ' Suffer little children 
 to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for 
 of such is the kingdom of heaven.' ' 
 
 " Them's blessed words," sobbed Polly. 
 " Oh Natt, if I could but see her in heaven !" 
 
 " If thou couldst behold her now, wife," 
 said Natt, " thoud'st maybe not be able to 
 look upon her face, it 'ud shine so bright; 
 and she've wings by this time, maybe." 
 
 " Oh, Natt," said Polly, weeping anew, 
 " I'd raither see her as she were before she 
 took bad. I'd sooner see her in her little cap
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 and pink print frock as I made her, than 
 clothed in wings, and soaring away out of 
 sight." 
 
 "Wife," said Xatt, solemnly, "it was thy 
 father and thee first taught me to look 
 beyond this life; and now I must warn 
 thee not to be a backslider. Be patient, 
 dear wife ; she were a blessed baby, and 
 she's in heaven now.'' 
 
 Seeing that Polly looked upon him as an 
 oracle, Xatt began to think himself one. 
 
 Comforted by his words, Polly let Xatt 
 lead her to the old oaken settle near the 
 fire. It was burning very low, for both 
 Xatt and his wife had been too much 
 absorbed by grief to attend to it. 
 
 Xatt fetched wood and coal, and with the 
 aid of the bellows made a cheering fire on 
 the old-fashioned brick fireplace. 
 
 There was no grate. 
 
 Polly had sunk down on the settle, and 
 thrown her checked apron over her head 
 and face.
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 She did not wish Natt to see the tears 
 she could not restrain. 
 
 " Thou'st eaten nothin' all day, lass," said 
 Natt. " Thou maun be downright lere. 
 I'll put the kettle on, and make thee some 
 prime coffee." 
 
 While the water was getting hot Natt 
 sat clown on the settle by his wife, and 
 throwing his strong arms round his Polly, 
 his head sank on her bosom, and he cried 
 like a child. 
 
 When this irrepressible burst of anguish 
 had wept itself away, Natt rose, and 
 having, though he was a tall, strong, 
 muscular young fellow, a heart and hand 
 as gentle as his Polly's, he made the coffee 
 and toasted a bit of bread ; and to please 
 him she forced herself to eat and drink a 
 little. 
 
 Natt wanted his Polly to go to bed, but 
 she could not bear to do so. 
 
 So they sat side by side, and he held her 
 hand and talked softly and kindly to her ;
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 and thus the night passed away, and the 
 storm abated. The grey dawn came in at 
 the cottage windows, and seemed to settle 
 on the little form under the white cloth. 
 
 In that grey light of morn Polly looked 
 so hollow-eyed, so haggard, and so ill, her 
 pulse was so quick, and her hand so burn- 
 ing, that Natt would not listen to any 
 more excuses or entreaties, but firmly said 
 she must go to bed at once ; and she obeyed. 
 
 He smoothed her pillow. 
 
 He drew the poor thin check curtain, so 
 that the light should not distress her hot 
 eyelids, red and swollen with weeping. 
 
 He sate down by her until the clock 
 struck six, and the sun forced itself in 
 through the chinks of the old door. 
 
 Then Natt pulled on his boots, took his 
 hat, and prepared to go out. 
 
 At that very moment the bereaved 
 mother was thinking with convulsive 
 anguish of her child's burial. 
 
 She was, therefore, at no loss to guess
 
 10 ACQUITTED. 
 
 what was Natt's errand, and she shud- 
 dered ; but she would not ask any question. 
 
 She dared not trust herself to speak. 
 
 She felt she must give way if she did. 
 
 " Good-bye, and God bless and comfort 
 thee, lass," said Natt, laying his large hand 
 on her hot head. " I'm off to Pencombe ; 
 but I'll come home, lass, as soon as my 
 legs ull carry me there and back again. 
 Now don't thee get up, there's a good 
 lass ! Maybe thee'll get a little sleep." 
 
 Polly turned her face to the wall, and 
 held out her hand to him. 
 
 He took her in his arms and embraced 
 her and blessed her, and then he left her. 
 
 Before going out he stole round very 
 quietly and kissed the dead babe's cold 
 cheek, then lifted the latch, and, stepping 
 out on the sparkling sand, found himself face 
 to face with the bright morning sun shining 
 in a sky of cloudless azure, and flooding 
 with o;old a sea which looked like a vast 
 expanse of liquid sapphires.
 
 ACQUITTED. 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Dawn is in the skies, 
 Love on the earth, while night endures, unguest, 
 Hope folds the wing and slumbers on its nest ; 
 Let but a sunbeam to the world be given, 
 And hark — it singeth at the gates of heaven !" 
 
 Lord Lytton. 
 
 OTHIXG could exceed the beauty 
 and freshness of the early morning 
 after the storm. 
 The delicate seaweed floated, and the 
 young, semi-transparent crabs sidled in the 
 clear pools of sea-water left among the 
 rocks by the inroad of the waves through 
 the tempest. 
 
 The hard sands sparkled as if spangled 
 with gold and silver, and many curious 
 specimens of shells and seaweed caught 
 Natt Lynn's eye, and at any other time
 
 12 ACQUITTED. 
 
 would have arrested his attention, for he 
 dearly loved the works of nature. 
 
 On this morning, however, he heard no 
 music in the waves nor yet in the soft 
 ripple as it broke on the beach. 
 
 He saw no beauty in the grand rocks, 
 the translucent azure of the ocean, the paler 
 blue of the sky. 
 
 He heard nothing but his little Polly's 
 low moan, his poor wife's deep sigh and 
 quick sob. 
 
 He saw nothing but the pale, pinched 
 features of the child, the tear-blistered face 
 of the mother. 
 
 He was going first to order the little 
 coffin of the carpenter and undertaker of 
 Pencombe, and then he meant to walk up 
 to the Vicarage, a mile from the village, 
 to ask Mr. Trelawny, the Vicar, when it 
 would suit his reverence to bury the 
 child. 
 
 As yet he had never seen the Vicar. 
 
 He had only been three weeks at his cot-
 
 ACQUITTED. 13 
 
 tage in the rocks, and during all that time 
 the Vicar of Pencombe had been absent on 
 business, and a Reverend friend of his had 
 officiated daily while he was away. 
 
 Occasional duty there had been none 
 during Mr. Trelawny's absence. 
 
 The Lynns' little girl had been chris- 
 tened before they came to live in the cot- 
 tage on the rocks, and Natt as yet knew 
 no one at Pencombe. 
 
 But if the beauties of that bright morn- 
 ing after the storm did not make him pause 
 on his way, his attention was suddenly 
 aroused when his eye, wandering listlessly 
 from rock to sky, and sky to sea, lighted 
 upon a boat capsized, and on other evi- 
 dences of a recent wreck. 
 
 He saw at a glance that it was a boat 
 which had belonged to some large vessel, 
 wrecked, he doubted not, during the late 
 storm. 
 
 It struck him immediately, that in this 
 boat some passengers, and possibly some
 
 14 ACQUITTED. 
 
 of the crew, had hoped to escape — and had 
 probably struck against the rocks. 
 
 Farther off he saw hencoops, casks, 
 planks, and oars floating. 
 
 Natt Lynn was drawn a little from his 
 own sorrow by pondering on the dreadful 
 fate of those who had gone down in that 
 dark, dreadful storm, and who now lay, 
 perhaps, beneath those smiling, treacherous 
 waters, awaiting that great day when the 
 sea shall give up its dead ! 
 
 He looked around to see if he could 
 discover any fragment of the wreck on 
 which the name of the vessel might be 
 painted, and in doing so his eye lighted 
 on something white fluttering among the 
 dwarf rocks which at high tide, in very 
 stormy weather, the waves sometimes 
 reached. 
 
 " It must have been high tide about two 
 hours ago," he said to himself. "Had I 
 been here I might have saved some lives ; 
 but how could I be here and Polly in such
 
 ACQUITTED. 15 
 
 sore trouble — and how could I guess what 
 
 was going on ? 
 
 As he spoke he made his way to the spot 
 where the white something fluttered in the 
 warm breeze. 
 
 He started, for there, safely landed by the 
 waves on a bed of sand and seaweed, and 
 hedged in by dwarf rocks, lay, sleeping in 
 the sun, a beautiful female infant appa- 
 rently about the age of his own little lost 
 one. 
 
 Around the child's waist was a life-belt 
 of inflated indiarubber, to which it pro- 
 bably owed its safety. The sun had dried 
 its white night-dress, which was of a very 
 fine cambric and richly worked. 
 
 Natt took the baby in his arms. 
 
 He felt as if Providence had sent this 
 lovely infant to supply to himself and 
 his wife the place of their poor little Baby 
 Poll. 
 
 Natt took off his jacket and wrapped the 
 child carefully up in it — and then, clasp-
 
 16 ACQUITTED. 
 
 ino* it to his heart, he knelt for a few 
 moments in prayer — prayer for guidance 
 and help. 
 
 Then suddenly, and while a warm glow 
 suffused his sun-burnt face, he started up 
 and set off at full speed, a speed he never 
 slackened until he reached his own cottage 
 door, with the child of the wreck still asleep 
 in his arms. 
 
 His wife was sitting up in bed, rocking 
 herself to and fro, crying bitterly. 
 
 A nursing mother and her nursling gone ; 
 she was in great pain and in a high 
 fever. 
 
 " Saved from the wreck, lass !" said Xatt, 
 putting the little foundling into the warm 
 bed and the warmer bosom of the foster- 
 mother Providence had provided. 
 
 "Have there been a wreck, Natt?" said 
 Polly ; " and how ever was it saved ? Poor 
 dear, no doubt it's half famished," and she 
 put the infant to her breast. 
 
 The babe opened a pair of large, soft,
 
 ACQUITTED. 17 
 
 black eyes — smiled, cooed, nestled and at once 
 began to support itself by its own exertions. 
 
 Polly's tears fell fast, but a softer expres- 
 sion was in her eyes as she said, " Natt, 
 wherever did thee find this precious babe?" 
 
 " I found it among the dwarf rocks, lass, 
 on a bed of sand and seaweed, fast asleep 
 in the sun. How it got there heaven 
 only knows, but in my own mind I fancies 
 that some great steamer from foorin parts 
 was wrecked in that ere terrible gale last 
 night, and maybe some of the poor creeturs 
 got into the boats to try to save them thar 
 lives. Well, this babby was most like with 
 its mother or its nuss in one of them boats, 
 which one o' them had got close to the 
 shore, when in course it filled with water, 
 or sprung a leak, or struck on a rock — 
 maybe into a sharp point, anyhow it cap- 
 sized — this precious babe having a lifebelt 
 round its waist, was maybe carried by the 
 waves — they're the Almighty's handmaids, 
 Polly, — and gently laid where I found it," 
 
 vol. i. 2
 
 18 ACQUITTED. 
 
 " Very like it was so," said Polly, "any 
 way I'm truly thankful. It do seem to 
 comfort my sore heart. God bless it, and 
 thee, and Baby Polly." 
 
 To his great joy, Natt saw his wife 
 strain the foundling to her heart, and 
 softly kiss its brow, on which a few soft 
 tears fell. 
 
 Soon after her hot and swollen eyelids 
 closed, and while the little one was still 
 
 " draining the 
 Sweet founts, 
 That only thrive by wasting," 
 
 she sank into a deep sleep. 
 
 With a thankful heart— for Natt had 
 feared for her reason or her life — he 
 quietly rose, stepped lightly across the 
 floor, cast one yearning look of ineffable 
 tenderness and regret at the little form 
 under the white cloth, and, gently lifting 
 the latch, set off again for Pencombe on the 
 painful errand which his strange adventure 
 had compelled him to postpone.
 
 ACQUITTED. 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Humbled from all his anger, and too late 
 
 Convinced whose fault had shaped the daughter's fate, 
 
 The father heard ; and in his hands he veiled 
 
 His face abash'd — and voice to courage failed, 
 
 For how excuse, and how console ? . . . 
 
 My daughter." 
 
 Lord Lytton. 
 
 ATT LYNX was not the only 
 person up and out at sunrise 
 among the rocks of Pencombe, on 
 the morning after the storm. 
 
 Pencombe was not the real name of the 
 little Cornish village in which our scene is 
 laid, but we have reasons — very good ones 
 too — for giving it this alias. 
 
 The Eev. Henry Trelawny, the Vicar, 
 who had returned home the evening before, 
 had risen at dawn. 
 
 He too had passed a restless night. 
 
 2—2
 
 20 ACQUITTED. 
 
 The gale, the thunder, the lightning, 
 and the angry roar of the huge crested 
 waves were very terrible to him, for he 
 had an only daughter on her way from 
 India in that noble steamer The Golden 
 Bengal. 
 
 That daughter had been rash, undutiful, 
 and disobedient. 
 
 She had been cunning in plotting her 
 own tragic story. 
 
 She had deceived and distrusted a good 
 though stern father. 
 
 She had trusted a bland but heartless 
 lover. 
 
 She had been cruelly punished. 
 
 Her father in his heart forgave her, and 
 loved her still ; and when he heard the 
 angry voices of the storm, the winds, the 
 waves, and the thunder outdaring each 
 other, and when by the lightning's flash, 
 he beheld the waves of distant sea coming 
 on like crested warriors of a Titan race, he 
 trembled, and prayed, and cried, u Oh,
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Father in Heaven, spare and protect my 
 Minna and her child." 
 
 The Rev. Henry Trelawny was a man of 
 an ancient Cornish family, but of reduced 
 fortune. 
 
 The Earl of Altamount, the great man 
 of the place, had been at Oxford with 
 Trelawny. 
 
 They had been members of the same 
 college (Christchurch), and being both 
 Cornish men, had become intimate. 
 
 The Earl had, when the living of Pen- 
 combe became vacant, presented his friend 
 Trelawny. 
 
 In after years he had sent his sons, the 
 young Lord Derwent and the Hon. Jasper 
 Ardennes, to be educated by his old friend, 
 the Vicar. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny was a first-rate scholar, 
 and was glad to increase by pupils the 
 small income of his living. 
 
 He was a man of unusual height 
 (measuring six feet three).
 
 22 ACQUITTED. 
 
 His frame and his muscular development 
 were proportioned to his height. 
 
 He had a fine head and noble features — 
 regular but rather stern. 
 
 He had been celebrated at Oxford as 
 facile princeps in all manly exercises and 
 athletic sports, and he kept up himself, 
 and encouraged in his pupils, every kind 
 of gymnastic competition. He promoted 
 wrestling, leaping, running, swimming, &c, 
 in all of which exercises he was himself 
 pre-eminent. 
 
 Henry Trelawny was a thoroughly good, 
 but not perhaps a very amiable, man. 
 
 He was very religious, but was rather a 
 Son of Thunder than of Consolation, more 
 prone to threaten than to entice — preaching 
 the terrors rather than the rewards of the 
 Lord. 
 
 He carried the sense of honour to the 
 borders of Quixotism, and would have 
 pined and died of a single stain. 
 
 He was very frank to himself, and he
 
 ACQUITTED. 23 
 
 seemed to be so to others. " Seemed" 
 much more so than he really was, for he 
 had a very good, warm heart, concealed, 
 like the hot springs, beneath the granite 
 and ice of Mount Hecla. 
 
 His wife lived and died without ever 
 having understood, fathomed, or appre- 
 ciated him, having always feared far more 
 than she had loved him. 
 
 His daughter Minna naturally dreaded 
 one, at the sound of whose firm step 
 and bass voice she had often seen her 
 poor invalid mother tremble and grow 
 pale. 
 
 Both had feared him too much to have 
 been open with him, and both deceived him 
 from their cowardice. 
 
 He was, it is true, rather satirical, and 
 too much given to fault-finding. 
 
 Never forget or ignore the fact that 
 sensitive women always dread ridicule and 
 shrink from a fault-finder. 
 
 And this easy little domestic transaction
 
 24 ACQUITTED. 
 
 (perfectly harmless in itself) was carried 
 on by the Vicar's wife and daughter, with 
 as much secrecy and trepidation as if it had 
 been a plot or a crime. 
 
 One member of his household alone, old 
 Dorcas, who had been his own nurse, 
 and in time had become Minna's, and who 
 ultimately settled down as cook and house- 
 keeper at the Vicarage, did not fear him. 
 
 Sometimes Dorcas contradicted, and even 
 disobeyed him. 
 
 She told him the truth always, even at 
 the risk of offending him, and thus gained 
 a sort of ascendancy over him, such as 
 neither his wife or child had ever obtained. 
 
 Minna lost her mother when she was 
 about sixteen. 
 
 Even at that early age she had inspired 
 the Hon. Jasper Ardennes with a passionate 
 love, which she, alas ! reciprocated. 
 
 The secret of this attachment she con- 
 fided to her mother, but concealed from 
 her father.
 
 ACQUITTED. 25 
 
 Her mother eneouraged this secrecy 
 during her life, but on her death-bed, 
 seeing into the future perhaps with 
 "Death's prophetic eye," she implored 
 Minna to confide in her father and to tell 
 him all. 
 
 This Minna had not courage to do, and 
 when her first wild agony and despair at 
 the death of that too indulgent mother 
 had mellowed into a soft regret, she again 
 received and answered Jasper Ardennes' 
 notes and letters in secret. She wore his 
 troth-ring on her finger, and his miniature 
 on her bosom. 
 
 Jasper was singularly handsome ; elegant 
 in his dress and manners, quick, clever, 
 and eloquent ; but he was cruel, crafty, and 
 resolute. 
 
 He pretended to be religious; but at 
 heart he was a scoffer, a doubter, a free- 
 thinker. 
 
 He affected a high sense of honour, 
 but was utterly unprincipled, and yet as
 
 26 ACQUITTED. 
 
 full of line sentiments as Joseph Surface or 
 Claude Melnotte. 
 
 No wonder that Minna, beautiful as a 
 poet's dream, vain, romantic, deceiving and 
 distrusting a stern but good father, and 
 confiding in a bland but false lover, 
 wrought for herself a dark web of sorrow 
 and deception in which she was entangled. 
 
 An accident revealed the long-concealed 
 attachment of Minna and Jasper to Mr. 
 Trelawny. 
 
 His wrath was very great, and his re- 
 sentment unwise perhaps, as it led him to 
 extreme severity towards his daughter. 
 
 He was all the more furious because he 
 thought his noble friend and patron, the 
 Earl, might suspect him of having con- 
 nived at this clandestine attachment, with 
 a view to his daughter's ultimate aggran- 
 dizement. 
 
 He shut Minna up in her own room, 
 and but for Dorcas she would have had 
 little but bread and water until he had
 
 ACQUITTED. 27 
 
 obtained from her a solemn promise to 
 renounce Jasper for ever. 
 
 Failing to obtain this promise, he sent 
 her — although she was nearly nineteen — to 
 a strict school in the Regent's Park, 
 London. 
 
 He threatened Jasper Ardennes to inform 
 the Earl of the whole affair if he discovered 
 any renewal of correspondence or intimacy 
 between him and Miss Trelawny. He 
 exacted a promise from Jasper to resign 
 her entirely. 
 
 Jasper readily promised all he required — 
 this on his honour. He even took a vow 
 to that effect; but he swore on what did 
 not exist, and promises cost him nothing, 
 as he never meant to keep them. 
 
 Soon after this the Hon. Jasper Ardennes 
 went into the army. 
 
 Miss Trelawny, by this time twenty -one, 
 returned to Pencombe Vicarage. She was 
 nearly nineteen and Jasper twenty when 
 they parted.
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 They were both of age now. 
 
 His regiment was ordered to India, and 
 though no one knew how, when, or where 
 they had corresponded or met, Miss 
 Trelawny eloped from her father's house 
 a few days before her lover's regiment set 
 sail. 
 
 Her father had every reason to believe 
 that she had eloped with the Hon. Jasper 
 Ardennes. 
 
 Indignant as he justly was, he was yet 
 wise enough in his wrath not to proclaim 
 his suspicions, not to publish his own dis- 
 grace and what he believed to be his Minna's 
 shame. 
 
 He quietly and cautiously made every 
 possible inquiry, and ascertained that she 
 had been conveyed from a wild, remote, 
 and rocky headland on the coast, by a 
 fisherman in his boat, to Penzance, whence 
 a steamer had sailed for London. 
 
 In his investigation many things came 
 to his knowledge which led him to believe
 
 ACQUITTED. 29 
 
 that she had been for some time privately 
 married to Jasper Ardennes. 
 
 Possibly when she was at school in 
 London. 
 
 Among papers not quite consumed in 
 her grate, Dorcas found a scorched, black- 
 ened scrap, evidently a signature, on 
 which could be made out — 
 
 "band.— J. A" 
 
 It was, of course, very probable — nay, 
 almost certain — that the syllable "band" 
 had been preceded by that of " hus." 
 Dorcas also found a few crushed orange- 
 blossoms at the bottom of one of the boxes 
 Miss Trelawny had brought with her from 
 school. 
 
 Also among some forgotten papers in a 
 table-drawer, were a bill for a white veil 
 and orange- wreath and white kid gloves, 
 and one from a dressmaker for making a 
 white Indian muslin dress and a white silk 
 bonnet.
 
 30 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny, much incensed against 
 the principal of the ladies' school, but com- 
 forted too, called at " Circus House," the 
 school in the Regent's Park where he had 
 placed his daughter. 
 
 He saw the Misses Keen and Carp, 
 but could elicit nothing from them, ex- 
 cept that on one occasion a lady had 
 called, purporting to be Miss Tre- 
 lawny's aunt, authorized by her father 
 to take her away for a fortnight's 
 holiday. 
 
 As the date of this visit corresponded 
 with that of the bills found in the forgotten 
 table-drawer, Mr. Trelawny concluded that 
 his daughter had been privately married to 
 the Hon. Jasper Ardennes about a month 
 before her return home. 
 
 Pencombe was so remote and solitary a 
 place, and Minna had been so long absent 
 from it, that the few people there knew 
 nothing of her elopement. 
 
 The Vicar had given up taking pupils,
 
 ACQUITTED. 31 
 
 and his whole establishment consisted of 
 old Dorcas and a deaf gardener. 
 
 Dorcas, who bad taken Minna from the 
 birth, loved her as her own. 
 
 Nothing was heard of the runaway 
 daughter for nearly two years; but some 
 weeks before the night of the storm Mr. 
 Trelawny had received a letter from his 
 daughter, dated Calcutta. 
 
 It was written in a trembling hand, and 
 blotted with tears. 
 
 In this letter Minna implored her father's 
 forgiveness, and entreated him to help her 
 to hide herself and her child from one 
 whom she believed bent on destroying 
 them both. She said — " Father, if you 
 knew all you would not despise and spurn 
 me. I am not the lost, guilty wretch I 
 must seem to you. I have inherited your 
 sense of honour and your dread of shame, 
 and my false position here has long been 
 intolerable to me. Alas ! I am bound by 
 a solemn vow to secrecy until certain
 
 32 ACQUITTED. 
 
 events, which must come to pass in time, 
 set me at liberty to speak. Even if you 
 would receive me at home — dear, dear 
 home ! — I should not be safe there ; but I 
 am on the eve of privately setting sail for 
 Galway in Ireland, in The Golden Bengal. 
 I will write to you on my arrival there ; 
 and do, papa ! — do come to your miserable, 
 heart-broken, penitent Minna, and help her 
 to hide from a cruel and remorseless perse- 
 cutor." 
 
 Mr. Trelawny, who had often reproached 
 himself with his harshness to his only child, 
 — his motherless girl — resolved to grant her 
 prayer, to go to her as soon as she an- 
 nounced her arrival at Galway, and to do 
 all he could to comfort and protect her. 
 
 He suspected Jasper Ardennes of being 
 cruel, crafty, fickle, and remorseless. 
 
 He guessed that he had become weary of 
 his once idolized Minna. 
 
 With sensual natures love never long 
 survives possession.
 
 ACQUITTED. 33 
 
 Mr. Trelawny felt certain Jasper's icas a 
 sensual nature. 
 
 He thought it likely he had already 
 become enamoured of some other beauty, 
 and he believed that Minna's life was in some 
 danger. 
 
 No wonder, considering his only child 
 was at sea, on that night of storm and tem- 
 pest, Mr. Trelawny could not rest ! 
 
 He was out as early as was Natt Lynn, 
 and must have crossed his path but for the 
 strange discovery and adventure which had 
 induced Natt to hurry back to his cottage. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny was a great walker; very 
 strong and very fleet. He strode along the 
 beach, and though the Vicarage was two 
 miles from Natt's cottage in the rocks, he 
 was soon a good way beyond it. 
 
 He had just reached a point where the 
 rocks, jutting out into the sea, formed a 
 sort of cape, which was called Dead Man's 
 Point, when several evidences of a recent 
 wreck met his view. 
 
 vol. i. 3
 
 34 ACQUITTED. 
 
 What was his agony, when, picking up 
 an oar that had been cast upon the rocks, 
 he read thereon " The Golden Bengal." 
 
 Pale with horror, and sick at heart, he 
 quickly rounded the rocky cape. 
 
 It was a very lonely and secluded spot, 
 and straight ahead, at a little distance, he 
 saw, lying on the beach so near the waves 
 that her long hair floated on the blue 
 water like a black banner, the form of a 
 woman — a lady to judge from her white 
 drapery and elegant form, — and bending 
 over her was a huge, shaggy, savage-look- 
 ing fisherman, known to him by sight and 
 by evil report. 
 
 This fellow, Dan Devrill by name, was a 
 wife-beating, Sabbath-breaking, drunken 
 wretch, more than suspected of being both a 
 burglar and a wrecker. 
 
 The poor lady, probably in the hope of 
 saving her jewels when first danger was 
 anticipated on board, had thrust them into 
 her pockets. The wrecker, whose first object
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 was to rifle those pockets, drew them forth, 
 and they blazed and sparkled in the morn- 
 ing sun, and in the cruel, rapacious little 
 eyes of Dan Devrill. 
 
 The wretch's huge, discoloured hands 
 were already busy in trying to remove 
 a watch and chain from the long, white 
 throat. 
 
 The wrecker was so intent on plunder 
 he did not hear Mr. Trelawny's step. 
 
 It did not sound much on the fine sand. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny drew swiftly near. He saw 
 she was not dead — at least, though her eyes 
 were closed, her face had not the contrac- 
 tion nor the ghastly hues of death. 
 
 The wrecker then savagely, and with a 
 hideous oath, tried to rend the ear-rings 
 from her small, beautiful ears. 
 
 She moved ! She moaned ! 
 
 She uttered a cry of pain and opened her 
 large blue eyes, wild with terror as she saw 
 the savage ruffian bending over her. 
 
 "Oh! you're alive, my lady, are you?" 
 
 3—2
 
 36 ACQUITTED. 
 
 said the wrecker. " Alive and kicking, or 
 will be soon," he added, with another oath, 
 " and like to give trouble. "Well, dead men 
 tells no tales, nor dead women either, let their 
 tongues be ever so long, so here goes !" . . . 
 
 He drew a knife from his belt. 
 
 The lady raised her head, struggled, and 
 screamed. 
 
 The wrecker's hand was on her throat. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny, now close at hand, think- 
 ing to save a stranger, rushed forth and 
 recognised his daughter, his Minna ! 
 
 With a wild bound, and a wilder shout, 
 he seized the wrecker by the collar, and, 
 with the herculean strength of his powerful 
 arm, increased tenfold by the excitement 
 of the moment, he dragged the wretch 
 from the spot, and dashed him against the 
 rocks, at the base of which he fell stunned 
 and bleeding. 
 
 His savage face had struck against a 
 projecting angle of the rock, levelling his 
 nose with his cheeks; and the hideous
 
 ACQUITTED. 37 
 
 <rash that crossed that bad countenance 
 must leave a frightful scar there through 
 all his after life. 
 
 The shipwrecked lady had again sunk 
 back insensible, and this time to all 
 appearance dead. Her father raised her 
 slender, wasted form in his strong arms, and 
 sighed to find it so light a burthen. 
 
 How shrunken, how changed from what 
 she was when last he had embraced her; 
 then she might have served as a model for 
 a Hebe ! 
 
 Unseen by any mortal eye he bore her 
 to the Vicarage. 
 
 The gardener had not yet arrived. 
 
 Old Dorcas was lighting her kitchen fire, 
 and the Vicar carried Minna through the 
 garden gate, and in at the glass door of his 
 study, upstairs into the room which had 
 been hers in her happy girlhood. 
 
 No one had inhabited it since her flight, 
 and, except that old Dorcas kept it in 
 beautiful order, and aired the bed periodi-
 
 38 ACQUITTED. 
 
 cally— prophesying that Miss Minna would 
 come back to them when least expected — 
 everything was just as it had been before 
 Minna's departure. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny laid her down on the little 
 snowy bed, with its curtains of white 
 muslin and rose-coloured silk, in which she 
 had slept so soundly, and dreamt such happy 
 dreams; and then he went to summon 
 Dorcas, and to acquaint her with the won- 
 derful news. 
 
 A faint tinge of colour had returned to 
 Minna's cheeks, and she had sighed and 
 moaned. Her father therefore felt certain 
 that she lived. 
 
 He tried to break the truth gently to 
 Dorcas, but he was not at all prepared for 
 the wild burst of rapture with which the 
 devoted old woman heard that her darling, 
 her nursling, her child, her young mistress 
 was restored to them. 
 
 She fell down on her kness on the kitchen 
 floor, and raising her streaming eyes to
 
 ACQUITTED.' 39 
 
 Heaven, thanked the Father of all Mercies 
 for having heard and answered her constant 
 prayers. She laughed, she cried, she almost 
 danced for joy, and was only silenced when 
 her master sternly told her that her folly 
 rendered her useless, and that while she 
 was capering and giggling like a mad- 
 woman, her young lady was perhaps dying 
 for want of help. 
 
 Dorcas became quiet and silent enough 
 when she saw the wreck, the shadow, the 
 spectre of the once blooming and beautiful 
 Minna lvins; on the snow-white bed in her 
 own little room. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny ordered Dorcas to warm 
 the bed while he lifted Minna on to the 
 sofa ; and when this was done, the poor old 
 woman undressed her, and marked with 
 streaming eyes and a bleeding heart how 
 wasted and shrunken was the once richly- 
 rounded form. 
 
 Minna lay in her own bed once more ; 
 but it was long, very long, before Mr.
 
 40 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Trelawny and Dorcas succeeded in restoring 
 her to consciousness. Alas ! when at length 
 she opened her eyes and spoke, it was 
 evident that reason had not returned with 
 life. 
 
 She was incoherent and delirious. She 
 fixed her eyes on her father and on old 
 Dorcas, but she did not know them. 
 
 She rolled her head from side to side on 
 her pillow, and moaned out, " My child ! 
 my child ! The waves, the dreadful waves ! 
 — they bear away — they engulf my 
 child!" 
 
 Then she would scream and sa} 7 , — 
 
 " I hear his step. It is Jasper — it is my 
 husband! Where shall I hide? Lolah! 
 Lolah ! where shall we hide the child? He 
 has sworn he will kill us both unless I 
 agree to forego my claims ! — to give up my 
 proofs of our private marriage, — and unless 
 I connive at his wedding Miss Montresor ! 
 He loves her as he once loved me; but I 
 will never, never do what would blacken
 
 ACQUITTED. 41 
 
 ray fame for ever, and destroy the future of 
 my child !" 
 
 " Poor dear ! I know'd she was innocent 
 — I always said she'd never done the thing 
 that was wrong," said old Dorcas, weeping. 
 u She be a wedded wife, she be, and a grand 
 lady, forbye being what's more, an honest 
 woman, which some grand ladies ain't. 
 But the poor dear babe ! that's drounded, in 
 course that's gone to the bottom! It's 
 lucky, poor lady, she be as she be, for 
 when she comes to, it'll break her poor 
 heart to think she've lost her child!'* 
 
 Mr. Trelawny, who knew something 
 of medicine (as all country clergymen 
 should), and who had a few drugs at 
 hand for the use of his poorer pa- 
 rishioners, mixed a sedative draught for 
 Minna. 
 
 He ordered Dorcas to darken the room 
 and to leave her for awhile. Old Dorcas 
 obeyed, but every five minutes the faithful 
 creature was at the door listening, as if her
 
 42 ACQUITTED. 
 
 own life was at stake, to Minna's sighs and 
 moans. 
 
 Minna would remain quiet for a few 
 minutes, apparently in a dreamless sleep. 
 All at once she would scream out — 
 
 " Take me ! — take me and my nurse and 
 child ! Take us in one of the boats, if the 
 ship is doomed ! The captain says there is 
 no hope ! . . Brave, iron-hearted man ! 
 he will not leave the ship — he will go down 
 with her. Two boats full of men — passen- 
 gers, sailors — are launched on the furious 
 waves ! They are lowering another ! Take 
 us, take us ! No other woman will venture, 
 but I will, for I may save my child ! . . . 
 Thanks, thanks, brave man! They have 
 heard a mother's prayer even amid the 
 roar of the winds and waves, and the 
 rattling of the thunder! ... I hold my 
 child in my arms ! . . . Spare us, ye moun- 
 tain waves ! Spare us, ye winds ! and oh, 
 thou forked lightning, spare my child !" 
 
 " Poor dear !" said Dorcas, " she's going
 
 ACQUITTED. 43 
 
 all over the wreck in her poor dear 
 mind!" 
 
 " Hush !" said the Vicar, " we shall learn 
 how it happened." 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" cried Minna, " what a 
 wild chorus was that ! — the last shrill cry to 
 Heaven of all on board ! And see, see, see ! 
 The Golden Bengal goes down, down, down ! 
 — the great ship sinks, and our little boat 
 weathers the storm! . . . Oh! the long, 
 dark hours — how dreadful are they ! How 
 wildly old Lolah wails out that she has 
 seen a spirit ! . . . The other boats have 
 perished ! ... By the lightning's flash I 
 saw corpses floating, and a dead face with 
 eyes horribly staring ! . . . On, on, on we 
 go ! Well done, brave men ; well done, 
 little boat ! My babe and I have life-belts ! 
 . . . Lolah, my poor old ayah, still moans 
 out, l The Angel of Death beckons ! My last 
 hour is come P But see, but see ! — there is 
 a grey light in the East! . . . We are 
 nearing shore ! The Cornish coast, the
 
 U ACQUITTED. 
 
 c 
 
 men say. Dear, dear coast of my native 
 place! . . . Father, I come, I come! — for- 
 give and bless me !" 
 
 The Vicar turned aside and wept; 
 Dorcas sunk on her knees in prayer. 
 His daughter continued to moan out — 
 u ' Beware the dwarf rocks!' cried a 
 sailor ! . . . Beware ! too late, too late ! — 
 the boat strikes on one ! She fills, she 
 fills ! The men rise up and she capsizes ! 
 We are in the water ! but, thank Heaven, I 
 can swim, and I have my life-belt ! Old 
 Lolah cries c The Spirit !' and sinks ; the 
 men cling to each other. Two who can 
 swim are prevented by those who cannot ; 
 they all go down together. But I — I have 
 my baby in my arms, and the shore close 
 by, when lo ! a faintness comes over me ! 
 I am dizzy ! I cannot see ! . . . Where is 
 my babe ? My arms are empty. I die ! I 
 die ! The waves, the waves, they bear 
 away my child !"
 
 ACQUITTED. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The waters wild went o'er ' her' child, 
 And she was left lamenting." 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 R. TRE LAWNY waited and 
 watched, until he perceived that 
 the sedative had taken effect, and 
 that Minna had sunk into a deep sleep. 
 
 Alas ! even in that sleep her white lips 
 moved; and the Vicar, bending down his 
 ear to try to catch the syllables she mur- 
 mured, felt his eyes grow moist with tears, 
 for he could distinctly hear those heart- 
 rending words, " My child ! my child ! 
 The waves, the cruel waves, they will bear 
 away my child !" 
 
 "Poor Minna!" said the Vicar, " thou 
 hast caused me many a dreary day and
 
 46 ACQUITTED. 
 
 many a sleepless night, for the first com- 
 mandment with promise thou didst rashly 
 break. But yet, alas, my heart bleeds for 
 thee ! Thy child, no doubt, perished when 
 thy strength failed thee. And I have often 
 marked that those who have repaid their 
 own parents' love with treachery, disobe- 
 dience, or ingratitude, are generally punished, 
 even in this world, by or through their 
 own children. The child is chosen by 
 heaven to avenge the parent. Sometimes, 
 by the long sickness or death of the heart's 
 darling, the undutiful son or daughter is 
 brought to know what parents can endure, 
 and to repent what they have made their 
 own suffer. Sometimes, by the ingratitude 
 or disobedience of their children, they are 
 led to think with anguish and remorse of 
 their own defiance, thanklessness, and deceit 
 to the fond parents now mouldering in the 
 grave ! May Heaven comfort and support 
 thee, my poor Minna, and enable thee to bear 
 with patience the punishment of thy sin !"
 
 ACQUITTED. 47 
 
 The Vicar then left Minna to her vision- 
 haunted sleep ; and, ordering Dorcas to be 
 on the watch, he, after morning service, 
 went back to the cape where he had left 
 the wrecker, Dan Devrill, bleeding and in- 
 sensible. 
 
 " That villain," thought the Vicar, 
 " richly deserves the gallows, and will pro- 
 bably be exalted to that dreadful eminence 
 sooner or later; but I would not have him 
 die by my hand — richly as he would have 
 merited death — for his felon-coward knife 
 was raised to stab to the heart the helpless 
 woman whom Providence had saved from 
 the wreck and snatched from the waves ! 
 How I wish I could get that desperate 
 ruffian out of the neighbourhood ! I must 
 seek him in his own den if he is not where 
 I left him. I have heard that he lives 
 about a mile from ' Dead Man's Point,' in a 
 wretched hovel, with a wife and children 
 whom he beats and starves. They say, too, 
 that, though he earns a ^ood deal as a
 
 48 ACQUITTED. 
 
 fisherman, and alas ! in many lawless ways 
 besides, that he spends in liquor and his 
 other vile vices what ought to be devoted 
 to the comforts and benefit of his wife and 
 children. It is a dreadful place to go to, 
 no doubt, but it is above all others to such 
 places my Master sends me." 
 
 Most men would have felt some mis- 
 givings at the idea of entering alone and 
 unarmed, the lair of such a wild beast as 
 Dan Devrill. 
 
 But our Vicar was brave almost to 
 temerity. Like the great Nelson him- 
 self, he might have asked, " AVhat is 
 fear ?" 
 
 Fear at least of man and earthly perils, 
 for no one lived in greater fear of his 
 Heavenly Father's wrath; and yet it was 
 that fear which is born of love — not 
 a servile, coward fear, but that trembling 
 anxiety not to be found wanting which we 
 sometimes see in a good wife towards a 
 husband whom she can reverence as well as
 
 ACQUITTED. 49 
 
 love, or in a dutiful child towards virtuous 
 and wisely tender parents. 
 
 It was a relief to the Vicar's mind, when 
 he reached Dead Man's Point, to find that 
 the wrecker was no longer there. 
 
 By this time it was very low water. 
 
 There was a pool of dark blood on the 
 spot where Devrill's head had sunk afte r 
 striking against the rock. 
 
 There were drops of the same dark 
 crimson along the sands and among the 
 rocks. They acted as a trail which enabled 
 the Vicar to track Devrill for more than a 
 mile. 
 
 At that distance from Dead Man's Point 
 the sand became coarse and moist, and the 
 Vicar saw that it had recently been trodden 
 by three pairs of large feet in hobnailed 
 shoes. 
 
 He felt certain he was still on Devrill's 
 track, for here and there he espied a drop 
 of blood. 
 
 Devrill had two sons — probably in every 
 vol. i. 4
 
 50 ACQUITTED. 
 
 sense treading in his steps. They bad 
 perhaps come back in search of him, and 
 had found him at Dead Man's Point and 
 helped him home to his hovel. 
 
 Following these footsteps, Mr. Trelawny 
 arrived in view of a miserable cottage built 
 on a patch of land where there was a break 
 in the rocks. 
 
 It was a tumbledown place, damp, dis- 
 consolate, and one-eyed, for though it had 
 originally had two windows fronting the 
 sea, one had been blocked up, and of the 
 other, several panes were mended with 
 paper, or stuffed with rag. 
 
 Some tattered, half-naked children, with 
 shaggy, matted, dust-coloured hair, hollow 
 eyes, wasted limbs, and very dirty faces, 
 Avere languidly playing in the sun with 
 some very old cards, as dirty as them- 
 selves. 
 
 It was dreadful to see excitement in the 
 wolfish eyes and pinched faces of these little 
 gamesters, and to hear oaths and impre-
 
 ACQUITTED. 51 
 
 cations, borrowed from the vile father, 
 bursting from the hearts and lips of child- 
 hood. 
 
 Bab Devrill, the wrecker's wife, and 
 mother of this vicious brood, with a haggard 
 face and a form to match, barefooted, half 
 clad, and her ragged hair turned up with 
 a broken comb, had just come out, hearing 
 a squabble, and foreseeing a fight, with a 
 piece of dirty ragged rope in her hand. 
 
 Her threats were uttered in language 
 quite in keeping with that the Vicar had 
 heard with horror from her children's 
 lips. 
 
 And yet he thought he recognised in 
 this miserable wreck a certain Barbara 
 Broome, who, some two and twent}- years 
 before, had been in Mrs. Trelawny's service, 
 and who was then the neatest, rosiest, and 
 prettiest girl in Pencombe. 
 
 He remembered that Mrs. Trelawny 
 parted with her for "keeping company" 
 with a young fellow of idle habits and bad 
 
 4—2 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 UBRAKY
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 repute — a fisherman, and lie had heard that 
 she had ultimately married him. 
 
 Poor Barbara ! hers was a very common 
 fate ! 
 
 The fate of a drunkard's wife. 
 
 She had tried hard at first to reform her 
 husband, but had ended by taking to drink 
 herself, to drown care ! 
 
 She recognised her former master, and 
 even she shrunk out of sight, hot with 
 shame, and anxious to hide her rags and 
 wretchedness. 
 
 But the Vicar entered the cottage, and 
 Bab and her former master stood face to 
 face. 
 
 Poor wretch ! she smelt horribly of gin, 
 but she dropped a curtsey, and, wiping an 
 old straw-bottomed chair with her ragged 
 apron, she said — 
 
 " Your servant, sir ! Please to take a 
 seat!" 
 
 " Mrs. Devrill, I think," said the Vicar. 
 He would not appear to remember her
 
 ACQUITTED. 53 
 
 as "Blooming Barbara," he thought it 
 would pain and humble her so much. 
 
 " Yes, ) r our reverence," said Bab. 
 
 " Where is your husband?" he asked. 
 
 " He's been out fishing since six this 
 morning, sir," said Bab. 
 
 " Are you sure he is out fishing ?" asked 
 the Vicar. 
 
 " Quite sure, your reverence. He went 
 out very early, and he told our two eldest 
 lads, Dan and Bob, to come to him at 
 Dead Man's Point. They went out about 
 eight, and haven't been home since. Did 
 your reverence want to see my man ?" 
 
 " Yes, you may tell him when he comes 
 in, that Mr. Trelawny, Vicar of Pencombe, 
 called to speak to him. Did you ever hear 
 that name before, Mrs. Devrill ?" . . . 
 
 The wretched woman burst into tears. 
 
 :t Oh, sir," she said, " no wonder as you 
 don't know me ! Down in the world as 
 I am, in want and dirt, and rags and 
 wretchedness. I was well off, and sir, I
 
 54 ACQUITTED. 
 
 was housemaid at Pencombe Vicarage in 
 your dear good lady's time !" 
 
 " You were Barbara Broome, I think," 
 said the Vicar. 
 
 " Yes, your reverence, and if I'd listened 
 to my missus, who's now in Heaven, bless 
 her! I'd be Barbara Broome now, and 
 your housemaid still. I'd good looks, and 
 good health, and good clothes, and good 
 food, and money laid by (a tidy bit), and 
 a good place, and a happy home, and I, 
 like a fool as I was, give all up and pleased 
 my eye to plague my heart, and see what 
 I'm come to ?" 
 
 " I fear he drinks, does he not ?" said 
 the Vicar. 
 
 Bab — a little maudlin from her own 
 morning potations — sobbed out — 
 
 "Ah, that's just where it is, your 
 reverence !" 
 
 " And he has led you to drink too ! Don't 
 deny it ! You cannot deceive me. Well, 
 when things come to the worst they mend."
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 " They is come to the worst, indeed, sir," 
 said Bab. " We've neither food nor firing, 
 and the parish wont relieve us unless we 
 go into the house, and Dan would rather 
 die. He's such a chap for liberty," and she 
 sobbed bitterly. 
 
 " Barbara," said the Vicar, " You 
 were a good girl once, and when I pre- 
 pared you for confirmation, no girl knew 
 her Bible and her duty better than you 
 did." 
 
 " Oh, your reverence," cried Barbara, 
 wiping her eyes with her apron. " Don't 
 talk of those happy times. It breaks my 
 poor heart. My dear, dear missus took 
 such a pride in me the day I was confirmed, 
 and gave me such a lovely white muslin 
 dress and petticoat, and with her own dear 
 hands she put a white veil on my head, 
 and she praised my hair. I'd fine, thick 
 glossy hair then : look at it now ! And when 
 the Lord Bishop put his hand on my head, 
 I felt all of a glow like ; the grace of God
 
 56 ACQUITTED. 
 
 seemed to shine into my heart ! And now 
 see what it's all come to !" 
 
 " But, Barbara !" said the Vicar, " 3^011, 
 who remember those times so well, you 
 cannot have forgotten all you learnt at the 
 Vicarage. You know there is more joy in 
 Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, 
 than over ninety and nine just persons that 
 need no repentence. Have you a Bible 
 here?" 
 
 " No, sir," sobbed Barbara, " I have 
 nothing here !" 
 
 The Vicar took out his own pocket Bible. 
 He selected several passages, and pointing 
 them out to the wretched woman, begged 
 her to read and ponder them. He then 
 said, " Keep this Bible till I bring you 
 another. I cannot give you this. It was 
 my father's. Those are your children ? 
 We must make them decent, and then they 
 must go to school. I will see you again 
 shortly. I came to try to induce your 
 husband to leave this place. He has done
 
 ACQUITTED. 57 
 
 things here that may bring him to trouble. 
 If he will go away for a time I will see to 
 your welfare, and that of your children. 
 For the present," he added, putting his 
 hand in his pocket, " here is something for 
 your wants. Promise me not to spend one 
 penny of this money in gin or liquor of 
 any kind, but in food and firing. My 
 housekeeper shall get you and your 
 children shoes and stockings, and decent 
 clothing. AVe have a clothing club now 
 at Pencombe, and Mrs. Penryn and Miss 
 Priscilla Penryn are at its head." 
 
 " Oh, your reverence, how can I thank 
 you ?" sobbed Bab ; " how can I prove my 
 gratitude ?" 
 
 li Only by turning over a new leaf your- 
 self, Barbara, and resolving to work with 
 me, and to train up your children in the 
 way they should go ! It makes my heart 
 bleed to see children who ought to be at 
 school, clean and tidy, in dirt and rags, 
 wrangling over those filthy, demoralizing
 
 58 ACQUITTED. 
 
 cards — cursing, swearing, and reviling each 
 other the while." 
 
 The Vicar then took his leave, Barbara 
 sobbing out her thanks. 
 
 He was scarcely gone, when, from an 
 inner room, bare, black, and wretched 
 as that the Vicar had just quitted, a 
 hoarse voice was heard shouting out 
 " Bab," and accompanying that name with 
 curses and threats. 
 
 Bab put the Bible in her pocket and 
 hid the money in her bosom. 
 
 She then went into the inner room. 
 
 There, on a wretched mattress spread on 
 the floor, lay Dan Devrill, looking ghastly 
 and hideous with his broken nose and the 
 gash across his face, and his shaggy head 
 bound up with a dirty old cloth. 
 
 "Whoever was thee a-jawing and pala- 
 vering with, ye jade, all this time, and I 
 fit to sink from loss o' blood and want o' a 
 drop of somehut," growled Dan. 
 
 Bab told him that the Vicar of Pencombe
 
 ACQUITTED. 59 
 
 had been to see him, and to advise him to 
 leave the neighbourhood, or it might be 
 the worse for him. 
 
 " Thee warn't such a born, stoopid fool 
 as to let him know I wor here, I hope," 
 said Dan, with a hideous oath. 
 
 " No," said Bab. 
 
 " I'd have punched thy head and broken 
 every bone in thy yellow skin if thee had," 
 said Ben. "And as for 'flitting,' it's just 
 what I'm roominating. When I gets over 
 this fall, I'll go with Dan and Bob and 
 settle for a bit, higher up in Devonshire, 
 and thee and the little uns must go into 
 ' the house.' Give me the gin-bottle." 
 
 " There's not a drop left," said Barbara. 
 
 " Then," said Dan, with an oath, " it's 
 thee've drained it. Go up to the ' Good 
 Intent ' and get it filled, if thee can, and if 
 thee can't, don't show thy ugly mug here 
 again." 
 
 But Barbara had been touched to the 
 heart by the Vicar's words. She would
 
 60 ACQUITTED. 
 
 not spend one penny of the money he had 
 given her in gin or any other intoxicating 
 liquor. 
 
 She walked to the nearest shop. 
 
 She bought a little tea and sugar, bread 
 and cheese, and a candle, and also a bit of 
 scrag of mutton to make some broth for 
 her husband. 
 
 She also ordered a sack of coals, and 
 some firewood. 
 
 That evening, even that wretched cottage 
 looked a little cheerful; for a good fire 
 blazed in the grate, and a candle gave light 
 to the table, on which was food. 
 
 Bab dared not go in to Dan herself, to 
 say she could get no gin, but that she had 
 £Ot tea and su^ar, bread and cheese, and a 
 bit of meat to make him some broth, 
 through the Vicar's kindness. 
 
 She sent in her eldest son — a sturdy 
 fellow— with a basin of broth and some 
 bread. 
 
 Devrill was so faint, and the broth was
 
 ACQUITTED. 61 
 
 so savoury, he took it eagerly, though with 
 many a curse. And then asked for more, 
 and some of the meat in it. 
 
 The hungry children had a good meal 
 that evening, and their mother told them 
 to whom they owed it, and made them say 
 grace before and after supper, and bade 
 them pray God to bless the good Vicar of 
 Pencombe. 
 
 Dan Devrill had no spirits during his 
 convalescence. 
 
 He made his boys try to get the black 
 bottle filled, but in vain. 
 
 The landlord of the " Good Intent' would 
 not let Dan increase his score till he had 
 " paid up." 
 
 Owing to this enforced abstinence, the 
 wound soon healed, but the nose was 
 flattened, and a very disfiguring scar 
 crossed the countenance which had once 
 had an evil beauty of its own. 
 
 When he was able to go out, Dan Devrill, 
 as he had intended, remained with his two
 
 62 ACQUITTED. 
 
 eldest sons, and left his poor wife and little 
 ones — as he thought — to go to the union, 
 but they had a friend in the Vicar, and 
 there were better things in store for them. 
 However, this is prospective.
 
 ACQUITTED. 63 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." 
 
 Young. 
 
 E must now accompany the Vicar 
 home, after his visit to the wrecker's 
 hovel. 
 
 He found faithful old Dorcas watching 
 at Minna's door. 
 
 Dorcas told her master, with great 
 triumph and joy, that her dear young 
 missus, had opened her blessed eyes, had 
 recognised her, called her dear old Dorcas, 
 and taken a cup of tea and a bit of toast 
 from her hand, but that she had imme- 
 diately afterwards closed her eyes and 
 dropped off to sleep. 
 
 Just as she spoke there was a sound of 
 wheels and horses' hoofs, and, looking from
 
 64 ACQUITTED. 
 
 the landing-place window, the Vicar saw a 
 carriage and four drive up to the Vicarage 
 gate. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny recognised the livery of 
 the Earl of Altamount. 
 
 " Whatever brings he here at this time in 
 the day?" said old Dorcas, " and not a 
 stroke done to the drawing-room !" 
 
 " Show his lordship into my study, 
 Dorcas," said the Vicar. 
 He was very pale. 
 
 He too was wondering what could bring 
 the Earl to the Vicarage at all. And why so 
 late a riser as his Lordship, should be there 
 in the forenoon, he could not conceive ! 
 
 A visit from the Earl had been of late 
 so very rare an honour ! 
 
 Could he have discovered anything about 
 the private marriage of his son ? — for the 
 Vicar now felt sure there had been a private 
 marriage — and if so, was he come to up- 
 braid him ^ Minna's father ! and accuse him 
 of connivance and collusion ?
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 A flush suffused the Vicar's face at the 
 thought. 
 
 He was one of those men of nice honour 
 whose cheeks burn even in the solitude of 
 their own chambers at the bare thought 
 that anything can throw a doubt on their 
 integrity and truth. 
 
 "Courage!" said the Vicar to himself. 
 " My conscience is clear ; I am not to blame. 
 I hope it is so — devoutly do I hope she is 
 his wife, all traitor as he is; but I do not 
 know it. . . . However, I will not tremble and 
 quail. I am a gentleman, and this Earl is 
 nothing more. He has a title and a 
 coronet, I have none ; but c a man's a man 
 for a' that ;' and if my poor girl has indeed 
 married his son she has the worst of the 
 bargain, and so I will tell the proud Earl to 
 his face !" 
 
 As Mr. Trelawnv crossed the landing he 
 heard the well-known voice of the Earl, of 
 his son, Lord Derwent, and of little Mole- 
 hill, his lordship's solicitor. 
 
 vol. i. 5
 
 66 ACQUITTED. 
 
 " There must be something very impor- 
 tant in the wind," said the Vicar to himself, 
 " else why should the Earl bring Molehill 
 here? Well, I must face him. So I'll do 
 at once what is to do, and Heaven defend 
 the right."
 
 ACQUITTED. 67 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles, 
 His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate, 
 His tears pure messengers from his heart ; 
 His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth." 
 
 Shaksjpeare. 
 
 EVER before had the Vicar of 
 Pencombe felt afraid to face any 
 man ! 
 The feelings which flushed his cheek and 
 quickened his pulse, as he left his daugh- 
 ter's room and slowly repaired to the 
 library to receive the Earl and his party, 
 were as new as they were distressing and 
 humiliating to him. 
 
 " The princely heart of innocence" had 
 always throbbed in his brave breast. 
 
 It did so still — but hitherto his soul had 
 been above disguise.
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 He had had no secret burthen weighing 
 on his heart; and now he knew, or thought 
 he knew, something of vast importance to 
 the Earl ; but that something his poor ill- 
 used daughter's safety from an " Honour- 
 able" scoundrel made it imperative he 
 should hide. 
 
 As he descended the stairs he saw 
 through the quaint old oriel window by 
 which they were lighted, a young fellow 
 with fish for sale, who had made his way 
 round from the back premises, where such 
 people always held their colloquies with 
 old Dorcas, who was a great driver of 
 bargains. 
 
 The lad was apparently trying to look in 
 at the drawing-room window. 
 
 A young girl whose services Dorcas had 
 borrowed of a neighbour to help her in the 
 kitchen, and whom she supposed to be 
 too stupid and too young to take much 
 notice of anything, passing at the time to 
 gather some parsley for Dorcas, was ac-
 
 ACQUITTED. 09 
 
 costed by the lad in question; and Mr. 
 Trelawny opening the staircase window, 
 heard the youth say to the girl — 
 
 '' How's the poor lady as wor saved from 
 the wreck?" 
 
 " What lady?" said the girl; " I've seed 
 no lady?'' 
 
 "What do you want here, my lad?" 
 cried Mr. Trelawny, hastening down and 
 opening the front door. 
 
 " I've some fine fresh fish, your reverence, 
 for sale," said the lad. 
 
 The girl had hurried away at the sound 
 of the Vicar's voice. 
 
 " We want none to-day," said the Vicar; 
 " and if we did, it's at the back-gate and 
 the kitchen door you must offer it.'' 
 
 " Beg pardon, your reverence,"' said the 
 lad, " I'm a stranger here!" 
 
 And he hurried away; but though an 
 old peaked cap concealed the upper part of 
 his half-averted face, and a coloured hand- 
 kerchief the lower, Mr. Trelawny thought
 
 70 ACQUITTED. 
 
 the features were familiar to him; and it 
 struck him all at once that they bore a 
 strong resemblance to those of Dan Devrill. 
 
 The Vicar had not time at this moment 
 (the Earl and his friends awaiting him in 
 the library) to meditate on the unpleasant 
 probability that the wrecker had sent his 
 son as a spy, to try to find out whether the 
 lady whom the Yicar had saved was at the 
 Vicarage. 
 
 He conld not keep Lord Altamount 
 waiting any longer, but he called to Dorcas 
 and told her to send off a young fellow 
 with fish for sale who had got round to the 
 front of the house. 
 
 Dorcas, at the sound of her master's 
 voice, came from the kitchen with a flushed 
 face, and the spit in her hand, and said — 
 
 " I've druv him off, sir ! . . . I found 
 him at the scullery door, how he got there 
 I don't know, and Nancy, as can't say bo 
 to a goose when I'm by, a chattering to 
 un as fast as ever fast."
 
 ACQUITTED. 71 
 
 " He is here for no good purpose, 
 Dorcas," said the Vicar in a low voice; 
 "keep the back gate locked, and send 
 Xancy back to her home. That young 
 fellow is the son of the wretch from whom 
 I rescued your young mistress. He's here 
 as a spy." 
 
 " Heaven preserve us !" said Dorcas. 
 " But he'd better not come here again. I'll 
 make the place too hot to hold him, sir." 
 
 Mr. Trelawny saw at a glance that his 
 fears were unfounded. 
 
 The Earl had not, for many years, shaken 
 hands so cordially with the Vicar as on 
 this occasion. 
 
 His lordship even condescended to call 
 him " dear Trelawny," and " Harry," as in 
 their old days of college intimacy. 
 
 It was an unspeakable relief to the proud 
 and sensitive Trelawny, to lind that the 
 Earl had not the slightest suspicion of a
 
 72 ACQUITTED. 
 
 private marriage, or even an attachment, 
 between his son Jasper and Minna 
 Trelawny. 
 
 His Lordship asked after the Vicar's 
 " beautiful daughter," and remarked " that 
 it was no wonder so handsome a young 
 woman should prefer London to Pen- 
 combe !" 
 
 After a good deal of pleasant talk and 
 flattery, which from the lips of the great 
 is always beguiling to those beneath them 
 in the social scale, the real object of this 
 condescending visit came out. 
 
 It seemed that the Earl of Altamount 
 had just received a telegram, announcing 
 the sudden death of Lord Pontypool (father 
 of Lord Bellairs, the member for Pen- 
 combe). 
 
 Lord Bellairs having thus become a 
 peer and a member of the House of Lords, 
 his seat in the House of Commons was of 
 course vacant. 
 
 Lord Derwent. eldest son of the Earl of
 
 ACQUITTED. 73 
 
 Altamount, and formerly a pupil of Mr. 
 Trelawny's, had long been very anxious to 
 get into Parliament. 
 
 Here was an excellent chance. He was 
 a pale, delicate young man, but of a very 
 ambitious, restless nature, very vain too, 
 and, being a fluent speaker, lie believed 
 himself to be an orator. 
 
 He burned to hold forth in Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 The Earl, who, if not a great politician, 
 had a strong party spirit, was intensely 
 anxious, by getting his son and nominee 
 returned, to strengthen his own and weaken 
 the opposite party. 
 
 Lord Derwent then had his father's 
 interest, but he had powerful rivals already 
 in the field. 
 
 Every vote thus became of immense im- 
 portance, and it was to canvass the Vicar, 
 that the Right Honourable Augustus, Earl 
 of Altamount, his eldest son, Lord Derwent, 
 and Molehill, the family solicitor, appeared
 
 74 ACQUITTED. 
 
 thus early at the Vicarage, with smiles as 
 warm and bright as the rays of the noon- 
 day sun, and almost as evanescent. 
 
 While, in answer to the Vicar's particular 
 questions as to his views and politics, Lord 
 Derwent was taking shelter in general 
 professions of devotion to the interests of 
 " the ancient and loyal borough of Pen- 
 combe,' 1 the Countess of Altamount — 
 with another line lady — drove to the 
 Vicarage gate, in a magnificent equipage, 
 and fluttered into the Vicars quiet little 
 study with her spinster sister. Lady 
 Honoria was all fashion and finesse, smiles 
 and softness, marabouts and manoeuvres. 
 
 She delighted in the excitement of can- 
 vassing, and Lady Honoria was bent on 
 " bribery and corruption" in the shape of 
 coaxing words, and, if necessary, kisses, 
 after the bygone fashion of the days of 
 the beautiful Georgina, Duchess of Devon- 
 shire. 
 
 The Vicar, understanding from Molehill,
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 the Eari's man of business, that the candi- 
 dates opposed to Lord Derwent were 
 Lieut-General Dunkeld, a Tory of the old 
 school, and a Colonel Turvy, a red-hot 
 Eadical, and overcome, in spite of himself, 
 by the Earl's freedom and the Countess's 
 flattering, promised his vote. 
 
 He agreed indeed to Lord Altamount's 
 request, that he would " plump for Der- 
 went." 
 
 He refused a pressing invitation to dine 
 that evening at the Castle, for he could not 
 bear to leave his Minna — his recovered 
 treasure — in her precarious state. Having 
 gained their object, the Earl and Countess, 
 with their companions, departed in their 
 respective carriages to continue their 
 canvass, Molehill urging all possible speed 
 in getting at Mr. Penryn, of Penryn Manor 
 House, before he, or rather his aunt and 
 his wife, who* governed and guided him, 
 should have heard (had the Vicar known 
 it, he would have refused to "plump
 
 76 ACQUITTED. 
 
 for Derwent)" — that Sir George Manley, 
 a moderate Conservative, had entered the 
 field. 
 
 Having handed the Countess to her 
 carriage, and gazed his last at her artificial 
 roses and artificial smiles, the Vicar said 
 to himself, " I shall see no more of my lord 
 and my lady, I daresay, when once Lord 
 Derwent is in Parliament. No matter; I 
 did very well without their notice for two 
 years, and so I shall again. I will just 
 step up to my poor Minna's room to as- 
 certain that she is quiet, and then I will 
 walk down to Penryn Manor House, and 
 consult with dear, good, gentle Mrs. Penryn, 
 and that ' strong-minded woman,' Miss 
 Priscilla — poor Penryn's aunt — what can 
 be done in the way of a respectable outfit 
 for the drunken wreckers penitent Avife 
 and starving children. I am resolved, with 
 my Master's help and blessing, to get that 
 incorrigible scoundrel, Dan Devrill, out of 
 this neighbourhood, and to make his wife
 
 ACQUITTED. 77 
 
 and little ones decent, useful members of 
 society, hard working, sober, sabbath-keep- 
 ing Christians. Dan is a slippery fellow, 
 and no one ever knows where to find him, 
 else I ought to give him in charge for his 
 vile attempt at robbery, and perhaps 
 murder, this very morning ; but then 
 there must be an investigation before a 
 magistrate, and Minna's rescue — with all 
 that it involves — must come to light! Her 
 base husband would know ere long where 
 she is, and either insist on her return to 
 him, to kill her by his cruelty, or plot with 
 such a villain as Devrill some means of de- 
 stroying her, and thus my hands are tied, 
 and justice defeated." 
 
 The Vicar found Minna sleeping calmly. 
 
 Much relieved in his mind on this ac- 
 count, he ordered old Dorcas to be on the 
 watch in case she should chance to wake, 
 and to feed her sparingly with strong 
 chicken jelly. 
 
 Luckilv there was some in the larder.
 
 78 ACQUITTED. 
 
 It had been made for a consumptive 
 parishioner, and patient of the Vicar's. 
 
 " Stew another chicken, Dorcas," he said, 
 "and divide the jelly you have ready, 
 between poor young Blake and . . . my 
 daughter." 
 
 He then took his hat and went out, 
 directing his steps towards Penryn Manor 
 House. 
 
 As Mr. Trelawny turned into the lane 
 which skirted his own paddock, he saw — 
 for he had the eye of a hawk — something 
 red fluttering in the summer breeze just 
 where a dry ditch and a hawthorn hedge 
 divided his premises from a patch of furze- 
 grown common. 
 
 Resolved to see what it was — for intense 
 anxiety about Minna made him attach im- 
 portance to every trifle — he turned out of 
 the lane, crossed the little angle of common, 
 and came upon the fisherman lad and 
 Nancy, the girl whom Dorcas had dis- 
 missed and sent home.
 
 ACQUITTED. 79 
 
 They were dining together on some bread 
 and cold meat which Dorcas had given to 
 Nancy for her dinner, and young Dan 
 Devrill — for it was he — was lying on his 
 stomach, and with a small telescope to his 
 eye, was watching the window of the 
 very bedroom in which Minna lay, and 
 which, on account of the heat, was partly 
 open. 
 
 Old Dorcas stood at that window, first 
 spreading out a lady's night-dress in the 
 sun to air, and then taking up a basin of 
 broth and cooling it with a spoon. 
 
 " Can't ye slip back, Xan, saying you've 
 left somehut behind ye, and steal up into 
 that ere room, and peep in as quiet as a 
 mouse, and then come and tell me what 
 you've zeed ! I'll give ye a smart pair o' 
 ear-drops next week if you will, and I'll 
 give my sweetheart, Bet, the cold shoulder, 
 and keep company wi' you, maybe," said 
 young Dan, not hearing the Vicar's step 
 on the soft sod.
 
 80 ACQUITTED. 
 
 " Will ye though ?" said the girl, grinning 
 from ear to ear, " then hear goes !" 
 
 She turned to scramble out of the ditch, 
 and saw the, to her, terrible face and form 
 of the Yicar. 
 
 He seized her by the shoulder, and at her 
 scream, young Dan, taking the telescope 
 from his eye, turned round, and wished 
 himself a hundred miles off! 
 
 "I have a great mind to send for a 
 constable, and have you taken up. you 
 young vagrant !" said the Vicar. 
 
 " I ain't doing no harm, your reverence!" 
 said young Dan, stammering and turning 
 very red. "I'm a stranger in these parts, 
 and dead beat with hunger and travelling 
 so far on a empty stomach, and this here 
 gal give me a bit o' her dinner. Zure 
 your reverence can't blame a Christin for 
 that." 
 
 " You are the son of Dan Devrill," said 
 the Yicar. " What he is you know as well, 
 if not better, than I do. Now, mark me,
 
 ACQUITTED. 81 
 
 if I ever catch you in this neighbourhood 
 again I'll have you taken up at once, and 
 very likely before I send for a constable I 
 may give you a hiding, you'll not forget 
 in a hurry, for lurking about my premises, 
 and spying at my windows. So much for 
 you, my lad ! Now, for your father, tell 
 him from me that if he is not off before 
 three days are over his head, I shall have 
 him before a magistrate on charges he can 
 guess at, and that imprisonment and hard 
 labour for many a long year will be his 
 portion, as he will have sense enough to 
 know, if he's sober when you give him my 
 orders. Now be off; and if you value a 
 whole skin, my lad, never show your face 
 here again." 
 
 Young Dan got up and off, as fast as he 
 could, and the Vicar taking Nancy by the 
 hand, led her to the school, and ordered 
 the mistress to keep her close, and watch 
 her well. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 82 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " Whereunto is money good ? 
 Who has it not wants hardihood, 
 Who has it has much trouble and care, 
 Who once has had it has despair." 
 
 S the Vicar passed through Pen- 
 combe, on his way to the old 
 Manor House, he saw with a flush 
 of surprise and displeasure, that he had 
 been duped by the great Earl and little 
 Molehill, his solicitor. 
 
 The dark blue placards of the old Tory 
 candidate, and the yellow ones of the 
 Radical, Colonel Turvy, met his view, but to 
 his surprise and discomfiture, he also saw 
 on paler blue posters the name of Sir 
 George Manley, a moderate Conservative, 
 whose politics exactly coincided with his 
 own.
 
 ACQUITTED. S3 
 
 " A regular trick, a mean plot !" said the 
 Vicar to himself, "worthy of little Molehill, 
 but disgraceful to the Earl of Altamount, 
 and entitling him to add gloomy dis to his 
 Right Honourable name. However, I have 
 given my word, my promise, and I cannot 
 break either, let who will be member for 
 Pencoinbe !" 
 
 The Penryns were one of the oldest 
 families in Cornwall, but much im- 
 poverished. 
 
 Of all the fine estate, the woods, the 
 fisheries, the broad lands, and the splendid 
 preserves which had formerly belonged to 
 Penryn of Penryn, nothing now remained 
 but the quaint, rambling, many-gabled old 
 Manor House, the old-fashioned garden, 
 and a small home farm. 
 
 These, and the barren title of Lord of 
 the Manor of Penryn, formed all the glories 
 of a house which in former times had inter- 
 married with that of Altamount. 
 
 The present Penryn of Penryn was 
 
 6-^2
 
 84 ACQUITTED. 
 
 a very quiet, pale, thin, and amiable 
 man. 
 
 A classical scholar of great repute even 
 at Oxford, where up to forty years of age he 
 had led — as a fellow of Oriel — the safe, calm, 
 irresponsible life of learning and routine 
 exactly suited to him; unfortunately for 
 him, on his fortieth birthday an old friend, 
 who had just married, arrived with his 
 wife and his wife's sister at the Angel, 
 Oxford. 
 
 Mr. Penryn was invited to dine with the 
 wedding party, and lionize Oxford with 
 them. 
 
 He fell in love with the bride's sister. 
 Love at forty, like the measles, or any other 
 malady, is all the worse to bear, for coming 
 late in life. 
 
 Penryn threw up his fellowship, and his 
 father having been some years dead, he 
 settled with his bride at Penryn Manor 
 House. 
 
 The woman of his choice was all a wife
 
 ACQUITTED. 85 
 
 should be, but she soon discovered that in 
 spite of the intellect which she so revered, 
 her husband was — morally considered — a 
 weak man. 
 
 He had no will of his own, no resistance 
 in his nature, no power of saying " No. " 
 
 Mrs. Penryn united strong principle and 
 great firmness to the sweetest and most 
 gentle of manners, and without her 
 husband or anv of his friends knowing it, 
 she led him into the right path, and kept 
 him there. 
 
 In this she was aided by his aunt, a 
 strong-minded spinster, Miss Priscilla 
 Penryn. 
 
 One beautiful, high-spirited, manly boy 
 added to the happiness of Penryn's wedded 
 life. 
 
 He was six years old at the time of the 
 Vicar's visit to Mrs. Penryn, and already 
 he gave evidence of the rich heritage of 
 his father's intellect and his mother's 
 courage, firmness, and fortitude.
 
 86 ACQUITTED. 
 
 He united the personal advantages of 
 both, for Penryn of Penryn had the fine 
 features of his handsome race ; but yet his 
 was a nerveless face : there was sweetness of 
 temper and great mental cultivation to be 
 traced there, but that all important attri- 
 bute of man, " will," had been forgotten in 
 his composition. His brow was high, but 
 rather retreating. His eyes looked kindly 
 on every one, and his mouth, rather weak 
 and irresolute, seemed formed for amiable 
 acquiescence and a perpetual " Yes," but it 
 appeared as if it never could pronounce a 
 resolute " No." 
 
 He was dressed in grey. He was fond 
 of neutral tints, and they harmonized with 
 his character. Mrs. Penryn, who was of 
 Scottish extraction, had the rich golden 
 hair, the exquisite complexion, the fine 
 form, and winning loveliness of the land of 
 Mary Stuart, Queen at once of beauty and 
 of Scotland. 
 
 Lavishly gifted by nature, little Paul
 
 ACQUITTED. 87 
 
 Penryn was a child of singular personal 
 beauty, and moral and mental promise. 
 
 The maternal element was strong in the 
 boy. 
 
 For several generations the Penryns, 
 once a brave and warlike race, had been, 
 like Paul's father, weak and easily duped. 
 
 James I. is supposed to have owed 
 his moral pusillanimity to the terrors of his 
 mother for months before his birth. 
 
 A similar cause, in the troublous times 
 of the second Charles, was said to account 
 for the timid and nervous natures of all the 
 males of the house of Penryn. 
 
 It had brought them from grandeur and 
 opulence to a bare competence, but the 
 females of the family had escaped its para- 
 lysing influence. And now, in little Paul 
 Penryn, at least as far as one could judge 
 of a boy at his early age, the spirit and the 
 fortitude of William Wallace had descended, 
 with his blood, through Mrs. Penryn, who 
 was of that hero's lineage.
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 And thus, taught by his learned father, 
 and trained by his virtuous mother and in- 
 trepid great-aunt — Paul Penryn promised 
 " to give the world assurance of a man," and 
 of a Christian, a scholar, and a gentleman.
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " What is it that you would impart to me ?" 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 HE Vicar found traces of recent 
 excitement in the generally calm 
 features of Mr., Mrs., and Miss 
 Priscilla Penryn. 
 
 The noble party of canvassers, the 
 Earl and Countess with their party, had 
 just driven from the gate of the Manor 
 House, but this time defeated and discom- 
 fited by female wit and will. 
 
 Miss Priscilla, who, strong-minded as she 
 thought herself, had her weak points — one 
 of which was pride of pedigree — was always 
 sore on the subject of the hauteur and 
 slights of the Earl and his family; and 
 when at length they came, all smiles and
 
 90 ACQUITTED. 
 
 sunshine, she suspected the reason, and 
 resolved to outwit them. 
 
 She was a little bit of a politician, 
 a friend of Sir George Manley's, and she 
 knew he had been asked to stand. She 
 therefore took counsel with Mrs. Penryn, 
 and just as the carriages of the Earl and 
 Countess drove up, the ladies got Mr. 
 Penryn to promise to " plump for Manley," 
 with whose opinions he, or rather they, 
 agreed. Great was the delight of Aunt Pris, 
 and great the discomfiture of the noble 
 party of vote-hunters, when, after wasting 
 a great number of fine speeches, and going 
 into sham raptures about little Paul, in 
 reply to the Earl's affectionate entreaty that 
 his dear friend Penryn would " plump for 
 Derwent," he was told he had promised his 
 vote to Manley. 
 
 The Earl, on hearing this, lost his temper 
 a little; and, as Penryn had no fight in him, 
 Miss Pris flew to the rescue, and fairly beat 
 the Earl and his party out of the field.
 
 ACQUITTED. 91 
 
 The Vicar found the pale cheek of Pen- 
 ryn of Penryn slightly flushed, and little 
 Paul in high favour with his aunt. The 
 boy was red, and hot, and panting, for he 
 had bravely rescued his favourite cat (a 
 snow-white Angora) from a dog of the 
 Countess's, who had flown at poor little 
 " Lillywhite." 
 
 The Vicar, as he took Paul on his knee, 
 and heard his account of poor pussy's 
 peril and rescue, thought he had never seen 
 so noble and brave a child. 
 
 He was almost ashamed to own to the 
 old Amazon, "Aunt Pris," that he had 
 been wheedled into promising his vote to 
 Lord Derwent, but she soon found out that 
 he was pledged to do so, and she did not 
 spare him. 
 
 Mrs. Penryn listened with lively in- 
 terest to the Vicar's account of the 
 wretched Dan Devrill's starving wife and 
 children. 
 
 She promised to supply from the
 
 92 ACQUITTED. 
 
 clothing club all that was necessary for 
 a neat and comfortable outfit; and little 
 Paul, who had been listening with intense 
 interest to Mr. Trelawny's account of the 
 Devrill family, slipped from the Vicar's 
 knee, left the room, and came back with his 
 little money-box in his hand. 
 
 "Mamma," he said, " I don't care about 
 a box of tools now ; I can do with the old 
 hammer and saw. May I give my five 
 and sevenpence to the poor woman and 
 children Mr. Trelawny saw without food 
 and clothes?" 
 
 "You may, Paul," said Mrs. Penryn, 
 " but are you sure you will not be sorry to 
 give up the box of tools you have so long 
 saved your money to get. I cannot afford 
 to buy them for you." 
 
 " I am quite sure I should not like to 
 have them, now that I can do so much 
 good with my money, mamma!" said the 
 boy, putting the five and sevenpence into 
 the Vicar's hand.
 
 ACQUITTED. 93 
 
 No wonder that Mrs. Penryn caught the 
 little fellow to her heart. 
 
 No wonder the Vicar gazed with moist- 
 ened eyes at the glowing face of a child 
 who, in his seventh year, could gladly, and 
 of his own accord, forego a long-coveted 
 toy, to spend the money he had saved on 
 the poor and needy. 
 
 No wonder Mr. Penryn's pale cheek 
 flushed with paternal pride ; and no wonder 
 Aunt Pris gave Paul a peppermint out 
 of her own box and her own pocket, 
 and whispered to the Vicar, " s As the twig 
 is bent, the tree's inclined.' I have taken 
 great pains with the moral training of that 
 boy; and so has his mother.'' 
 
 At this moment a fly drove up to the gate. 
 
 It was to convey Mrs. Penryn and Miss 
 Priscilla to a fancy bazaar held in the 
 grounds of a Rectory some twelve miles 
 off. 
 
 The Rector and his wife were intimate 
 friends of the Penryns.
 
 94 ACQUITTED. 
 
 The bazaar was held for the benefit of 
 female orphans in delicate health, and Mrs. 
 Penryn and Miss Priscilla had contributed 
 a large amount of gifts — the former elegant 
 specimens of fancy work (in which she was 
 never excelled), the latter a great number 
 of very ugly poke-bonnets, trimmed and 
 lined with dark green calico, a quantity 
 of coarse woollen jackets, and a dozen 
 sets of under clothing, the texture of 
 which would have better suited the hide of 
 a rhinoceros than the delicate skin of an 
 invalid girl; but "Miss Pris" had very 
 Spartan notions, and carried them out in 
 her own person as well as in theory. 
 
 Mrs. Penryn and Miss Priscilla had 
 agreed (although both disliked leaving 
 home and Mr. Penryn) to dine and pass 
 the night at Rockland Rectory. 
 
 Mr. Penryn, although warmly pressed to 
 accompany them, had been advised, by his 
 wife and his aunt, not to go. 
 
 He was not at all the sort of man to resist
 
 ACQUITTED. 95 
 
 the half-coaxing, half-intimidating per- 
 tinacity of the lady stall-keepers. 
 
 Indeed, at the only fancy bazaar he had 
 ever attended, he had been cajoled or bullied 
 out of every penny he had in his purse ; nor 
 that alone ; when his pocket was emptied his 
 fair tormentors insisted on putting his name 
 down to raffles and lotteries, so that, in the 
 course of a few days, he had to pay four 
 pounds fifteen, and all he had to show 
 for his money was a smoking- cap, a cigar- 
 case, quite useless, as he never smoked; 
 a white satin kettle-holder, a white mus- 
 lin pen -wiper, a pair of slippers with a fox's 
 head embroidered on the toes, and too 
 narrow for any full-grown human foot ; and 
 a berceaunette for a doll ! 
 
 Mr. Trelawny took his leave after he had 
 handed Mrs. Penryn and Miss Pris into the 
 fly. The ladies at the last moment seemed 
 very loth to depart. 
 
 Aunt Pris said, " I wish we were not 
 going, or that we had insisted on having
 
 96 ACQUITTED. 
 
 my nephew and little Paul with us. I feel 
 as if something unfortunate were sure to 
 happen during our absence ; but of course 
 it's all fancy. Thank heaven I'm too 
 strong-minded to believe in presentiments." 
 * * * # * 
 
 Miss Pris was ri^ht when, with her lon£ 
 snipe-like nose, by spectacles bestrid, she 
 scented danger in the air. 
 
 But even she, keen-witted as she was, 
 could never have formed the most remote 
 idea what that danger was. We must 
 enlighten the reader on this subject. 
 
 In Mr. Penryn's Oxford days, he, and 
 many other young men of his acquain- 
 tance, led into debt by coaxing and ac- 
 commodating Oxford tradesmen, had bor- 
 rowed money of a shy, laughing, pleasant, 
 but very deep bill-discounter, named 
 "Downy." 
 
 The heavy interest exacted by Downy 
 had been the curse of Mr. Penryn's early 
 life. That was Downy senior. Downy
 
 ACQUITTED. 97 
 
 senior had a son — " Downy junior " — who 
 inherited all his father's pleasantry of 
 manner, exacted the same rate of interest, 
 was equally remorseless and persevering, 
 but had — what Downy senior had never 
 had — a passion for speculation. Old 
 Downy was no more. 
 
 Young Downy, now in his turn fast be- 
 coming old Downy, had left Oxford for 
 London, and was not only a bill-discounter 
 but a great and daring public speculator. 
 
 All sorts of companies, railways, joint 
 stock banks, and other ventures of the 
 same kind, boasted the name of " Sligo 
 Downy, Esq.," on their lists of share- 
 holders. 
 
 Among other speculations, a mining 
 company had been formed to work some 
 supposed mines not very far from Penryn 
 Manor House. 
 
 Now Sligo Down}', who knew the history 
 of all his father's old clients, and who had 
 been acquainted with James Penryn, a 
 
 vol. i. 7
 
 98 ACQUITTED. 
 
 younger brother of Penryn of Penryn 
 Manor House, was aware that James, who 
 was a widower, and in the army, and who 
 had died abroad, had left the sum of one 
 thousand pounds to his only child, Ann 
 Penryn, but that he had made his brother 
 her guardian and trustee. 
 
 The thousand pounds were in the Three per 
 Cents, and were to remain there until Ann 
 married or became of age. The half-yearly 
 dividend of this sum was always received 
 by Mr. Penryn, and paid regularly for 
 Ann's expenses to Mrs. Macpherson, her 
 mother's sister, a Scotch lady of many 
 virtues, among which economy was the 
 most remarkable. 
 
 So well did this lady manage, that Ann's 
 thirty pounds per annum not only covered 
 Ann's expenses, but went a good w r ay to- 
 wards those of the very thrifty household. 
 
 So far Mr. Penryn had had no trouble 
 about his trusteeship. 
 
 His brother James was, perhaps, the only
 
 ACQUITTED. 99 
 
 person in the world who had ever looked 
 up to Penryn of Penryn, or had ever felt 
 any confidence in him as a man of business. 
 
 Sligo Downy had once since Penryn's 
 marriage — namely, during his honeymoon, 
 which he had spent in London — tried to 
 renew some sort of business transactions 
 with Mr. Penryn, and to tempt him to 
 speculate ; but his specious arguments, his 
 half-coaxing, half-bullying remarks, and his 
 jokes about " petticoat government " and 
 " apron strings," were overheard by Miss 
 Pris, who was of the wedding party, and 
 who had retired into the adjoining bed- 
 room at Downy's approach. 
 
 Flushed and furious, she marched in to 
 prevent her nephew's falling a victim to 
 the flattery, ridicule, and misrepresentations 
 of the bill-discounting speculator, Sligo 
 Downy. 
 
 The latter took his leave, fairly outwitted 
 and defeated. 
 
 Finding himself, however — on business 
 
 7-2
 
 100 ACQUITTED. 
 
 connected with the new mining company — 
 at the c ' Penryn Arms," an inn which fur- 
 nished the fly which was to take Mrs. and 
 Miss Penryn to the fancy fair, and 
 overhearing some remarks of the drivers 
 which let him into the fact that Mrs. 
 Penryn and Miss Pris were to pass the 
 night at Rockland Rectory, the schemer, 
 like a spider spinning his web for a fly, 
 began to plan a visit to his father's old 
 client, Penryn of Penryn Manor House. 
 
 About an hour later, the fly drove 
 from the Manor House gate, and while Mr. 
 Penryn was adding a very erudite note to 
 a translation of Sophocles which he was 
 editing, and while Paul lay on the rug at 
 his father's feet, playing with Lilywhite, 
 his pet cat, Sligo Downy saw the fly con- 
 taining Mrs. Penryn and Miss Pris drive past 
 the inn, while he hid himself behind the 
 curtains of the bow window. 
 
 " Now or never," he said to himself. 
 " I can do what I like with Penryn now
 
 ACQUITTED. 101 
 
 those women are out of the way ; and, 
 once done, and the thousand pounds trust 
 money sold out of the Three per Cents, and 
 invested for Ann Penryn's benefit in my 
 new ' Land's End Mining Company/ what 
 care I for Penryn's pretty little wife, or his 
 stiff-necked, long-tongued old aunt? So 
 here goes ! Fortune favours the brave."
 
 102 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures." 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson. 
 
 E9I||HAT was a shrewd old bachelor 
 ilfftfy wno determined at last to marry, 
 because, as he said, " when he had 
 a wife he should have a protector." 
 
 There are a great many perils, small in 
 their way, but yet very tormenting, from 
 which nothing but a good, firm, sensible wife 
 can protect a man. From the petty tyranny 
 of hired housekeepers, the peculations of 
 charwomen, the overcharges of laundresses, 
 and their ruthless rending off of buttons, 
 from all these the bachelor is protected as 
 soon as he takes to himself a wife. 
 
 The timid and credulous old fellow who
 
 ACQUITTED. 103 
 
 lives in abject dread of the long tongue, 
 short answers, and black looks of the niaid- 
 of-all-work whose advertisement had so 
 captivated him by its professions of good 
 humour, activity, and the desire to be 
 useful and agreeable, handy and econo- 
 mical, can only be freed from such debasing 
 thraldom by matrimony. But of all men, 
 an absent, timid, amiable bookworm like 
 Mr. Penryn, who could not bear to give 
 pain or to say "no," most needs a brave 
 and loving wife, devoted to his interests, to 
 save him from falling a nrev to deceivers 
 
 - 
 
 prey 
 
 and manceuvrers of all ages and ranks in 
 life, and of both sexes. 
 
 Well did Sligo Downy know that his 
 only chance was to avail himself of the rare 
 opportunity now afforded him of seeing 
 Penryn of Penryn without his protectors. 
 
 Only once before in his wedded life had 
 Mr. Penryn been thus left to himself. 
 He was deep in his classical researches 
 when the library door was thrown open, and
 
 104 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Sligo Downy, all smiles and high spirits, 
 was announced. 
 
 At first he said nothing about his real 
 object, but spoke of himself as a most pros- 
 perous man — come down on business con- 
 nected with "the Land's End Mining Com- 
 pany" — and added, while a tear of plausibi- 
 lity moistened his eye, that, finding himself 
 in the immediate neighbourhood of so old a 
 friend, he could not refrain from calling to 
 have a chat over old times, and to pay 
 his respects to Mrs. Penryn and Miss 
 Priscilla. 
 
 Sligo affected great surprise and regret 
 when he heard they were from home. 
 
 Penryn of Penryn, the soul of hospitality, 
 pressed Sligo Downy to dinner, and got out 
 two bottles of choice old wine to do him 
 honour. 
 
 After dinner, and when the two decanters 
 were empty, Sligo Downy began to unfold 
 his scheme. 
 
 Penryn was a little excited and confused,
 
 ACQUITTED. 105 
 
 — a very little wine affected him, and he 
 had taken a good deal. 
 
 Sligo Downy's plan was to get Penrynof 
 Penryn up to town at once. The fly which 
 was to call, nominally for him, would, he 
 hoped, convey Penryn too to the station in 
 time for the Express. 
 
 At first Mr. Penryn recoiled with horror 
 from any idea of meddling with the trust 
 money, but after a magnum of claret and a 
 jug of punch had been added to the dessert, 
 he began to see with Sligo Downy's eyes, 
 and to agree, for his little niece and ward's 
 sake, to invest the thousand pounds trust 
 money in a speculation sure to yield fifty 
 per cent., while in the funds " a beggarly 
 three per cent, was all it produced." 
 
 At this point the wily Downy threw out 
 hints about u petticoat government" and 
 female domination. 
 
 Penryn of Penryn, grown valiant in his 
 cups, laughed at the idea that he was in the 
 slightest degree hen-pecked, and agreed to
 
 106 ACQUITTED. 
 
 set off at once with Downy. Just as he 
 had consented to this, and while Downy, in 
 a fever of impatience and anxiety, was doing 
 his best to accelerate Penryn's movements, 
 the fly on which Downy kept his eye, 
 moved on a little, to make way for a 
 large mourning coach drawn by four black 
 horses. 
 
 What could the great black vehicle stop 
 at the Manor House gate for ? Nay, more, 
 what does the coachman in black mean by 
 driving up to the door, descending from the 
 box, and opening the gate ? 
 
 Penryn of Penryn is as much amazed and 
 mystified as Sligo Downy himself, but all 
 is soon explained. 
 
 Mrs. Penryn, pale as death, and her gay 
 attire torn and soiled, rushes in to tell her 
 husband that their fly horse had taken 
 fright at a gipsy's tent, and had kicked over 
 the traces and upset the fly as they were 
 going down a steep hill some two miles from 
 Rockland Rectory.
 
 ACQUITTED. 107 
 
 Miss Pris had, in her alarm, thrown her- 
 self out of the carriage window into a 
 green pond, covered with duck-weed and 
 slime. 
 
 Mrs. Penryn had been thrown into the 
 road. What had become of the driver 
 they did not know ; but a mourning-coach 
 returning from the grand funeral procession 
 of Lord Launceston passing at the time, 
 the coachman had not only helped Miss 
 Pris out of the pond, but had agreed (for a 
 consideration) to convey the two ladies 
 back to the Manor House. 
 
 They were in no condition for the 
 bazaar. 
 
 Miss Pris emerged from the mourning- 
 coach, her bonnet crushed, herself wet to 
 the skin, and covered from head to foot 
 with green slime and duck-weed. 
 
 But even in this disastrous state she had 
 her wits about her. 
 
 She recognised Sligo Downy ! 
 
 She saw that her nephew had taken
 
 108 ACQUITTED. 
 
 more wine than was good for him, and, in 
 confirmation of her suspicions, she counted 
 the bottles on the table. 
 
 "Nephew," she said, "never mind me; 
 see to your wife. She has had a great 
 fright; help her to her room, and don't 
 leave her !" 
 
 u I have — business with this gentleman, 
 aunt/' faltered Mr. Penryn. 
 
 "Mr. Downy will excuse you, nephew!" 
 said Miss Pris. 
 
 At this moment Downy 's fly-man came 
 to the door to say, " There was no time to 
 be lost if the genelman wanted to meet the 
 Express !" 
 
 Baffled, defeated, and outwitted, Sligo 
 Downy was obliged to suffer his prey to 
 escape him, and to allow himself to be 
 bowed out by Miss Pris. 
 
 This was the more easily managed because 
 old Dorcas came moaning down stairs to 
 call for help — brandy, salts, Miss Pris and 
 Mr. Penryn — as Mrs. Penryn, never very
 
 ACQUITTED. 109 
 
 strong, and much shaken by the recent 
 accident, had fainted. 
 
 Mr. Penryn at once forgot everything 
 but his darling wife ! 
 
 Sligo Downy entered the fly alone, and 
 was borne away.
 
 110 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, 
 Death came with trembling care ; 
 The opening bud to Heaven conveyed, 
 And bade it blossom there." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 HE carpenter and undertaker of 
 Pen combe were one and the same 
 
 person. 
 
 His name was Topples, and he had been 
 a Whig, but had veered towards radicalism 
 since the Earl had employed a carpenter 
 from Rockness. 
 
 He was very full of the election, and of 
 his firm resolve (let who would be offended 
 — as he said with a wink, and pointing with 
 an inverted thumb to the Castle) to vote for 
 Colonel Turvy.
 
 ACQUITTED. Ill 
 
 He talked of " Reform," the " Ballot," 
 and " Universal Suffrage," while Natt Lynn, 
 with tears in his eyes, was ordering the little 
 coffin. 
 
 From him Natt Lynn heard that his cot- 
 tage in the Rocks was not in Pencombe 
 parish, but in that of Rockness. 
 
 It was therefore to the Vicar of Rockness 
 that Natt must apply about the burial of 
 the child. 
 
 " You needn't have no doubts on the 
 matter," said Topples, beginning to plane 
 and shape a board for the tiny coffin. 
 " Old Lynn, as wor your uncle, I 'spose, 
 lies in Rockness churchyard, and the babby 
 can lie by him. I made his coffin, and con- 
 ducted his funeral — so I ought to know. 
 I see him laid there, as snug as ever snug, 
 under the old yew tree; and his brother, 
 your father, I count, said nothing was ever 
 done reasonabler or handsomer, for the 
 money, than that funeral. It's sheer loss of 
 time for 3-011 to go to Pencombe Vicarage,
 
 112 ACQUITTED. 
 
 'cause, if you do, you'll only be told to go on 
 to Eockness. And if you'll take my advice, 
 you'll get the little 'un snug under ground 
 the day after to-morrow. 'Taint weather 
 to keep 'em above ground long — and I'll 
 knock up its coffin at once. The day after 
 to-morrow's Thursday. Then comes Friday ; 
 well, I can't attend to business on that 
 day — cos why? it's the nomination day, 
 and I'm busy enough on that day; but 
 I'm at your service Thursday. Grey 
 cloth, and studded with plated nails, and 
 a few ornaments — age and name, in 
 course." 
 
 He took up a bit of red chalk to jot down 
 — so carelessly on a board close by — those 
 words and figures, that Natt Lynn could 
 scarcely pronounce, the spasm at his throat, 
 and the pang at his heart, choking his 
 utterance. 
 
 Natt Lynn soon got over the ground
 
 ACQUITTED. 113 
 
 between Pencombe and Rockness, though it 
 was a six miles walk. 
 
 The Vicar was a kind little Divine of the 
 old school — dignified, benevolent, and hos- 
 pitable. 
 
 As he was just sitting down to his lun- 
 .cheon, he pressed Natt to take some re- 
 freshment. Natt, who was very faint and 
 weary, gladly accepted the kind offer, and 
 felt all the better for the slices of cold sirloin, 
 the salad and pickled walnuts, the mug of 
 home-brewed ale, and the glass of old port 
 so kindly pressed upon him. After lun- 
 cheon, Natt went with the Vicar to the 
 churchyard close by, and fixed on the spot 
 where Baby Poll was to lie under the yew 
 tree close to old Lynn, her great-uncle — 
 she one year, two months, and nine days 
 old : he eighty-seven on the day of his death. 
 He had died on his birthday. 
 
 The Vicar having fixed the day and 
 hour of the funeral, Natt took his leave, and 
 hurried away, walking very fast in his great 
 
 vol. I. 8
 
 114 ACQUITTED. 
 
 anxiety to return to his poor wife, who, 
 however, was not quite desolate, since 
 Heaven had sent the " child of the wreck " 
 to occupy her thoughts and her time.
 
 ACQUITTED. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " Lay her in the grave, and from her pure 
 And unpolluted flesh may violets spring." 
 
 Shalespeare. 
 
 HE little grey coffin with the 
 silvered plates and nails arrived 
 at the cottage the next day. 
 Natt Lynn laid Baby Poll in that last 
 narrow bed, while his wife slept. 
 In fact before she was up. 
 When she rose, and saw it there, her tears 
 fell like rain, but the constant attention the 
 little foundling required, prevented her 
 giving herself up to useless, enervating 
 regret. 
 
 She was spared what keeps alive so long 
 the prostrating sorrow of many a bereaved 
 mother, — namely, the having nothing to do, 
 
 S— 2
 
 116 ACQUITTED. 
 
 where she had been till then so fully occu- 
 pied. 
 
 She was spared the sight of a vacant 
 cradle, and of tiny baby clothes no longer 
 of any use. 
 
 Her hands, as she said, were full; and 
 that is the best thing to prevent the heart's 
 being so. 
 
 Still it was a dreadful day to both Natt 
 and Polly Lynn, the day of the funeral. 
 
 In most instances the coffin -lid shuts the 
 little one out of the father's heart, and into 
 the mother's for aye. 
 
 The grey lid of Baby Poll's coffin shut 
 her into the hearts of both her parents. 
 
 Polly never nursed or dressed the little 
 healthy lovely foundling without thinking 
 of Baby Poll and her wasted form. 
 
 And Natt Lynn, whether fishing far out 
 at sea, or mending his nets on the sands, or 
 sitting by the fire nursing the foundling 
 while Polly prepared the meals, thought 
 with yearning love and gentle sorrow of
 
 ACQUITTED. 11; 
 
 Baby Poll in her little grave by old 
 Mark Lynn's headstone, under the yew tree, 
 in Rockness churchyard. 
 
 Secretly, as a surprise to his dear wife, 
 Natt Lynn cut from the rock and polished a 
 slab on which he chiselled a cross, and en- 
 graved these words, the text having been 
 suggested by the Yicar : 
 
 MARY LYNN, 
 
 The Beloved Child of Nathaniel Lynn and Mary his Wife, 
 
 Aged One Yeae, Two Months, and 
 Nine Days. 
 
 Born May 3rd, 18— ; Died October 12th, 18—. 
 
 ** And Jesus called a little child."— Matt, xviii. 2. 
 
 When this stone was placed on the little 
 grave, the kind and hospitable Vicar took a 
 great interest in the operation, and as for 
 the funeral, refused the fee he might have 
 claimed, and which Natt Lynn humbly 
 proffered. 
 
 Natt took Polly and the foundling babe 
 in his own boat to Rockness.
 
 118 ACQUITTED. 
 
 It was a beautiful evening in September, 
 and tlie slanting rays of the red sun glinted 
 down on Baby Poll's gravestone, and 
 lighted up the cross and the chiselled 
 inscription and text. 
 
 That text was a great comfort to the 
 mother, who knelt down and kissed her 
 little one's name, her tears falling fast as 
 she did so. 
 
 The Vicar insisted on Natt's bringing his 
 wife and the babe (whom he supposed to 
 be twin- sister of Baby Poll) to tea at the 
 Vicarage. 
 
 He noticed the beautiful child, with its 
 large black eyes, its rosebud mouth, its 
 rounded cheeks, and limbs fair and pure as 
 white porcelain, and he played with it, and 
 praised its beauty; but he asked no ques- 
 tions, for fear of renewing its mother's grief. 
 
 Often, very often, Natt Lynn, when out 
 fishing alone, would put in at Rockness to 
 visit that little grave and weed the ground 
 around it.
 
 ACQUITTED. Ill' 
 
 He had planted snowdrops and violets 
 there, and a rose-tree and cypress. 
 
 Often too lie took his Polly in his 
 boat to see that little grave. 
 
 Monarchs and warriors, and great men of 
 all kinds, are often forgotten in their splen- 
 did mausoleums and their marble tombs. 
 But Baby Poll was never forgotten, as the 
 state of her little resting-place would 
 prove.
 
 120 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 ] 
 
 OLLY LYNN became devotedly at- 
 tached to the little girl whom 
 Providence seemed to have sent 
 her to supply the place of Baby Poll. 
 
 None of their neighbours, " few and far 
 between," and most of them living a good 
 way off, with whom Natt and his young 
 wife became in time acquainted, ever 
 had the slightest suspicion of the fact that 
 the beautiful baby, with its large black 
 eyes, snow-white skin, and delicate little 
 hands and feet, was not really their own 
 child. 
 
 Natt Lynn, to whom every kind of con-
 
 ACQUITTED. 121 
 
 cealraent and deception was disagreeable, 
 much wished at one time to confide the secret 
 of little Mary's birth to Mr. Melville, the 
 kind Yicar of Rockness, who took a great 
 interest in the lovely child ; or to Mr. 
 Trelawnv, with whom Natt had become 
 acquainted. 
 
 But Polly had such a strong and dreadful 
 fear that, were the truth known, some steps 
 might be taken which would rob her of her 
 darling, and she wept so bitterly, and im- 
 plored Natt so earnestly, not to make her 
 motherless a second time, that he had not 
 the courage to do, what, she said, would 
 break her heart; and so he kept the secret. 
 
 More than once, however, he had said, 
 when looking at the child as it lay in Polly's 
 arms, " Ah, lass, who can tell but what 
 we are wronging that dear babe? No one 
 can look at it and not see it were meant to 
 be a great lady. Them hands ain't shaped 
 for hard work, lass. Who knows but what 
 if we'd told Mr. Trelawny or Mr. Melville
 
 122 ACQUITTED. 
 
 how we corned by it, they might have ad- 
 wertised or done somehut to find out its 
 parientage. At the best, lass, it must have 
 a hard life of it with us." 
 
 " It'ull be used to it from the cradle, 
 Natt," said Polly, hugging the child up to 
 her bosom as she spoke ; " and fine ladies 
 ain't half as happy as hardworking gals. 
 So let things be as they be, Natt. If 
 Providence hadn't meant us to have this 
 little one, it wouldn't have been sent into 
 one's very buzzurn." 
 
 Natt had good reasons besides the high- 
 born air and delicate beauty of the child to 
 believe that it was at least of gentle 
 blood and birth. 
 
 When first Polly washed and dressed it, 
 she found, to her surprise, tatooed just 
 below the left breast the letters M, A., sur- 
 mounted by an earl's coronet, and beneath 
 was a date, April 2, 18 . 
 
 She had shown this to Natt, who said 
 that in foreign parts the natives, he heard,
 
 ACQUITTED. 123 
 
 were very fond of tatooing their skins, but 
 why an English baby should be marked 
 thus he could not conceive. " It seems," 
 he said, " almost as if those about her in 
 those outlandish countries had a notion 
 that she'd be lost, and put a mark upon her 
 to prove her hidentification some day. 
 I've a sort of a feeling, lass, that the time 
 will come when we shall know who she 
 really is. By that time, maybe," he 
 added, u thee'll have children enough of 
 thy own, and then it wont break thy heart 
 if baby here should turn out a grand lady, 
 and be taken away from us, to live in some 
 great house, and be called ' my lady.' " 
 
 " I don't like to think of it just now, 
 Natt," said Polly, " but time works 
 wonders. At any rate, all she had on, 
 marked M. A., and that gold locket with the 
 same letters on it, and the chain which 
 were round her neck when you found her, 
 are put by in the upper drawer. See, she 
 opens her beautiful black eyes, and smiles
 
 124 ACQUITTED. 
 
 in my face. Oh, Natt, I never can love 
 any baby better than I love this !" 
 
 " We shall see, we shall see, lass," said 
 Natt, taking little Mary and dancing her 
 in his arms, the child crowing with delight 
 the while. " Blood's thicker than water, 
 lass, and one's own flesh and blood comes 
 nearer than any other." 
 
 Yet he doated on little Mary all the 
 same. 
 
 Certainly there was much force in Polly's 
 argument, that Heaven seemed to have sent 
 the lovely little foundling to supply to her 
 full bosom and yearning heart the darling 
 she had lost. 
 
 Natt, who doated on his good loving wife, 
 could not bear to grieve her, and yielded to 
 her prayers his own instinctive sense of the 
 dut}^ of telling all to either Mr. Melville 
 or Mr. Trelawny. 
 
 He saw the little one grow in health 
 and beauty. 
 
 He saw her smile with glee, and heard
 
 ACQUITTED. 125 
 
 her crow with delight when he, on his return 
 home, played bo-peep with her, and he 
 could not see beyond his own happy little 
 home, else might he have beheld a dark 
 cloud gathering over that little one's loved 
 fate, a cloud which a word spoken in due 
 time by him might have dispersed. 
 
 We look on the Past as on a map, on 
 which are clearly traced the right and the 
 wrong paths — the rocks, the quicksands, 
 the pitfalls, the perils ; but on the Future 
 we look as on a scene shrouded in a mist, 
 and where one false step may lead Heaven 
 only knows whither. 
 
 Natt Lynn took one false step when he 
 consented to conceal the history of the little 
 foundling of the rocks, and to pass off that 
 beautiful little girl as the child of himself 
 and Polly Lynn. 
 
 " Oh ! what a tangled web we weave, 
 When once we venture to deceive." 
 
 And how often those we love best on earth
 
 126 ACQUITTED. 
 
 are the victims of our weak compliance with 
 their entreaties, and our own shortsighted 
 dread of distressing them. 
 
 Natt had many misgivings about the 
 part he had so reluctantly played with 
 regard to little Mary. Could he have looked 
 through the veil that hides the future, he 
 would have been a miserable man.
 
 ACQUITTED. 127 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, 
 
 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please : 
 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 
 A ministering angel thou." 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 VERY great inward change had 
 been wrought in Barbara (Dan 
 Devrill's wife) by the words the 
 Vicar of Pencombe had spoken to her. 
 
 That inward change, that change in her 
 very heart, had produced a corresponding 
 one in her temper, her conduct, her life, her 
 conversation, and her manners. 
 
 No abuse, no revilings, no threats, no 
 curses, or taunts of her husband's, now 
 elicited any retort or reproach. 
 
 Nothing now came from her softened 
 heart and her meek lips but the civil
 
 128 ACQUITTED. 
 
 answer that turneth away wrath — the sooth- 
 ing words of comfort and hope that tallied 
 so well with the gentle helping hands, the 
 watchful care and kind nursing, which 
 astonished the savage Dan, made ten times 
 more ill-tempered by his wound, the con- 
 finement it necessitated, and the utter im- 
 possibility of getting any spirits or even 
 beer wherewith for a time to drown thought 
 and pain in alcohol, and hush the still small 
 voice of awakening conscience in an ebrious 
 sleep. 
 
 Vain were Dan's oaths, threats, and 
 weak, ill-directed blows. Barbara was 
 firm. 
 
 She spared no pains to get his wound 
 well ; and when she had made it known at 
 " the shop" that Mr. Trelawny, the Vicar, 
 had promised to befriend her, she obtained 
 a few articles on credit, and as she had for- 
 merly been very skilful in sick cookery, she 
 fed him with nice dishes which, while he 
 growled at her and cursed them, he de-
 
 ACQUITTED. 129 
 
 voured with an eagerness which convinced 
 her he really relished them. 
 
 Owing to this enforced abstinence from 
 heated and exciting liquors, and to Barbaras 
 careful nursing, Dan Devrill got rapidly 
 well. 
 
 The wound was healed ; but a hideous 
 scar and a broken nose destroyed what 
 had once been the evil, though somewhat 
 picturesque, beauty of his brigand-like face. 
 Dan Devrill did not feel one particle of 
 gratitude or tenderness towards the wife 
 who had nursed him with such patience 
 and forbearance. 
 
 He had begun to associate his wife in his 
 own darkened vindictive mind with the 
 Vicar, whom he looked upon as his greatest 
 enemy, both because he had robbed him of 
 his prize, dashed him like a rabid dog against 
 the rocks, thus destroying the face of which 
 the wretch was proud, and because he had 
 insisted on his (Dan's) quitting the neigh- 
 bourhood; and the wretch felt that if he 
 
 vol. i. 9
 
 130 ACQUITTED. 
 
 did not promptly obey the order of one 
 whom he felt was master of his destiny, 
 he would probably end his evil career at 
 the hulks, or in penal servitude in prison. 
 
 Convinced of this, Dan Devrill resolved 
 to move off with his two elder sons and the 
 fishing-boat — his only ostensible means of 
 earning a livelihood. 
 
 He was such a hardened wretch that he 
 did not care at all what became of his wife 
 and the little ones. 
 
 He knew what a horror poor Barbara 
 had of the union ; but he gruffly said, as 
 he entered the boat with his sons, "Thee'll be 
 lodged rent free to-night with the cubs. I 
 wish thee joy of thy dry bread and thy 
 water cruel. One ^ood will come of it : all 
 them rats tails of thine and the brats will 
 be clipped close in no time, and gratis, too. 
 I'd like to see the queer figgur thee'll look ; 
 a little uglier, but a sight tidier, too." 
 
 Poor Bab's heart and eyes had been full 
 of tears at parting even with this brute, for
 
 ACQUITTED. 131 
 
 he was her husband, and she had loved him 
 dearly once, but at this brutal taunt she 
 turned away. 
 
 Her thoughts wandered back to the past, 
 and to what her hair had been, and to what 
 she herself was, when she had yielded to 
 Dan Devrill's passionate prayers, and to the 
 promptings of her own weak woman-heart, 
 and, in spite of her kind mistress's earnest 
 counsels, had left her good place and married 
 the handsome young fellow of whom she 
 knew so little, and that little not much to 
 his credit! 
 
 The boat was gone, and so were the bad 
 drunken husband and the sons who were 
 his counterparts. This was about a week 
 after Mr. Trelawny's visit. 
 
 She sat down on a flat piece of rock on 
 the beach and sobbed, as she thought of her 
 desolate, deserted state. 
 
 The miserable present, the dark future, 
 the happy long ago, and the grim gates 
 of that cold refuge of the destitute, that 
 
 9—2
 
 J 32 ACQUITTED. 
 
 union " where Want herds with Crime, and 
 Sorrow with Despair." 
 
 The children were crying for their break- 
 fast, and their mother sat rocking herself 
 in her restless anguish, and the words, 
 " Oh, Father in Heaven, have mercy upon 
 me," burst from her very heart. When 
 lo ! a gentle hand was laid upon her 
 shoulder, and a kind voice said, " Barbara, 
 thy prayer is heard. He will have mercy 
 upon thee." 
 
 Barbara rose. 
 
 There stood the fine majestic form of her 
 master, the Vicar of Pencombe, and with 
 him the deaf gardener, Robin, carrying two 
 large baskets and a bundle ! 
 
 u I should have been to see you before 
 this, Barbara," he said, "but I have had 
 much illness and trouble at home to 
 occupy my mind and my time. Now 
 wash and dress yourself and the children. 
 in that bundle and those baskets are 
 clothes and food. When you are all clean
 
 ACQUITTED. 133 
 
 and tidy, and have breakfasted, you shall 
 come with me. I want to take the children 
 to what I call my school. And if you like 
 to earn an honest livelihood, by coming 
 daily to the Vicarage to help Dorcas, who 
 is now getting old and feeble, you shall 
 have eighteenpence a day and live rent-free 
 in that little furnished cottage, in which, 
 you may remember, my daughter's Daily 
 Governess used to live, when old Dame 
 Blake rented it. It is vacant now, and you 
 may perhaps ^et a lodger, and, if so, you 
 will be well provided for. You will have 
 the children with you night and morning ; 
 but for them I would take you once more 
 into my service as housemaid. I presume 
 your husband and your eldest sons are 
 gone ?" 
 
 11 Yes, sir ; they are gone, and I hope in 
 a new place they'll lead a new life. Oh, 
 sir, how can I ever repay you ?" 
 
 " By doing your duty, Barbara, to your 
 God, to your little ones, and to me. And
 
 134 ACQUITTED. 
 
 now be quick, for my time is precious. 
 You can bring away anything you wish to 
 have with you ; Hobin can help you to 
 carry any bedding or furniture." 
 
 " Alas, sir, I have none ! The cottage is 
 now quite bare. Dan sold what little there 
 was the day before yesterday for liquor. 
 Pel kept him without while he was in bed, 
 but directly he was able to get up he and 
 the lads sold what poor bedding we had, 
 and last night we all slept on the floor!"
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " And she so wildly wand'ring there, 
 The mother in her long despair." 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 OOR wretches !" thought the Vicar. 
 " In my own intense anxiety I 
 had forgotten their distress." 
 The fact was, Minna had been through 
 the past week very dangerously ill. 
 
 On waking after a very long and deep 
 sleep, caused by the sedative, her grief and 
 despair at the loss of her child were so great 
 that brain fever ensued. 
 
 In her ravings she accused her husband 
 of having induced the storm-fiend to send 
 the winds and waves to destroy her child. 
 u If the little corpse is cast on shore," she
 
 136 ACQUITTED. 
 
 would say (sitting up in bed and looking 
 wildly round), kC you will know it by the 
 letters M. A., and a coronet, and the date 
 of its birth tatooed under its left breast. 
 Lolah, its silly ayah, without my knowledge 
 consulted an Indian seer about its destiny. 
 He cast the babe's horoscope, and said that 
 when a year old it would be lost, and ad- 
 vised that, in order to identify it in after- 
 life, it should be tatooed thus. Lolah orot 
 him to do it then and there. She did not 
 dare ask me ; she knew I should not 
 consent, so she never told me until it was 
 done. Poor Lolah ! I saw her sink ; I 
 saw her dark face under the waters. Oh, 
 save the child! You will know her by 
 those letters and that coronet. Bring her 
 to me, I will warm her back to life." 
 
 Mr. Trelawny, afraid to employ the 
 nearest doctor, who lived at Rockness, went 
 to Bodmin, and brought over the best 
 physician there, in a fly. Bodmin was so 
 far off that Mr. Trelawny did not fear (as
 
 ACQUITTED. 137 
 
 he did in the case of the medical man from 
 Rockness) that the abode of a strange lady 
 at the Vicarage would be reported and 
 commented on. 
 
 Of old Dorcas's discretion and fidelity he 
 was quite certain, and as yet the secret of 
 Minna's return was known only to her. He 
 had resolved that even Robin should be 
 kept in the dark. 
 
 " Barbara of course must know it," he 
 said to himself, when once she was installed 
 there ; but both Dorcas and her master felt 
 certain she would keep their secret. 
 
 Dr. Deering, the Bodmin physician, 
 treated the unhapppy Minna judiciously, 
 and in a few days she was 'out of danger, 
 but for a long time she required constant 
 watching and nursing. 
 
 Poor Dorcas, though her will was strong, 
 was too old and feeble for so much extra 
 fatigue. 
 
 Barbara, then, bound by every tie of 
 gratitude to the Vicar, and having nursed
 
 138 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Minna in her infancy, was a safe and valu- 
 able addition to the little household. 
 
 It was ultimately decided that, in case 
 anyone should, by accident, discover, or even 
 suspect, that a stranger was staying at the 
 Vicarage, the fact of her being Mr. Tre- 
 lawny's daughter should be carefully con- 
 cealed. 
 
 Minna was to pass for a niece of Dorcas's, 
 who, coming to help her aunt in her declin- 
 ing years and strength, had been taken ill 
 with brain fever, and was still confined to 
 the house. 
 
 The Vicar, however — who, like Natt 
 Lynn, hated all disguises and deceptions — 
 
 onlv consented to this as a last re- 
 
 j 
 
 source. 
 
 He implored the two women, Dorcas and 
 Barbara, to be so careful and discreet that 
 no misrepresentation or equivocation need 
 be resorted to. 
 
 Pencombe was so remote and lonely a 
 place, and so thinly inhabited, that it was
 
 ACQUITTED. 109 
 
 not very likely Minna's presence at the 
 Vicarage would be discovered. 
 
 She had been so constantly away for two 
 years before her elopement, that no one 
 wondered at her continued absence. 
 
 Still, as Jasper Ardennes was known to 
 be in England, and had been at Pencombe 
 during the election, Mr. Trelawny felt the 
 full importance to his hapless child of con- 
 cealing her abode. 
 
 Many things poor Minna had revealed in 
 her delirium convincing him that Jasper 
 Ardennes was not a man to stop at any 
 crime where his own passions and interests 
 were concerned. 
 
 Barbara's cottage was as snug, as com- 
 fortable, and as neatly furnished, as the hovel 
 in the rocks had been bare and wretched. 
 
 Her children were now well clothed, well 
 fed, and well taught. 
 
 She herself was a new creature. A neat 
 cap covered what remained of her once fine 
 hair, and beneath the nicely-fluted borders
 
 140 ACQUITTED. 
 
 two glossy bands of chestnut hair were 
 braided over a calm, happy brow, no longer 
 wrinkled with care and intersected with 
 lines of sorrow's tracing. 
 
 Something of her former roundness and 
 bloom had returned to her face. She was 
 no longer what her savage husband had 
 been wont to call her — " A Death's-head on 
 a lipstick.'' 
 
 She was a nice, clean, pleasant-looking, 
 woman, pious, grateful, and devoted ; and 
 she often told Dorcas that if she could but 
 know that Dan and the lads were getting 
 on better, she should feel as if she was in 
 Heaven. 
 
 Her woman-heart still clung to that 
 worthless husband and those thankless 
 
 sons! 
 
 Not that she did not shudder at the 
 thought of ever seeing Dan again, but 
 she longed to know that he and the boys 
 were not in want, and were leading a better 
 life!
 
 ACQUITTED. Ul 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 She, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and 
 
 abundance : 
 Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 DIE passed on, and brought with 
 it its customary chances and 
 changes. 
 The good had grown better, and the bad, 
 in most instances, worse. 
 
 Boys and girls had become young men 
 and women. 
 
 The middle-aged had become elderly ; the 
 elderly had grown old. 
 
 The old had, in many instances, been 
 borne to their last homes.
 
 142 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Polly Lynn was now the happy mother 
 of four chubby, ruddy, healthy little ones ; 
 and Mary, tall and thoughtful beyond her 
 years, was a great help and a little mother 
 to them. 
 
 Rosy, the eldest of Polly's own children, 
 was two years younger than Mary. 
 
 She was a perfect cherub, with bright 
 blue eyes, golden hair, rosy cheeks, and 
 lovely dimples, and a strong contrast to 
 Mary, whose full brow (shaded with a pro- 
 fusion of glossy black hair), large dark eyes 
 and long jetty lashes, made her pallor, 
 and the thinness of her face, the more 
 remarkable. 
 
 Rosy was very fat. 
 
 Mary was very tall for her age, and very 
 slender. 
 
 The children, under the care of Mary, 
 were a good deal on the beach. 
 
 They were always so clean and tidy, and 
 were such rosy, lovely children, that they 
 were a good deal noticed by Mr. Trelawny,
 
 ACQUITTED. U3 
 
 and Mr. Penryn and his son Paul, who often 
 went out fishing with Natt Lynn in the 
 boat of the latter. 
 
 Mr, Penryn was a widower now. 
 
 His wife had died in giving birth to a 
 still-born infant, and his aunt, Miss Pris- 
 cilla, had died soon after, at the age of eighty. 
 
 These were in every way heavy losses for 
 him. 
 
 They would have been such to any 
 man; but Mr. Penryn, so amiable, and, 
 alas! so weak, lost in his wife and his 
 aunt two high-principled, strong-minded 
 women, always at hand to keep evil in- 
 fluences at bay, and as he could not say 
 " Xo," to say it for him, and always in the 
 right place. 
 
 His son Paul, now tall and manly, and 
 educated by his father — for Mr. Penryn 
 was a fine scholar — was a youth of noble 
 promise. 
 
 He had inherited the great power of 
 acquiring knowledge of his father, and
 
 144 ACQUITTED. 
 
 the brave spirit and firm nature of his 
 mother ! 
 
 Paul often talked with Natt's little family 
 on the beach. 
 
 He was very fond of calling at the fisher- 
 man's cottage. 
 
 He had been very much struck with the 
 brilliant beauty of Rosy, then a wild romp 
 of ten years old: but when he came to 
 know the little family better, and had 
 studied them more (for Paul had a great 
 turn for reflection and comparison), he 
 became more interested in the much more 
 singular and elevated character of Mary 
 Lynn, whom he looked upon as the eldest 
 of Natt's and Polly's children. 
 
 Mar)' had learnt to read with very 
 little trouble. No one knew exactly 
 how. 
 
 She was, in fact, almost self-taught; 
 except that the Vicar of Rockness had 
 given her in her infancy a box of ivory 
 letters and Mavors spelling-book, and
 
 ACQUITTED. 145 
 
 had given her a lesson whenever he 
 met her on the beach with her book in 
 her hand. 
 
 Polly would have sent little Mary to 
 school but that she really could not spare 
 her. 
 
 Mary had such a good head, such a sweet 
 temper, and such helping hands ! 
 
 Mary Lynn had not the robust health 
 and strength of the other children. 
 
 Rory, three years younger, could carry 
 weights easily which soon wearied Mary, 
 but then Polly had taught Mary to sew, 
 and Mary was very fond of her needle, and 
 very quick and clever at it ! 
 
 How cleverly those little white taper 
 iingers darned Daddy Natt's great grey 
 worsted stockings, and patched his fustian 
 jacket and corduroys, and made and mended 
 the children's frocks and pinafores, it was a 
 sight to see; and so smiling and patient 
 was the sweet girl, working steadily on 
 while the others played on the beach; her 
 
 VOL. T. 10
 
 146 ACQUITTED. 
 
 great delight if, her work over, Polly 
 would let her read "The Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress " — a large, quaint old copy with the 
 original cuts — and a very old copy of " Paul 
 and Virginia," and the " Vicar of Wake- 
 held ;" bound up together. 
 
 Paul Penryn (at this time a tall, manly 
 boy) patronized the book-loving Mary, and 
 taught her to write and cypher. 
 
 Mary thought that the Paul in the book 
 she loved, must have been very like Master 
 Penryn. 
 
 As she was very fond of collecting and 
 drying seaweed, Paul taught her how to 
 form it in the shape of a beautiful bouquet 
 gummed on white paper or cardboard. 
 
 He would go with Rosy and the other 
 children in search of the seaweed and shells 
 for Mary, and his father and Mr. Trelawny 
 were so struck with the taste and skill these 
 works displayed that they gave Mary a 
 shilling apiece for them, and ordered 
 another each, to make a pair.
 
 ACQUITTED. 147 
 
 On what trifling things does a human 
 destiny seem sometimes to turn ! 
 
 Mary Lynn's was in a manner decided by 
 her seaweed fancy works, — at least to mortal 
 eyes it seemed so — but Providence of course 
 overrules all. 
 
 The Countess of Altamount, whom we saw 
 at the election, had been dead some years. 
 
 The Earl had married again, and had 
 two little girls. 
 
 One dav he came down on the beach 
 with these children and their governess. 
 
 He wanted, as it was very tine and 
 calm, to take them a sail in Natt Lynn's 
 boat. 
 
 Mary Lynn was busy at her seaweed 
 pictures. 
 
 Paul was advising and directing her. 
 
 Beautiful Rosy and the other children 
 were hindering under the pretence of 
 helping ! 
 
 The Earl admired the seaweed bou- 
 quet. 
 
 10—2
 
 148 ACQUITTED. 
 
 He admired the young artist still more. 
 
 She was so uncommon looking a girl for 
 a fisherman's daughter ! 
 
 She reminded him of some young Ma- 
 donna he had seen in a Spanish church 
 abroad. 
 
 The governess, Miss Osgood, greatly ad- 
 mired the seaweed pictures ■ — so did the 
 little Ladies Beatrice and Florence. 
 
 The result was that Mary was to go up 
 to the castle to spend a day — and to teach 
 the Earl's daughters how to prepare and 
 dry the seaweed, and how to dispose and 
 group it as Paul Penryn had taught her to 
 do. 
 
 It was on that very evening that Bar- 
 bara Devrill, having given her now big 
 boys their supper, and seen them to bed, 
 was counting over a sum of money which 
 she had hoarded up for the purpose of ap- 
 prenticing her eldest boy at home. 
 
 She had just replaced the stocking, in 
 which it was tied up, in a hole in the wall,
 
 ACQUITTED. U9 
 
 behind a coloured print of " The Prodigal 
 Son," when she thought she heard a tap at 
 the window, and, turning round with a 
 beating heart, she saw glaring in upon her 
 the fierce eyes of her husband, Dan Devrill, 
 whom she had not seen or heard of for so 
 many years !
 
 150 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Not much he loved long question of the past." 
 
 Lara. 
 
 T was with mixed feelings that Bar- 
 bara recognised the broken nose, 
 cruel eyes, and weather-beaten, 
 unshaven face which had once been good- 
 looking enough to win her weak woman- 
 heart, and to obtain for its owner the 
 name of Handsome Dan ! 
 
 She was glad he was yet alive — but she 
 would rather have learnt that fact from any- 
 one than himself! 
 
 The expression in his face was one which 
 she well knew, and of which she was much 
 afraid. 
 
 It was an expression always there, when 
 money was his object, and when he was
 
 ACQUITTED. 151 
 
 resolved to obtain it, no matter by what 
 means ! 
 
 She had uttered a faint scream, and had 
 turned deadly pale. 
 
 " Come and open the door, can't thee, ye 
 jade !" he said ; " or wouldst rather I 
 smashed in the window. Its no odds to I, 
 if it bean't none to thee !" 
 
 Trembling and tearful, Barbara opened 
 the door ! 
 
 u Well, thee be a kind, warm-hearted 
 wife!" he said; "thee do make a chap 
 feel welcome home again after so many 
 years in furrin parts. Thee do, and no 
 mistake !" 
 
 " I'm glad to see thou'rt alive and well, 
 Dan," said the poor wife. 
 
 " Be'st thee? I'd never ha' guessed it, to 
 see thy white figgurhead, — but no matter, 
 welcome or not, I'm thy lord and master; 
 what's thy home is my home, and what's 
 thy property is my property. Give me 
 somehut to drink !"
 
 152 ACQUITTED. 
 
 u I have nothing but milk or water ; but 
 I'll soon make thee a good cup of tea or 
 coffee." 
 
 " Thank thee for nothin'. I'm no milk- 
 sop or water rat, or teetotaller, and my 
 time's short. There's may be them on the 
 look-out for I, as might think to find me 
 here; so quick, give me the money I saw 
 thee countin' out just now! And be quick 
 about it, d'ye hear. Why thou'st had the 
 best of it since we parted, there's flesh on 
 thy bones and colour in thy cheeks. If the 
 storm that threatens I blows over, I'll maybe 
 come and settle down here with thee a'ter 
 all. Come, give us the blunt, I must be 
 off!" 
 
 " Oh, Dan, it's what I've saved to prentice 
 Tom." 
 
 "Ah, that reminds me that Tom must 
 be a soizeable chap by this time, and 
 might be useful in the boat. Where is 
 he?" 
 
 " Oh, don't take Tom from me,"' cried
 
 ACQUITTED. 153 
 
 the poor mother, "don't! How's Dan and 
 Bob, and what's they doing?" 
 
 " Whatever suits 'em ; they're fine fellers, 
 both on um, the moral of I, and treading 
 in my steps, and they can't do better. But 
 hark ye, if I let ye off taking Tom this 
 time, hand me the blunt, this instant 
 moment, and any more thou'st got. I can't 
 stay now, I'm uncommon afeard I might 
 be tracked here, but fm prepared." 
 
 He drew a knife from his belt, and 
 sharpened it on the hearthstone. 
 
 " Now, quick, tell me how thee contrives 
 to earn money to prentice lads, and live on 
 the fat o' the land ?" 
 
 " I'm in the Vicar's service," said 
 Barbara, " and so is Tom." 
 
 " The Vicar!" cried Dan, with a hideous 
 oath, " that reminds me that I owes him 
 one ! and I'll pay it some day with interest 
 too ! He spoilt my beauty for me, and I'll 
 return the compliment. I wants to know 
 what he done with the young 'ooman and
 
 154 ACQUITTED. 
 
 her jewels, — she as wor wrecked on Dead 
 Man's Pint when the Golde?i Bengal went 
 down. Why it wor only because I, think- 
 ing she wor stark dead, wor a going to 
 help myself to her ear-rings and necklace, 
 that he, the great strong brute, took I by 
 the throat, and dashed I against the rocks 
 as if I'd been a dog ; and here's his mark ! 
 Well, now it's come into my head that she 
 wor no other nor Miss Trelawny, as I 
 helped to run off with the Hon. Mr. 
 Jasper Ardennes. It would be worth a 
 good round sum to I to find out what's 
 become of she, if so be she wor the Vicar's 
 daughter. Cos vy? I've met him, but in 
 fo'rrin parts, and he's married again !" 
 
 "Married again!" said Barbara, aghast. 
 
 " Yes, to be sure, small shame to him, 
 if any ! Why she ran away from him and 
 carried off the babby and embarked under 
 a alias, and the marriage wor a secret one. 
 No one knowd it but you and I, and their 
 two selves. And she wx>r bound over to
 
 ACQUITTED. loo 
 
 keep it dark while the Earl lives. Master 
 Jasper in course found out that she went 
 off in the Golden Bengal, and didn't shed no 
 tears when he heard o' the wreck o' that 
 'ere noble steamer, but when I met him 
 spliced again, I told him I warn't sure his 
 first wife had gone to the bottom. Lor, he 
 turned as white as a curd, but wouldn't 
 believe it, and flew in a rage, for he've got 
 three brats by his present partner, one o' 
 them a very fine boy, and as Lord Der- 
 went's turned off sickly, and aint like to 
 live, why that child o' Mr. Jasper's, if he 
 wor but Jasper's lawful son, would one day 
 be a Earl, but if Jasper, you see, have 
 married the boy's mother while his first 
 wife's alive, that makes her, for all her 
 pride, — and she be a stuck-up and no mis- 
 take, — only his missus, and the children 
 nothing to count upon, not being even 
 legitimate. Now, if I'm right in my con- 
 jecturations, and if I've hit the right nail 
 on the head, I've got a good game in my
 
 156 ACQUITTED. 
 
 hand when I've time to play it out. Why, 
 if his first wife icor saved from the wreck, 
 and do live, I don't think he'd stand at five 
 thousand pound, if I named that sum, to 
 keep the secret, and get her quietly out of 
 the way. And then you, Bab, should have 
 a better home than this, and silk gounds 
 and a one-'oss shay, all bought with " 
 
 " With blood-money," gasped Barbara, 
 " I'd rather starve, Dan ! and so I tell you. 
 And, mind me ! you shall never harm the 
 Yicar, nor any one that's kith or kin to him, 
 while I've a tongue in my head and breath 
 in my body! I've kept your dreadful 
 secrets close till now; but if you'd be 
 villain enough to make away with Miss 
 Minna that was, and that for blood-money 
 given to you by her husband, I'd peach, 
 ay, if you come to swing for it !" 
 
 " I don't question thee wouldst," said 
 Dan, with an evil glitter in his eye; " but 
 there's nothing for thee to peach about, and 
 never wont be. Why ? thee must be a soft-
 
 ACQUITTED. ]57 
 
 head not to see I was only chaffing. Is 
 this all thee'st got by thee ?" 
 
 " Ah !" sobbed Barbara, " why you left 
 me without a halfpenny. It's a wonder 
 I've got that much." 
 
 " Why if thee's turned teetotaller and 
 Method} 7 , and all manner, in course they've 
 made it worth thy while. Well, next time 
 I comes this way I shall take Tom and 
 Sam with me; we wants hands.'' 
 
 At this moment a whistle was heard. 
 
 : ' That's Dan's whistle; it warns me that 
 I must be off. If thee don't see me again 
 soon, ye may reckon that I'm gone to 
 Davy's locker. So, good-bye! Thee've 
 picked up wonderful ! I shouldn't be 
 ashamed to own thee now; thou'rt worth 
 twenty of the half-starved Death's-head on 
 a mopstick thee was when I left thee !" 
 
 A second whistle had sounded shrilly. 
 
 Dan rushed off; and Barbara, looking 
 after his retreating form in the moonlight, 
 prayed that he might be kept from fresh
 
 158 ACQUITTED. 
 
 crime and peril, and that it might be very 
 long ere she beheld him again ! 
 
 Fortunately, the greater part of her 
 savings she had, by the Vicar's advice, put 
 into the Penzance Savings Bank. 
 
 She resolved as soon as possible to get 
 both Tom and Sam apprenticed, or placed 
 out at some distance, so that if their dread- 
 ful father did come back with the intention 
 of taking them away to make wreckers or 
 robbers of them, he should not be able to 
 discover their abode. 
 
 She began to wish herself away from a 
 place where she could never again feel safe 
 from this bad man ; and as the Vicar had 
 proposed to her to live at the Vicarage 
 again as soon as the boys were placed out, 
 she determined in her own mind to do so.
 
 ACQUITTED. 159 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 1 Grief fills the room up of my absent child." 
 
 King John. 
 
 INN A had risen from the bed to 
 which brain fever and a long sub- 
 sequent illness had confined her, 
 but she had never recovered her health or 
 spirits. 
 
 The loss of her child was ever present to 
 her mind; and the once lovely, blooming, 
 high-spirited girl had become a pale, 
 pensive, melancholy woman. 
 
 Fortunately for her, the seeds of early 
 piety which her father had sown in her 
 heart grew up and flourished, when watered 
 night and day by tears. 
 
 It is ever thus — watered by such showers 
 those seeds always bring forth a rich crop 
 of holy thoughts and good works.
 
 160 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Minna, always dressed in deep mourning 
 and wearing a double black crape veil, 
 through which no one could distinguish her 
 features, went to church daily, unseen by 
 anv one — for the Vicarage gardens joined 
 the churchyard. 
 
 She always entered the church half an 
 hour before the rest of the congregation, 
 and remained till they were all gone. 
 
 The Vicarage pew was in the chancel, 
 surrounded by oaken panelling of a con- 
 siderable height, above which were crimson 
 curtains drawn along brass rods. 
 
 In a dark corner of this secluded pew, 
 Minna could sit or stand, or kneel, unseen 
 by any one ! 
 
 A door in the chancel opened into the 
 churchyard, within a few feet of a small 
 postern gate in the wall of the Vicarage 
 garden. Owing to this gate, her incomings 
 and outgoings were easily and privately 
 managed. 
 
 She spent her time in reading, praying,
 
 ACQUITTED. 161 
 
 working for the poor, and wandering at 
 very early morn or " dewy eve" along the 
 beach or among the rocks. 
 
 The few people who knew of her presence 
 believed her to be Mistress Dorcas's niece. 
 
 A young widow, who had lost her only 
 child. 
 
 She always avoided coming in contact 
 with any one ; but she was very fond of the 
 company of Natt Lynn's children, whom 
 she often met on the beach or among the 
 rocks. 
 
 She would fill a basket with cakes and 
 fruit, in the hopes of meeting with them; 
 and when she met with them she would sit 
 down in some sheltered remote nook on 
 the beach, and read to them or tell them 
 stories, or sing to them in the sweetest of 
 voices quaint old ballads, like " The Babes 
 in the Wood !" 
 
 Paul Penryn would often join the little 
 group, who were always on the look-out for 
 M the veiled lady ;'* and Paul delighted in 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 ACQUITTED. 
 
 her readings, her tales, and her ballads as 
 much as the little Lynns did. 
 
 Towards Mary Lynn, "the veiled lady" 
 felt her heart warmed and drawn in a 
 manner for which she vainly tried to ac- 
 count, even by the sweetness, the intelli- 
 gence, and the strong early piety of this 
 remarkable child.
 
 ACQUITTED. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Night on the waves, and the moon is on high, 
 Hung like a gem on the hrow of the sky." 
 
 T. K. Heruej/. 
 
 XE lovely moonlit night, Minna, 
 " the veiled woman," had wandered 
 farther than her wont among the 
 rocks. 
 
 She had strayed out in the hope of meet- 
 ing Natt Lynn's children, who, with Paul 
 Penryn, had gone in Natt's boat to Rock- 
 ness on a pilgrimage to the grave of " Baby 
 Poll." 
 
 Minna hoped to meet them there, and 
 intended to return with them in the boat 
 as far as " Dead Man's Point." 
 
 Minna thought she was perfectly ac- 
 quainted with all the narrow, tortuous, up- 
 
 11—2
 
 164 ACQUITTED. 
 
 hill paths among the rocks between Pen- 
 combe and Rockness, but plunged in a 
 reverie, and in passionate musings on the 
 past, Minna missed her way, and to her 
 horror and dismay she found that even' 
 step she took seemed to lead her into 
 stranger and wilder scenes. 
 
 The sun had gone down in a flood of 
 ffloirv, and the moon had risen round and 
 fair, and was flooding with silver the dark 
 azure of the sea, giving, in her queen-like 
 bounty, a silver token to each trembling, 
 quivering ripple that bowed courtier-like 
 before her. 
 
 "How shall I find my way back?" said 
 Minna to herself; " and what anxiety and 
 terror will my dear father and old Dorcas 
 feel if I am not home before dark ?" 
 
 As she thought thus, she approached a 
 cave, which, in olden times, had been the 
 haunt of a desperate gang of smugglers. 
 Natural arches of rock opened upon the 
 beach, but the smugglers had excavated or
 
 ACQUITTED. 1(35 
 
 hollowed out of the rocks a number of 
 cellars, the last of which communicated with 
 the open country, and had enabled the 
 captain of a band of desperate smugglers 
 to escape. At last, however, this desperado 
 had, by the resolute courage of the coast- 
 guard, been surrounded in his cave, and 
 seeing that there was no hope of escape, 
 had shot himself in the innermost recess 
 of this rocky fortress. 
 
 Of course the superstitious Cornish 
 fishermen, averred that Captain Bolt's 
 ghost haunted the spot where he had 
 died, and even Minna, alone in that remote 
 spot by moonlight, shuddered when she 
 found herself at the entrance of the Smug- 
 gler's Cave. 
 
 Minna stood for a time under the 
 rugged arches, gazing with a poet's and 
 an artist's rapture at the beautiful scene 
 before her. 
 
 She sate down for a moment on a slab of 
 rock, on which tradition said that blood had
 
 166 ACQUITTED. 
 
 been shed, in confirmation of which several 
 dark-brown stains appeared. 
 
 As Minna, robed in black, rested under 
 the arch of the cave, she suddenly per- 
 ceived a small dark boat — a fisherman's 
 boat — making, as it seemed to her, for the 
 Smuggler's Cave; and on the white moon- 
 lit sands she beheld a tall figure, wrapt 
 in a military cloak, hurrying towards the 
 same spot. 
 
 There was something in the walk, the 
 air, the height of that tall, -dark-shrouded 
 form, which sent the hot blood from 
 Minna's heart to her pale brow. A feeling 
 of dread, of horror, of wild alarm seized 
 upon her. , 
 
 An instinct of self-preservation made her 
 withdraw from the archway into an inner 
 recess of the Smuggler's Cave. 
 
 As she did so she heard steps approach 
 the entrance, and a shrill whistle from the 
 shore was answered by one shriller still 
 from the sea.
 
 ACQUITTED. 167 
 
 The next moment she became aware 
 that a boat was being moored close by, 
 and soon the sound of the tread of 
 some heavy feet was contrasted with the 
 short, sharp, military step of the first 
 comer. 
 
 An agonizing dread of being discovered 
 contended now in Minna's breast with a 
 burning anxiety to know whether her 
 terrible fears were well founded. 
 
 The latter triumphed sufficiently to 
 induce her to look through a grated hole 
 in the first inner cave, and then all hope, 
 ail doubt were lost in the terrible convic- 
 tion that the two men, evidently meeting 
 by appointment in the Smuggler's Cave, 
 were Jasper Ardennes, her husband, and 
 the fisherman who had helped her to elope 
 with him, and to whose evil aid, all her 
 miseries, her sin, her shame, and her long 
 despair were owing. 
 
 Yes, Minna saw only the profile and the 
 tall form, both shrouded and in the shade,
 
 168 ACQUITTED. 
 
 of Jasper Ardennes, but she felt by the 
 chill at her heart that it was he ! 
 
 On Dan DevrilPs vicious countenance, 
 on the contrary, the moon shone, and 
 Minna, who had heard from old Dorcas of 
 the part he had played when the Golden 
 Bengal was wrecked, and she was cast ashore, 
 felt that were her presence discovered, 
 and were Jasper to say to Dan Devrill, 
 " Kill that woman on the spot !" that 
 her life would not be worth a moment's 
 purchase. 
 
 Minna felt this, and at first a deadly 
 faintness came over her ; but yet she re- 
 mained where she was, clinging to the iron 
 bars of the grating, and her dark-robed, 
 slender form — luckily in the deep shadow 
 of the rock — leaning against the wall of the 
 first inner cavern. 
 
 u Now, Devrill, be brief, for I have no 
 time to waste. I am here in answer to 
 your summons. Don't hang lire, man; 
 what have you to tell me ?"
 
 ACQUITTED. 169 
 
 " What your honour wouldn't believe 
 when I told you in Ingee." 
 
 " Confound it, what do you mean ?" 
 groaned Jasper Ardennes. 
 
 11 1 mean that she lives. She did not 
 go to the bottom in the Golden Bengal. I 
 guessed so when I saw your honour in 
 Calcuttia. I knows it now." 
 
 " Hang me if I believe a word of it," said 
 the Honourable Jasper Ardennes. " I 
 know you, Dan Devrill, and I believe it's a 
 cock-and-bull story, trumped up to terrify 
 me for purposes of your own !" 
 
 He took out an elegant little fusee-case, 
 struck a match, and lighted his cigar. 
 
 His back was to the trembling Minna, 
 who still clung to the rusty bars. Luckily 
 she wore black kid gloves, and a double 
 crape veil over her face, else the light of 
 the fusee would have flashed on features as 
 white as marble, and on slender fingers of 
 the same hue. 
 
 Dan, who was of the free-and-easy school,
 
 170 ACQUITTED. 
 
 and with whom companionship in crime 
 had engendered a sort of equality, took out 
 a short clay pipe and begged a fusee of his 
 Honourable partner in iniquity, who had 
 not presence of mind to refuse, or to express 
 the surprise and scorn such audacity 
 awakened in his aristocratic nature. 
 
 By the blazing light of that second fusee 
 Minna distinctly saw the broken nose, the 
 scar, and the cruel, crafty eyes and shaggy 
 hair and beard of Dan Devrill. 
 
 After smoking in silence for a few 
 minutes, Dan said — 
 
 " Seeing's believing, your honour. I've 
 a plan in my head for letting you see 
 with your own eyes that what I tells you 
 is true." 
 
 " Come into the inner cave," said Jasper 
 Ardennes. " I see a boat making for 
 this place; it seems to me to be Natt 
 Lynn's." 
 
 "Ay, confound him," said Dan, with an 
 oath ; ;v he'd better not cross my path, or
 
 ACQUITTED. 171 
 
 I'll cook his goose for him! He is making 
 for this cave, and be hanged to him !" 
 
 Jasper Ardennes rose, and followed by 
 Dan Devrill, entered the inner cave. 
 
 He passed so close to the half paralysed 
 Minna, that his military cloak brushed her 
 side, and the scent of patchouli — a scent he 
 always wore — and which, as associated with 
 him, had a deadly influence over her, filled 
 the air. 
 
 The two men, however, whose " con- 
 sciences made cowards'' of them both, 
 hurried into the innermost and tortuous 
 recesses of the rock, where there was an 
 opening communicating with the country. 
 
 Meanwhile, Natt Lynn, with Mary, Rosy, 
 and Paul Penryn in his boat, stopped for a 
 few minutes at the Smu^oler's Cave. 
 
 The hope of rescue gave Minna strength 
 to stagger from her place of concealment 
 into the outer cavern. 
 
 And as she did so, Paul Penryn ex- 
 claimed, "The Veiled Lady!" and ex-
 
 172 ACQUITTED. 
 
 tending his arms, caught her in time to 
 prevent her falling lifeless to the ground. 
 
 " Shc've had a fright of some kind, poor 
 dear !" said Natt, as Mary and Rosy 
 hastened to loosen Minna's dress, untie her 
 bonnet, and dash some sea-water in her 
 face. 
 
 She opened her eyes and said — 
 
 u Take me away! take me away! 1 
 cannot breathe here ! They are at hand — 
 they will kill me !" 
 
 " She've seen somehut or other as has 
 turned her nerves," said Natt Lynn. -'The 
 best Ave can do is to get her into the boat 
 and away from this haunted hole." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! Take me away — take me 
 home!" sighed Minna. 
 
 Natt Lynn and young Paul lifted her 
 into the boat. She lay in the bottom with 
 her head on Mary's knee, and Eosy and 
 Paul in close attendance on her. 
 
 Ere long she was safe at home; but for 
 more than an hour Jasper Ardennes and
 
 ACQUITTED. 173 
 
 Dan Devrill, who had heard nothing of 
 what had passed in the archway of the 
 cavern, remained in close and evil consulta- 
 tion. And then, Dan Devrill having 
 cautiously reconnoitred the archway and 
 the moonlit sea, from that same grated slit 
 from which Minna had watched her hus- 
 band and the wrecker, satisfied that all 
 was safe, Jasper Ardennes and his vile con- 
 federate entered the boat of the latter. 
 
 Jasper landed at a rough sort of half- 
 ruined pier on the Altamount estate. 
 
 " Then your honour wont object to scale 
 the Wicarage wall, jist to take a squint 
 into the lady's room. I've done it myself 
 not many nights sinst, and as plain as ever 
 I zeed her in my life, I zeed one as shall be 
 nameless, but who do own a great name 
 for all that, a lying in the wery same bed 
 she lay in, the night afore she took French 
 leave of her stiff-necked, long-legged, stuck- 
 up parson of a dad !" 
 
 Jasper Ardennes scowled at Dan Devrill;
 
 17-4 ACQUITTED. 
 
 he did not like to hear that low villain 
 speaking thus disrespectfully of one who 
 was, after all, the lawful father-in-law of his 
 own high-born honourable self. 
 
 u Seeing's believing, your honour, as I 
 said afore," sulkily resumed Dan. "But 
 you can please yourself — 'taint no petikelar 
 business of mine, nor no great odds to I 
 one way or t'other. So just say yes or no, 
 that I may be in the way, and have the 
 gate open and the steps handy — as I done 
 afore when your honour risked a broken 
 neck to lay a bit o' a letter, or a ring, or a 
 pair o' ear-drops, on Miss Minna's table." 
 
 " Have everything in readiness, Dan. 
 As you say, seeing's believing, and nothing 
 short of seeing her with my own eyes shall 
 ever convince me that she did not go down 
 in the Golden Bengal. I've always looked 
 on your yarn, Dan, as spun by you 
 to serve your own purpose. I'm obliged to 
 go up to town to-morrow, on business of 
 importance, to my Jasper — my boy. He's
 
 ACQUITTED. 175 
 
 had a cough lately, and has looked pale 
 and thin, and I mean to have a consulta- 
 tion about him. If, as I hope and trust, it 
 proves to be nothing but a cold, I shall be 
 back here by the end of the week, and 
 then I'll scale the old wall, as I did when 
 Love made it seem such a delightful task — 
 fool that I was !" 
 
 " And if you sees her, your honour, with 
 your own eyes, a lying in her own bed — 
 the same fine face and noble figgurhead as 
 ever, only white as alabasker, and a good 
 bit wasted — what will you say then ?" 
 
 The wretch fixed his eyes on Jasper 
 Ardennes as he spoke, and there was in 
 their cruel and crafty expression something 
 that made the latter shudder. 
 
 " You see, yer honour," said Dan, 
 " she may only be waiting till my lord your 
 fathers gone, and if she proves her mar- 
 riage, what becomes of your honoured lady 
 and Master Jasper? They wont count for 
 much in that case !"
 
 176 ACQUITTED. 
 
 "That must never be !" groaned Jasper 
 Ardennes. "Yet I will not — cannot! 
 No! I have it, Dan! At Antwerp there 
 is a private madhouse, kept by a man who 
 is in my power, and who owes me every- 
 thing. 1 have no doubt Minna would do 
 as you suggest, as soon as the Earl, my 
 father, is in the family vault. If indeed 
 she was saved from the wreck, I care not 
 so much that she has it in her power to 
 make my haughty wife nothing, or worse 
 than nothing, as that she can rob the 
 only thing that loves me dearly, and 
 that I dearly love, of the very name to 
 which he adds fresh honour. If she really 
 lives " 
 
 He bent his head till his lips almost 
 touched Dan's ear, and whispered a few 
 words to the effect that a large reward 
 should be Dan's if he contrived to lodge 
 Minna safely at the madhouse in question. 
 
 "Once there/' said Jasper Ardennes, 
 " she is there for life ! I do not believe
 
 ACQUITTED. 177 
 
 she lives, but if she does, will you under- 
 take this?" 
 
 " Depend on me, your honour," growled 
 Dan. " I've done your bidding hitherto, 
 and so I will while there's a heart in this 
 buzzum !" 
 
 The two then parted. 
 
 VOL. i.
 
 178 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ' A nameless terror seems to haunt me here ! 
 I start, grow cold, and cannot choose but fear." 
 
 Lascelles. 
 
 HE great terror Minna had felt in 
 the Smuggler's Cave, added to the 
 conviction that her husband and 
 Dan Devrill were in league together, made 
 her afraid to venture out, as she had 
 hitherto done, to meet Natt's children and 
 Paul Penryn on the beach. 
 
 Barbara, however, had met with Mary 
 and Rosy, and had heard of and reported to 
 Minna the news of Mary Lynn's meeting 
 with the Earl, and of her approaching visit 
 to Altamount Castle. 
 
 Minna felt a deep interest in all things
 
 ACQUITTED. 179 
 
 that concerned Mary Lynn, and it was 
 not without feelings of anxiety that she 
 heard of the visit to the beach, paid by 
 the Earl of Altamount, his two little girls, 
 Lady Beatrice and Lady Florence, and 
 of Mary Lynn's being invited to the 
 Castle to spend a day there, in order to 
 teach the little ladies to make seaweed 
 pictures. 
 
 " Mary Lynn," said Minna to herself, "is 
 now fifteen, and very womanly for her 
 years. To the eye of the many she is not 
 so beautiful as that bright young Hebe, her 
 sister Rose ; but what man of taste would 
 not acknowledge that Mary's large dark 
 eyes, so full of soul, her fine brow, her 
 perfect features, and her muse-like form, 
 are the type of all that is most intellectual, 
 passionate, and lofty in woman — and being 
 what she is, and with a heart that has 
 'far outgrown her years,' is it not a 
 perilous thing for her to go where capti- 
 vating, elegant, and heartless men abound? 
 
 12—2
 
 180 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Oh, that I could save her from the danger 
 of meeting such men." 
 
 Paul Penryn, too, who took a great 
 interest and pride in his young pupil, 
 Mary Lynn, was very anxious for the 
 day she was to spend at the Castle to come 
 and go. 
 
 He wanted to hear all the particulars 
 of that visit, and he wanted, too, to ascer- 
 tain that Mary's head was not turned by 
 the #reat notice taken of her — and by 
 having spent a day at a Castle, and been 
 chosen as a sort of companion by an Earl's 
 daughters. 
 
 His curiosity was not destined to be 
 gratified as speedily as he had expected. 
 
 It was Miss Osgood, the governess at the 
 Castle, who had called at Natt Lynn's 
 cottage to request them to spare Mary to 
 spend a day at the Castle. It was the same 
 excellent and very odd-looking, middle- 
 aged spinster who drove herself down in a 
 pony-chaise to the beach, and to Natt
 
 ACQUITTED. 181 
 
 Lynn's, to ask Polly Lynn to allow her 
 eldest daughter to prolong her stay for 
 some days. 
 
 Polly missed Mary's helping hands very 
 much, but she did not like to refuse my 
 lord and my lady, for they were excellent 
 customers for Xatt's fish — and the Earl 
 paid him handsomely when he or any 
 friends staying with him went out in Natt's 
 boat for a day's fishing. 
 
 Miss Osgood had long black eyes peering 
 through green spectacles, a very long nose, 
 a very long upper lip, very long teeth, and 
 very long, thin, grey ringlets. She was 
 very tall, high-shouldered, short-waisted, 
 and spare. 
 
 Miss Osgood had educated the Earl's 
 eldest daughters, who had married well, 
 and she had still on her hands his two 
 younger girls by his first wife, Lady 
 Mildred and Lady Julia, and the two little 
 girls by his second wife, Ladies Beatrice 
 and Florence. There could not be a more
 
 132 ACQUITTED. 
 
 estimable or a less lovely woman than Miss 
 Osgood. 
 
 She had great influence at the Castle, 
 and she had taken a fancy to " Mary 
 Lynn." 
 
 She had been for some time, with the sanc- 
 tion of the Earl and the Countess, looking 
 out for some young girl to help her in the 
 schoolroom with the education of the two 
 little ladies, who were so young as only to 
 require the rudiments of learning, and to a 
 finishing governess like Miss Osgood the 
 teaching young children to read, was very 
 wearisome. 
 
 Miss Osgood saw at a glance how very 
 useful Mary Lynn — so patient, so good 
 tempered, and such a favourite with the 
 little girls — would be at the Castle. 
 
 Gazing at the delicate complexion, the 
 white, taper fingers and dainty limbs of 
 Mary, it struck her how very unfit she was 
 for the hard work, hard fare, and exposure 
 to the elements of a fisherman's daughter,
 
 ACQUITTED. 183 
 
 and in time a fisherman's wife, and how 
 much better it would be for herself and her 
 family that she should be brought up as a 
 governess. 
 
 Miss Osgood, therefore, undertook to 
 sound Polly Lynn, and obtained her con- 
 sent to Mary's at any rate remaining for a 
 time at the castle.
 
 184 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ' Gone from her cheek was its summer bloom. 
 And her lip had lost all its sweet perfume, 
 And the gloss had dropt from her raven hair, 
 And her cheek was pale but no longer fair." 
 
 Barry Cornwall. 
 
 INNA. who, for reasons of her own, 
 had not confided to her father the 
 cause of her increased nervousness, 
 looked so much paler and weaker after 
 her alarm in the Smuggler's Cave, that 
 Mr. Trelawny again summoned Dr. Deering 
 to Pencombe. 
 
 The Doctor, who took a great interest in 
 his lovely patient, although he only looked 
 upon her as Dorcas's niece, strongly advised 
 that she should leave the bedroom in which 
 he had hitherto seen her, for an adjoining 
 room with a southern aspect.
 
 ACQUITTED. 185 
 
 Minna had a cough, and Dr. Deering 
 attached great importance to a southern 
 aspect. 
 
 He also, noticing the great nervous tre- 
 pidation of Minna, advised that some 
 watchful, experienced person should sleep 
 in the room which had hitherto been 
 Minna's, in order to be close at hand to 
 attend to her during the night. 
 
 As by this time Barbara had succeeded, 
 with the Vicar's help, in getting one of her 
 boys apprenticed at Exeter, and as Sam, 
 the other, had been taken into the Vicarage 
 to be trained to wait at table and become a 
 sort of foot-boy or page, she was at liberty 
 to devote her nights to the care of Minna. 
 
 Her cottage, by her own desire, was let 
 to an old lady who had seen better days, 
 the widow of a curate, who, by taking a 
 quiet lodger or two, hoped to make a live- 
 lihood, and Barbara once more became an 
 inmate of Pencombe Vicarage. 
 
 Nothing could exceed her devotion to
 
 186 ACQUITTED. 
 
 her young mistress, the unfortunate Minna. 
 Even Dorcas, with all her love and care, 
 her intense anxiety, and her almost ma- 
 ternal tenderness, was content to see 
 Barbara installed in what had always been 
 her young missis's room, to attend to her 
 during the night. 
 
 Dorcas, neither hearing nor seeing as 
 well as she had formerly done, felt that 
 Barbara was much fitter to nurse Minna 
 than herself. 
 
 Minna did not like to quit the apart- 
 ment endeared to her by so many happy 
 memories ; but her father had said she was 
 to settle herself in the south room by Dr. 
 Deering's express orders, and Minna's old 
 dread of her father prompted an obedience 
 as unquestioning and as implicit as he had 
 been wont to exact in her childhood and 
 early youth. 
 
 And so the pretty little room, with its 
 balcony full of flowers, and the outer wall 
 of which was festooned bv a fine old vine,
 
 ACQUITTED. 187 
 
 whose leaves, tendrils, and amethystine 
 clusters of grapes formed a framework to 
 the old-fashioned casement, was vacated by 
 Minna, and much regretted by her, al- 
 though the south room was also the best or 
 visitor's room. 
 
 Instead of the little French bedstead 
 draped with white muslin and pink silk, 
 the bed in which Minna had slept in her 
 girlhood, the south room boasted a large 
 four-poster, with huge mahogany pillars 
 black with time, and thick damask silk 
 curtains of gold colour. The windows 
 looking on the lawn and front gate, had 
 hangings to match, while in Minna's virgin 
 bower the quaint old window looked only 
 on an old-fashioned fruit and flower- 
 garden, beehives, and a sun-dial. 
 
 It was two o'clock in the morning. 
 Minna had already passed two nights in 
 the south room, and Barbara, who had
 
 188 ACQUITTED. 
 
 been in attendance on her till one o'clock, 
 a.m., for Minna had been unusually ner- 
 vous and restless, had got into bed at last, 
 but had a niffht-liffht burning on the table 
 by her bedside, to enable her at any 
 moment to rise and hasten to her lady's 
 assistance. 
 
 Barbara, who, with so bad a husband as 
 Dan lurking, for aught she knew, in the 
 neighbourhood, could not feel very easy in 
 her mind by day, no sooner fell asleep than 
 painful dreams of Dan's evil-doings haunted 
 her sleep. 
 
 She dreamt that she was rushing across 
 a wild common at night to try to escape 
 from him, and that she heard him behind 
 her cursing her and threatening her life, 
 and at last that, coming suddenly on a 
 dark-flowing river, and feeling his breath 
 on her cheek and his hand on her shoulder, 
 she plunged in, and in the agonies of 
 drowning she woke, and, sitting up in bed, 
 damp, cold, and shaking with terror, she
 
 ACQUITTED. 189 
 
 saw two men, whose faces were covered 
 with black crape, looking into the room, 
 having opened the window from the out- 
 side. 
 
 Barbara had wonderful presence of mind. 
 She knew that, were she to scream, these 
 wretches — of whom she half suspected the 
 identity and the purpose — would probably 
 murder her at once, and then enter Minna's 
 room, perhaps to take her life, perhaps to 
 carry her off. 
 
 She therefore pretended to yawn and to 
 stretch herself; she rubbed her eyes, and 
 then she beat up her pillow as if about to 
 compose herself to sleep again. 
 
 Then, swift as thought, while the two 
 men at the window crouched down, hoping 
 to escape her notice — she sprang out of 
 bed, caught up her lamp, rushed into 
 Minna's room, and locked the door. 
 
 The south room had another door which 
 opened on the landing, just opposite the 
 Vicar's own room.
 
 190 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Without awaking Minna, Barbara reached 
 the Vicar's room and succeeded in arousing 
 him. 
 
 He kept a pair of loaded pistols over the 
 lireplace; and though he suspected that 
 Barbara had mistaken a dream for a reality, 
 he threw on his dressing-gown, and, taking 
 his pistols with him, stepped noiselessly 
 upstairs into the unoccupied attic, just 
 above what was called Miss Trelawny's 
 room. 
 
 Very softly he opened the window. 
 
 The wind was rustling the vine leaves, 
 but yet he thought he heard something 
 whispering. 
 
 He was right, for at that moment the 
 Hon. Jasper Ardennes was saying to Dan 
 Devrill— 
 
 " What a confounded fool you are, Dan, 
 to have mistaken a middle-aged housemaid 
 for " 
 
 "I can't make it out no ways, your 
 honour," returned Dan; " but blow me if
 
 U QUITTED. 191 
 
 the last time I looked in at this winder, I 
 didn't see Miss Minner, as was, asleep in 
 that wery bed." 
 
 '•Well," said Jasper, "you can't expect 
 me to believe your eyes sooner than my 
 own. You know we agreed that seeing's be- 
 lieving. Now I've done with this wild- 
 goose chase. What if that woman saw us, 
 and is gone to rouse the Vicar !" 
 
 "Who's there?" shouted, in a stentorian 
 voice, Mr. Trelawny from the window 
 above — " Speak, or I fire !" 
 
 " Speak, or I fire !" shouted the Vicar 
 again, in a voice of thunder. There was a 
 rustling of the vine leaves, and a sound as 
 of a heavy fall ; but the night was so dark 
 nothing could be seen. 
 
 For the third time Mr. Trelawny cried 
 aloud, "Speak, or I fire !" — and then he did 
 fire! 
 
 A sound between a stifled shriek and a 
 groan, accompanied by a fall, followed the 
 report of the Vicar's pistol.
 
 192 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Barbara, who stood on the landing out- 
 side Minna's door, partly to protect her 
 mistress and partly to watch over the Vicar, 
 hearing the report of the pistol and the 
 stifled shriek, with her own secret suspicions 
 that one of the burglars might be her hus- 
 band, and that he might perhaps have been 
 the victim of that shot, rushed screaming 
 to the Vicar, saying — 
 
 " Master, come ! — come down with me ! 
 We'll go down and look in the flower 
 garden under Miss Minna's window !" 
 
 " Yes," said the Vicar, " if I've shot one 
 of the scoundrels I hope I haven't killed 
 him, and if it's only a flesh wound we'll 
 dress it for him, and make him confess." 
 
 By this time Minna, Dorcas, and Sam, 
 the page, appeared from different parts of 
 the house. 
 
 The Vicar ordered Dorcas to stay with 
 Minna, and Sam Devrill to come with him, 
 and to bring a lantern. 
 
 It was some time before the lantern was
 
 ACQUITTED. 193 
 
 found, and all attempts at carrying a candle 
 out of doors were vain, the wind was so high. 
 
 At length Sain appeared with the lantern, 
 and the Vicar, Barbara, and the boy made 
 their way round to the flower-bed under 
 the window of Minna's little room. 
 
 Several branches of the vine were broken, 
 and a rose-tree, which grew out of a grass 
 bank beneath the window, was trodden 
 down. Broken flower-pots, vine leaves, and. 
 loose earth lay around, and the light of the 
 lantern fell on a pool of dark blood. 
 
 Barbara shuddered as she thought whose 
 that blood might be. 
 
 " The scoundrels have got off," said the 
 Vicar, following the track of the blood with 
 the lantern across the flower garden to the 
 little postern gate in the wall that divided 
 it from the churchyard. 
 
 That gate was open. 
 
 " We can pursue the search no farther 
 to-night," he said, fastening the gate. " Let 
 us thank God we are safe." 
 
 vol. i. 13
 
 194 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Which is the villain ? let me see his eyes." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 HE next day the Vicar was up be- 
 times, and before the news of the 
 alarming and mysterious incident 
 of the night before had got wind, he, in 
 company with Sam, Barbara, and Robin, 
 examined the premises and the church- 
 yard. 
 
 Some drops of blood still wet on the 
 grass led them to conclude that the " bur- 
 glars," as the Vicar called them, and as he 
 believed them to be, had crossed the 
 churchyard diagonally, reached the little 
 postern gate, (which was still open,) and 
 then got down to the sea.
 
 ACQUITTED. 195 
 
 There, of course, all further trace of them 
 was lost. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny communicated at once 
 both with the coastguard and the police. 
 
 He rode over to Sir George Man ley, M.P., 
 the nearest magistrate, and made his deposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Sir George, a long-headed man, who had 
 been a barrister, did everything in his 
 power to promote the discovery and appre- 
 hension of the " burglars." 
 
 A large reward was offered to any who 
 would even furnish a clue to their identity. 
 
 A larger still to any who gave informa- 
 tion that should lead to their apprehension. 
 
 But it was all in vain. 
 
 No clue of any kind was ever obtained. 
 
 Barbara had her own terrible suspicions, 
 which she of course kept to herself. Minna 
 perhaps had hers, for her pallor, her weak- 
 ness, and her nervous tremor at night, 
 increased tenfold. 
 
 But Mr. Trelawny and the few inhabi- 
 
 13—2
 
 196 ACQUITTED. 
 
 tants of Pencombe believed it to have been 
 simply a case of intended burglary. 
 
 It so happened that the very day before 
 the appearance at Minna's window of the 
 two men with black crape masks, Mr. Tre- 
 lawny had had a tithe dinner. 
 
 The money which he then received he 
 had not had time to place in the Bodmin 
 Bank ; it was in his desk in his study, and 
 this was supposed to be the burglars' 
 object. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny caused strong shutters to 
 be affixed to all the windows, new and very 
 good locks and bolts to all the doors, and 
 an alarm bell to be suspended within reach 
 of his own bed-head. 
 
 He cleaned, loaded, and arranged a small 
 armoury of weapons on his mantelpiece, 
 and, after teaching him how to use it, he 
 entrusted a blunderbuss to Sam Devrill. 
 He caused old Robin to sleep in the house 
 with a loaded musket above his head. 
 
 By his request the police patrolled Pen-
 
 ACQUITTED. 197 
 
 combe perseveringly during the night; their 
 measured tread and dark lanterns filling 
 with a comfortable sense of security the 
 breasts of the few inhabitants who had 
 been rendered nervous by the attempted 
 burglary at the Vicarage. 
 
 And thus by degrees tranquillity was 
 restored, and the only permanent result of 
 the attempted burglary might be traced in 
 the trembling care with which old Dorcas 
 looked to all the fastenings, the extra 
 watchfulness of Barbara as she sat up in 
 bed listening to every sound after she had 
 left Minna to repose, and the occasional 
 nervous terror which compelled the latter to 
 call Barbara, or which sometimes made her 
 leave her own bed, to come and lie down 
 by her faithful attendant.
 
 198 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Oh ! let me now into a richer soil transplant thee safe. 
 And of my garden be the pride, the jo} r ." 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 OON after Minna's visit to the 
 
 Castle Miss Osgood called at Natt 
 
 Lynn's. She found Polly hard at 
 
 work, and Rosy (a fine, blooming, strong 
 
 girl) playing with a doll at the door. 
 
 Miss Osgood entered the cottage, and 
 took the chair Polly offered her. 
 
 Miss Osgood glared at Polly through her 
 green spectacles, and said — 
 
 " Why do you let that great strong girl 
 of yours idle away her time playing with 
 a doll ? She ought to be helping you ! It's 
 a shame to see you slaving indoors, and
 
 ACQUITTED. 199 
 
 such a stout likely girl playing outside with 
 a doll." 
 
 " She's but young yet, ma'am, tall and 
 stout as she is," said Polly, u and I likes 
 them to enjoy themselves in their youth. 
 Sorrow comes soon enough, ma'am." 
 
 " Yes ! and that's why they should be 
 prepared for it. Train up a child in the 
 way it should go. and when it is old it will 
 not depart from it. You must want help 
 with all those things to mend and your 
 husband's and children's meals to get, 
 and the place to clean and the children to 
 mind!" 
 
 a I never want for help when Mary's at 
 home, ma'am, and she've never been away 
 before. She've got an old head on young 
 shoulders, and a good will and an angel's 
 temper, and has a helping hand, indeed, 
 ma'am." 
 
 " But she's delicate, Mrs. Lynn," said 
 Miss Osgood. " She's not fit to rough it. 
 She works too hard, and doesn't live well
 
 200 ACQUITTED. 
 
 enough. She wont live to grow up at all 
 if there is not a change." 
 
 " What change can I make, ma'am V 
 said Polly Lynn. 
 
 " Why, this," replied Miss Osgood. 
 u Mary's a clever girl, who loves study. 
 The Countess is willing to take her, at 
 twenty pounds a year, to help in the school- 
 room, and I'll undertake to educate her, so 
 that she'll be a finishing governess in time, 
 and when she's twenty she'll earn a hun- 
 dred a year. Think of the help she'll be to 
 you then, and bear in mind that she'll go 
 into a decline if she has to work and rough 
 it as she has done; why, her skin's as white 
 as a snowdrop, and so clear one can see the 
 blue and violet veins. I asked Dr. Dodd 
 (when he came into the school-room) to see 
 Lady Beatrice, who has a slight cold, what 
 he thought of Mary Lynn, and he felt her 
 pulse, and said, after looking at her for 
 some time, ' Well, ma'am, there's no actual 
 disease about her as yet ; she's a very fine
 
 ACQUITTED. 201 
 
 girl, but she's a hot-house plant ; if she had 
 to rough it, she'd go into a decline.' " 
 
 '•Oh dear! oh dear!" said Polly, "what- 
 ever shall I do without her? she's my right 
 hand." 
 
 " But with the money she'll earn you can 
 get some one to help you, if you can t or 
 wont make that great healthy girl Rose of 
 any use." 
 
 " Oh, no one can ever do what Mary does, 
 or be the comfort she is. However, ma'am, 
 she can stay at the Castle at any rate till 
 the end of the week, and I'll talk it over 
 with my master, ma'am, and let you know 
 what he thinks about it." 
 
 "Very well; if he's got a head on his 
 shoulders and a heart in his bosom, he wont 
 stand in his own child's light. Mind you 
 tell him what Dr. Dadd has said." 
 
 11 1 will, ma'am," faltered Polly, as Miss 
 Osgood strode away, saying as she did so 
 to Rosy, " For shame, you great, strong, 
 good-for-nothing idle girl! Why don't you
 
 202 ACQUITTED. 
 
 go and help your mother? Give that ugly 
 doll to your little sister, and go in and see 
 if you can't be of some use, and not a hin- 
 drance and a burden and a cumberer of the 
 ground. Get out of my sight ; I'm ashamed 
 of you ! Who could ever believe that such a 
 stupid, idle, unfeeling hussy is sister to such 
 a good, clever, industrious, excellent girl as 
 Mary Lynn." 
 
 Rosy listened aghast, with tears in her 
 bright blue eyes ; but when Miss Osgood's 
 long bony back was turned, Rosy took a sight 
 at her, and called out — but not loud enough 
 to be heard — " You Cure, you Cure, you 
 perfect Cure ! You spiteful old guy ! I hates 
 the very sight of you." 
 
 But she left the doll on the bench, and 
 went indoors and tried to help her mother 
 a little. So Miss Osgood had done some 
 good, after all.
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 She neither moved nor spake, nor looked like those 
 Who claimed her. and with whom her lot was cast ; 
 Like some fair lily she above them rose, 
 Yet meekly loved and served them to the last." 
 
 Laseelles. 
 
 foHEX Natt Lynn came in, Polly told 
 him all that had passed. 
 
 His opinion was, as she feared 
 it would be, in favour of Mary's accepting 
 the offer made by the Earl and Countess 
 through Miss Osgood. 
 
 " You see, Polly lass," he said, " what 
 the Doctor says be true. Mary be a hot- 
 house plant, and very like hard work and 
 hard living, now she's growing so fast, might 
 throw her into a decline.*' 
 
 " She never complains, Natt," said Polly.
 
 •204 ACQUITTED. 
 
 u No, and would not if she were ever so 
 bad: but to tell thee the truth, I've often 
 been troubled in my mind about her, feel- 
 ing sure, as I does, that she's born a lady, 
 to think she hasn't had the education of one. 
 We don't know what Providence may do 
 yet. Her friends may turn up some day, 
 and it would be a sad thing if she were to 
 turn out a ladyship, and she with only the 
 manners and learning of a fisherman's 
 daughter. So putting all things together, 
 Polly, I think we oughtn't to stand in Mary's 
 light. I shall miss her, I can tell you — no 
 one more — for there ain't much help or 
 comfort in Rosy so far ; but if Mary stays 
 at the Castle, Rosy must turn over a new 
 leaf, and it's high time, for she's getting as 
 wild as a young colt, and more like a boy 
 nor a lass." 
 
 Polly yielded to Natt's wise and Christian 
 view of the subject, and agreed, with many 
 tears and a very heavy heart, that, for the 
 present at least, Mary should remain at the
 
 ACQUITTED. 205 
 
 Castle to help Miss Osgood in the school- 
 room with the younger children, and to be 
 taught music, French, and drawing herself. 
 
 But Polly stipulated that every Saturday 
 was to be a holiday, to be spent by Mary 
 at home, and that she was to remain with 
 her family on Sunday, returning to the 
 Castle early on Monday morning. 
 
 Mary loved her home — the little cottage 
 in the rocks — and would have been content 
 to dwell there, making herself useful and 
 finding a pleasure in her every duty. 
 
 But she had a great wish to improve 
 herself — a taste and even a genius for 
 music and drawing, a passion for reading 
 and learning, and all the innate elegance 
 and refinement, which, though generally 
 attributed to gentle birth, we sometimes 
 find wanting in the loftiest and developed 
 in the lowlv. 
 
 She was soon quite at home in a castle — 
 she who had been reared in so humble a 
 cottage.
 
 206 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Very teachable and very plastic, she soon 
 laid aside any little vulgarities or provin- 
 cialisms of pronunciation or expression, 
 and her extreme patience and sweetness of 
 temper endeared her alike to the Earl and 
 Countess and the members of their noble 
 family, and to the domestics of the Castle. 
 The Ladies Mildred and Julia took a 
 girlish pride in dressing Mary in some of 
 their own muslins and silks. 
 
 They insisted on having her long and 
 lustrous black tresses dressed by their own 
 accomplished French maid, Georgette. 
 
 They were much delighted when 
 strangers mistook Mary Lynn for a high- 
 born young lady, and curtsied low, and 
 called her "your ladyship." 
 
 As for the little girls, Ladies Beatrice 
 and Florence, they doated on Mary, and to 
 please her they learnt to read and spell, 
 and to say by heart many of Watts's 
 hymns, and those beautiful poems by Mrs. 
 Barbauld and Dr. Aikin which have
 
 ACQUITTED. 207 
 
 formed so many young minds and helped 
 to make some poets. 
 
 But it was on Saturday that Mary 
 shone most — at least, to our thinking. 
 Directly she reached the cottage in the 
 cliff's, and had embraced her mother, 
 father, and the children, and partaken of 
 some little feast got ready in her honour, 
 her great object was to make up to Polly 
 for the loss of her services during the 
 week. 
 
 She would cover her line muslin or silk 
 dress with a large coarse apron with a bib 
 to it, and, aided by Rosy, who was now 
 ashamed to be idle, she would clean and 
 dust and set everything to rights, and then 
 she would take the children, and a large 
 basket of stockings and clothes to be 
 mended, and go and sit and work with 
 such nimble fingers, in what was called 
 " Mary's seat," in the rocks, with the little 
 ones around her ; and there "The veiled 
 lady, ' now herself again, and Paul
 
 208 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Penryn, would often come and join the 
 little group. 
 
 When first Paul became acquainted with 
 the tall, thin and lady-like person, dressed 
 in such deep mourning, and never to be 
 seen but in very remote places at early 
 dawn or in the evening twilight, he felt so 
 curious about her, that he took the first 
 opportunity of asking Mary Lynn who she 
 was. Mar}' only knew that she was said 
 to be Mrs. Tibbs, a widow, niece to Mrs. 
 Dorcas, the Vicar's housekeeper. She had 
 heard that she had been brought up by a 
 lady to be her companion, but that she had 
 married imprudently and gone abroad, 
 where she had lost her husband and her 
 child. 
 
 Mary loved and pitied her. 
 
 Minna would always bring with her — 
 when she joined or met the children — a 
 basket well filled with fruit from the 
 Vicarage crarden, and cakes and tarts of 
 Dorcas's making; and so every Saturday
 
 ACQUITTED. 209 
 
 and Sunday in fine weather there was 
 quite a little festival going on in honour of 
 Mary ; and when it was cold or wet the 
 same party, all but Minna, would spend 
 the hours in Xatt Lynn's cottage, happy as 
 the day was long, and in winter much 
 happier. 
 
 Rosy — like so many from whom little 
 has been expected, suddenly raised to office 
 and rendered responsible— displayed powers 
 which had hitherto lain dormant; and the 
 removal of Mary to the Upper House, alias 
 the Castle, was the making of Eosy as an 
 active, but by no means silent, member of 
 that Lower House " The Cottage." 
 
 vol. i. 14
 
 210 ACQUITTED. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " Be strong, be good, be pure. 
 The right only shall endure." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 R. TRELAWNY, whose ideas of 
 honour and of the sacredness and 
 inviolability of a promise were so 
 lofty and so strong, of course respected 
 what he believed to be his daughter's vow, 
 and endeavoured to be patient and to wait 
 till the Earl's death should release her from 
 her oath : when, if it indeed proved to be 
 as he suspected, he determined to leave 
 nothing undone to compel Jasper Ardennes 
 to do justice to his victim. 
 
 This he felt would be the more difficult, 
 because it had long been known that this 
 bad man had married Miss Montresor, the
 
 ACQUITTED. 211 
 
 belle of Calcutta; that he had indeed 
 wedded her as soon as the news of the 
 wreck of the Golden Bengal reached India. 
 
 So that their eldest son was not two 
 years younger than Mary Lynn ; and they 
 had had three pretty little girls in rapid 
 succession. 
 
 One day that Mr. Trelawny was ponder- 
 ing on these things, pacing his study the 
 while, and his cheeks burning and his eyes 
 flashing as he thought of his daughter's 
 wrongs and the day of retribution and re- 
 dress which he felt must come, Barbara 
 knocked at his door to tell him that the 
 clerk wished to speak with him. 
 
 " I s'pose your Reverence have heard 
 the sad news?" said old Trotter. "I'm 
 come to ask your orders about tolling the 
 
 beii r 
 
 " For whom ?" said the Vicar, turning 
 pale and red by turns, as he thought it 
 must be for the Earl ! 
 
 " For Lord Derwent, sir. I've just seen 
 
 14—2
 
 212 ACQUITTED. 
 
 the butler ; he was coming here, but stepped 
 into the Chequers to have a glass; for, as 
 he says, l Sorrow's dry.' But he told me 
 he'd just had a telegram to say my Lord 
 Derwent died at Altamount House this 
 morning, and is to be buried in the family 
 vault here. The body '11 be down before 
 the end o' the week ; and Master J asper as 
 wor, now Lord Derwent, he'd arrived from 
 India, with his lady and family, in time to 
 see the last of his brother, which it must 
 have been a comfort to all parties, seeing 
 they didn't part the best of friends, and 
 never wor what one may call brotherly to- 
 gether." 
 
 " Toll the bell, of course," said the Vicar. 
 
 " His lordship was forty-two, the butler 
 said — forty-two the very day he died ; so I 
 shall toll the bell accordingly. I suppose 
 Your Reverence will arrange with the 
 butler about the funeral. My Lord Alta- 
 mount will be down, of course, and so will 
 Mr. Jasper — I mean my Lord Derwent!"
 
 ACQUITTED. 213 
 
 The old clerk bowed himself out. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny, sinking into his easy-chair, 
 remained for some time plunged in thought. 
 He walked to his window, through the leafy 
 trellis-work of an arbour he saw Minna's 
 black dress, and caught the fine profile of 
 her fair face, and saw her delicate hands 
 busy at some warm garments for the poor. 
 
 " If this bad man means to stay for any 
 time at Pencombe," said the Vicar to him- 
 self, " I doubt whether Minna will be safe 
 here. Poor down-trodden flower ! blighted, 
 repudiated, bereaved of her only child, 
 obliged to pass as Dorcas's niece to save 
 her life from an assassin's hand ! I believe 
 her to be at this moment Viscountess Der- 
 went ; and when that bell tolls for the father 
 of him whose death it now proclaims with 
 iron tongue, the whole world shall know 
 the truth; and I hope 1 shall be spared to 
 see yon poor humbled sufferer take her 
 place as Countess of Altamount, in her 
 robes and coronet, among the peeresses of
 
 214 ACQUITTED. 
 
 the realm ; and thus shall even the shadow 
 of a blot be wiped from the honour of the 
 house of Trelawny." 
 
 At this moment the butler, fresh from 
 the Chequers, arrived at the Vicarage, to 
 communicate to Mr. Trelawny the Earl's 
 wishes and directions with regard to the 
 funeral of Lord Derwent. 
 
 The late Lord Derwent, in spite of all 
 his promises of fifteen years before, had 
 not done much in Parliament for " the 
 ancient and loyal borough of Pencornbe ;" 
 nor had he ever endeavoured "to maintain 
 in all their integrity, the time-honoured 
 institutions of this great country." 
 
 Place had been his object; and he had 
 succeeded in getting into office. 
 
 His health, however, gave way when he 
 was on the eve of promotion. 
 
 He was obliged to resign, and to live 
 abroad during the latter years of his life. 
 
 He was not very much loved or very sin- 
 cerely mourned at Pencornbe; but in so
 
 ACQUITTED. 21i 
 
 quiet and remote a place the solemn tolling 
 of the church bell, and the news that the 
 eldest son and heir of the Earl was dead, 
 and was to be buried in the family vault, 
 caused a good deal of excitement; and 
 the Chequers was very full, and the cha- 
 racter of the new Lord Derwent was very 
 freely discussed. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny vainly tried to keep the 
 exciting news from Minna. 
 
 She heard the bell toll — she counted the 
 chimes which announced the years of the 
 deceased. 
 
 She asked Sam Devrill (the gardener's 
 boy) for whom the bell was tolling? And 
 Sam, proud of having such important news 
 to reveal, and not having been forewarned, 
 told her all he knew. 
 
 As she listened, she grew whiter even 
 than her wont. 
 
 " He is a Viscount now?" she murmured, 
 as she stole into the shrubbery to hide her 
 emotion; "and she, she will be called Lady
 
 216 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Derwent, and blaze and shine in courts; 
 and I, I must hide and slink through life 
 as Dorcas's niece — Mrs. Tibbs! How ray 
 father's honest pride is humbled ! How 
 often I see his cheek burn as he looks upon 
 me ! He thinks I have brought a blot — a 
 secret blot — but not the less galling to him 
 on that account — on his stainless, time- 
 honoured name. But had Providence sum- 
 moned the Earl instead of his son — and 
 were those bells tolling seventy instead of 
 forty- two — he should know the secret of my 
 life ! He should own that he has no reason 
 to blush for his child ! Oh, ray lost little 
 one! hadst thou but been spared to me, I 
 might have gloried in wealth and rank for 
 thy dear sake! Now, all I should wish 
 would be the power of proving myself a 
 wedded wife ; and that done, I should be 
 glad to die !"
 
 ACQUITTED. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 : Can storied urn or animated bust 
 
 Back to. its mansion call the fleeting breath; 
 Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 Or flatt'rv soothe the dull cold ear of Death ?" 
 
 Gray. 
 
 T was a very grand funeral. 
 
 The whole thing was managed 
 by B , the great London under- 
 taker. 
 
 The master of the ceremonies of the King 
 of Terrors! 
 
 Always officiating when the Dance of 
 Death was going on in the mansions of the 
 great ! 
 
 It was a marvel how so many magnifi- 
 cent black horses had been got together, 
 and how they had come down to Pencombe
 
 218 ACQUITTED. 
 
 "without any one being aware of their 
 arrival. 
 
 They had come by train till within a 
 short distance of Pencombe— which they 
 had reached during the night. 
 
 In Pencombe, on the day of the funeral 
 every house had its shutters closed. 
 
 The bell tolled at intervals, from morn- 
 ing till night. 
 
 Everybody in the village attended the 
 funeral ; black scarves, hatbands, and 
 gloves were lavishly bestowed wherever 
 the London undertaker could find or ima- 
 gine an excuse for supplying them — for all 
 these things contributed largely to swell 
 the funeral expenses. 
 
 Mr. Penryn and his son Paul, although 
 since the election they had been very little 
 noticed by the Earl, received from Lord 
 
 Altamount, through Mr. B , a formal 
 
 invitation to the funeral, and hatbands, 
 scarves, and gloves of the most expensive 
 kind.
 
 ACQUITTED. 219 
 
 It was early spring when Lord Derwent's 
 remains were borne in such pomp and state 
 from the Castle to the family vault. And 
 the young green of the trees contrasted 
 beautifully with the towering plumes of 
 black ostrich feathers shining in the spring 
 sun, and waving in the fresh breeze. 
 
 From behind the curtain of her window 
 (which looked on the churchyard) Minna 
 beheld the funeral procession. 
 
 She saw the Earl looking haggard and 
 old, in his deep mourning, his crape hat- 
 band and scarf and long black cloak. 
 
 He officiated as chief mourner, and leant 
 on the arm of one in whom Minna could 
 scarcely recognise — her husband ! 
 
 Fifteen years of course would naturally 
 make a very great difference in the appear- 
 ance of any man. To the eye of one who 
 had not seen him in the interim, it would 
 be more striking than to those who had 
 watched the gradual change from early 
 manhood to middle age.
 
 220 ACQUITTED. 
 
 But in addition to the natural effect of 
 time, the climate of India, dissipation, in- 
 temperance and bad passions, had contri- 
 buted to blot out all the beauty which 
 had once had such a magic charm for poor 
 Minna. 
 
 " How could I ever have loved him so 
 madly?" said Minna to herself as she 
 shrank from the window, utterly disen- 
 chanted. 
 
 She saw Paul and his father among the 
 mourners, and fancied that the bright clear 
 eyes of the handsome youth glanced up at 
 the Vicarage windows from beneath his 
 hat, surrounded as it was by a glossy silk 
 hatband. 
 
 -ji r£ ¥& % 
 
 The funeral was over, Lord Derwent lay 
 in the family vault. 
 
 Again the black plumes glistened in the 
 sun and waved in the breeze. 
 
 The Chequers was full to an overflow. 
 
 The mourners dispersed, and Mr. Tre-
 
 ACQUITTED. 221 
 
 lawny, with a burning spot on each cheek 
 and a smouldering fire in his eye, shut 
 himself up in his study. 
 
 He was much excited. He had met the 
 quailing eyes of the man who had blasted 
 his daughter's life. 
 
 He had felt as if he could gladly have 
 crushed him like a reptile beneath his foot, 
 and he had been compelled to smother his 
 just and natural indignation, and to bury 
 the Dead with becoming solemnity, while 
 the fiercest passions of his nature were busy 
 at his heart. 
 
 Mr. Trelawny guessed, from the quailing 
 expression of Jasper's evil eye, that he 
 imagined the Vicar had guessed that it 
 was with him his daughter had eloped. 
 
 Jasper had discovered that she had 
 written to her father to announce that she 
 intended to escape, and to embark in the 
 Golden Bengal. 
 
 He had no doubt she had perished in the 
 wreck of that vessel. He looked upon Dan
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Devrill's attempt to cast a doubt upon her 
 death as a trick to extort money, and he 
 utterly disbelieved and despised it. 
 
 He felt certain that Minna's father was 
 aware of her fate, and he hoped that as so 
 many years had passed since she had met 
 with a watery grave, he might be dis- 
 posed to let bygones be bygones, to for- 
 give and forget the past, and not to let the 
 memory of a disobedient and undutiful 
 daughter cause a lasting feud between him 
 and one, who in the course of things must 
 one day be Earl of Altamount, with a 
 living in his °rift worth ten times that of 
 Pencombe. 
 
 Had not Lord Derwent comforted him- 
 self with this view of the matter, he would 
 not at all have liked the idea of being in 
 the same neighbourhood with such a man 
 as Mr. Trelawny. 
 
 Sometimes he had thought of writing to 
 Mr. Trelawny, of owning that in the fever 
 and delirium of first love he had eloped
 
 ACQUITTKJk 
 
 with Minna, but that he had made her his 
 Avife, and had only concealed their mar- 
 riage from dread of his father's an^er. — 
 Now that he believed Minna to have been 
 drowned, and to have been fifteen years at 
 the bottom of the sea, he did not think 
 there could be any danger in owning to 
 Mr. Trelawny what might soothe his pride, 
 mitigate his wrath, and make him at least 
 a safe neighbour. 
 
 Even at the funeral; when he gazed at 
 the tall powerful form, and the fine proud 
 stern face of the Vicar, he felt much in- 
 clined, either by letter or in a personal 
 interview, to prove to him that he had not 
 dishonoured a daughter of the house of 
 Trelawny, and to promise him when the 
 Earl died, to have his first marriage re- 
 corded in all the Peerages. 
 
 He meant also to propose as a salvo 
 to the Vicar's wounded pride, that a 
 tablet should then be placed in Pencombe 
 Church,
 
 224 ACQUITTED. 
 
 En Jftcmoni of 
 MINNA, 
 
 First wife of Jasper Ardennes, 
 
 IXth Earl of Altamount, 
 
 And only child of the Rev. Henry Trelawny, M.A., Viear 
 
 of Pencombe, and Edith Minna his wife, 
 
 Who perished in the wreck of the " Golden Bengal," 
 
 off the Cornish coast, on its way to Galway, 
 
 Mt&t 22. 
 
 Also of the infant daughter of the above 
 
 MINNA ARDENNES, 
 
 Who perished in the same wreck, 
 
 JEtat. one year and two weeks. 
 
 " I think," said Jasper Lord Derwent, to 
 himself, "that will both inflate and soothe 
 the pride of the stiff-necked Vicar. 
 
 " I will also, as soon as I am Earl of Alta- 
 mount, give- a memorial window to Pen- 
 combe Church, in honour of my first wife, 
 and in this window the arms of the Tre- 
 lawnys shall be quartered with those of my 
 house. It will not be for the first time 
 either, as I will remind him — that will tickle 
 his vanity. Poor Minna ! I do owe her 
 some atonement. She did idolize me, and 
 was worth a thousand of the vain, selfish, 
 thankless, domineering woman, recklessly
 
 ACQUITTED. 22:. 
 
 extravagant, heartless, and ill-tempered, 
 whom I, blinded by passion, have made my 
 wife and my tormentor, and to whom I sacri- 
 ficed the most lovely and loving of her sex. 
 She'll be furious at these tributes to her 
 predecessor; but I shan't risk being knocked 
 on the head or throttled by Trelawny, to 
 please her." 
 
 It was in the afternoon of the day of the 
 funeral that Mr. Trelawny went out on the 
 beach to try to walk off the excitement of 
 his pent-up feelings. 
 
 Old Dorcas was gone to the village shop. 
 Barbara had been sent with some caudle 
 and baby's clothes to a poor woman recentlv 
 confined ; and Sam, the foot-boy, had accom- 
 panied Dorcas to bring home her purchases. 
 The old gardener was at the Chequers, 
 talking over the funeral; and Minna was 
 alone at the Vicarage. 
 
 The spring sun was shining, and his light 
 tempted the lonely and dejected lady to 
 pace up and down the avenue. 
 
 vol. i. 15
 
 226 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Suddenly she heard the bell of the back 
 gate ring. 
 
 " I must not answer that ring," she said 
 to herself. "It might be dangerous. I 
 might be recognised even now." 
 
 Again and again the bell was rung, and 
 still Minna, who had often been warned by 
 her father, went not to the gate. Anxious, 
 however, to see who it was, she drew her 
 shawl over her head, and returning, she 
 hurried upstairs into a loft which looked 
 into the road on which the back gate 
 opened. 
 
 She saw a man with a large basket of 
 coarse earthenware, and with mats, brooms, 
 and brushes for sale — a hawker or mugger. 
 
 " I may as well call out to the poor fellow 
 that nothing is wanted here," she said to 
 herself. 
 
 She was about to open the window, when 
 the " mugger" raised his head, and again 
 rang the bell. 
 
 Minnie then saw his face, on which the
 
 ACQUITTED. 227 
 
 sun shone, and in spite of his broken nose 
 and the scar across his cheek, in spite, 
 too, of the lapse of time since she had seen 
 him last, and a hat drawn down over his 
 brows, and a muffler drawn up to his nose ; 
 in spite, too, of a smockfrock, a sham hump, 
 and a well-simulated lameness, she reco^- 
 nised the evil countenance and fierce, cruel 
 eyes of Dan Devrill. 
 
 Nothing could be better contrived or more 
 complete than Dan Devrill's disguise. 
 
 It would have deceived the practised eye 
 of a London detective. 
 
 It was only owing to his pushing back 
 his hat and muffler for a moment (when he 
 felt sure that no eye was on him), that 
 Minna recognised the, to her, terrible face 
 of her husband's partner in crime. 
 
 From her post in the loft Minna watched 
 Dan Devrill's movements. 
 
 She saw him adroitly and with wondrous 
 speed apply a bit of wax to the key-hole of 
 the back-door. 
 
 1 5 — 2
 
 228 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Since the alarm, Mr. Trelawny had caused 
 some of Chubb's best locks to replace the 
 rusty commonplace old ones which had 
 hitherto been deemed a sufficient protection. 
 
 Wreckers were not uncommon on this 
 wild coast, but housebreakers had never 
 been heard of before at Pencombe. 
 
 Minna saw Dan Devrili carefully wrap 
 up in his old red-and-yellow cotton pocket- 
 handkerchief, and deposit in his basket, the 
 model he bad taken of the key-hole and 
 lock of the back door. He then moved 
 away with his wares, and from her com- 
 manding position Minna saw him cross the 
 anode of the common, and ensconce himself 
 in a sort of chalkpit, where, after drinking 
 the contents of a black bottle of Dutch build, 
 and eating some food he had with him, he 
 composed himself to sleep with his basket 
 by his side. 
 
 Just at this time Barbara returned. 
 
 Minna, who had the greatest possible 
 confidence both in Barbara's fidelity and in
 
 ACQUITTED, 229 
 
 her presence of mind, at once revealed to 
 her what had occurred. 
 
 Barbara turned red and pale by turns, 
 trembled, and was silent for a few moments. 
 
 " Then,'' she said, " I'll be one too many 
 for him yet, my dear mistress ; for his own 
 sake, as well as yours, I'll save him from the 
 gallows, Come with me to the Vicar's 
 room, and we'll get a telescope and other 
 matters that will be useful." 
 
 Minna followed Barbara to her father's 
 room. Barbara took a loaded pistol (a re- 
 volver), a small telescope, and one of a pile 
 of the bills that had been printed offering a 
 reward of 200£. for the apprehension of the 
 burglars. 
 
 " Now, ma'am," said Barbara, "first I'm 
 going back to the loft to discover by means 
 of this telescope exactly what he's doing." 
 
 Having adjusted the telescope, Barbara 
 cried, " Fast asleep as if he was as innocent 
 as a babbv, miss ; a drunken sleep, no doubt, 
 for the black bottle — c schiedam,' I know it
 
 230 ACQUITTED. 
 
 is, and smuggled, too — is empty beside him. 
 His arm is thrown across the basket, and I 
 can see the pocket-handkerchief and the 
 butt-end of a pistol. But never fear; I 
 know how sound Dan sleeps when that 
 strong liquor's in his head. I'm off." 
 
 " Oh, don't go, Barbara," said Minna, 
 pale and in tears. u He will kill you! Go 
 in search of the police, and have him taken 
 up by them." 
 
 " No, ma'am, no!" said Barbara, bravely. 
 l ' I cannot do that. Bad as he is, he's my 
 husband, and the father of my children. He 
 was my first and only love, and my head 
 has rested on his bosom, and I've sworn 
 to love him and be true to him many a 
 time. I know he well deserves hanging — 
 none more so ; but I, his wife, though I feel 
 it is my duty to save my dear master and 
 you from his villany, I will risk my own 
 life rather than let him meet the punish- 
 ment he deserves. Don't fear for me, miss; 
 I've ten times his pluck. You stay here and
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 watch through this telescope, and you'll see 
 there'll be no bloodshed, even if he wakes, 
 which I hope he wont/' 
 
 u I will come with you," said Minna ; 
 " and then if he tries to kill you, I can give 
 the alarm." 
 
 " No, ma'am, no ; the Vicar begged you'd 
 not stir out to-day — so many drunken people 
 are about after the funeral. You stay here. 
 I shan't be Ion g ^one." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Minna did not dare disobey her father. She 
 remained alone in the loft, watching with 
 trembling anxiety the movements of Bar- 
 bara. Presently she saw the tall, thin form 
 of the brave creature, dressed in black — 
 Barbara always wore black — flitting among 
 the furze bushes. She saw her enter the 
 chalkpit, not a deep one, bend over the 
 basket, withdraw the charge from the old 
 horse-pistol, and put into her pocket Dan 
 Devrill's store of ammunition. She then 
 took the wax model from the pocket-hand-
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 kerchief. In doing so she moved the snoring 
 Dan's arm. He growled, swore, and seemed 
 about to wake and rise, but sleep over- 
 powered him, and he snored again. Bar- 
 bara then adroitly fastened the poster offer- 
 ing the 200/. reward, to a ledge of chalk 
 exactly opposite the spot where he lay, and 
 so that his eye must fall upon it directly he 
 woke. 
 
 This done, Minna, to her inexpressible 
 relief, saw Barbara scramble up the chalk- 
 pit to hasten back. At this moment a wasp, 
 tempted by the smell of the schiedam yet 
 wet on Dan's lips, hovered near, brushing 
 his nose with his wings ; the wretch growled, 
 snored, and still half asleep, raised his hand 
 to beat the wasp off. 
 
 The irritated wasp stung the full red 
 sensual lip of the wrecker, who, maddened 
 by the pain, woke, sate up, and beheld the, 
 to him, dreadful poster, with the words, 
 " Attempted Burglary at Pencombe Vica- 
 rage, and 200/. reward," in monster letters.
 
 ACQUITTED. 233 
 
 At the same moment his eye fell on the 
 retreating form of Barbara, his wife. 
 
 " She knew me then," he said to himself, 
 with a hideous oath. u She's gone to peach, 
 to set the Peelers on me! She shan't live 
 to do it." He seized his pistol. Had not 
 Barbara so wisely withdrawn the charge 
 she must have fallen dead on the ground ; 
 as it was, at the noise of the click of the 
 weapon, she turned round. She was on a 
 height. 
 
 He was in the chalkpit. 
 
 She took her loaded revolver from her 
 breast, and cried, for he had risen to follow 
 her, " Remain where you are, or I fire. I 
 came to warn and save, not to destroy you. 
 Leave this neighbourhood for ever and at 
 once, or your doom is sealed. Even now I 
 can see the police coming this way." 
 
 It was true the patrol was at hand. 
 
 Dan Devrill, livid with fear and rage, 
 dashed the earthenware in his basket to 
 pieces.
 
 234 ACQUITTED. 
 
 It had been of no use to him, and he was 
 resolved it should be of none to anybody 
 else. He tore down the poster, and thrust it 
 in his bosom, with the pistol and the pocket- 
 handkerchief, from which he discovered, 
 with many a curse, that the wax model was 
 gone. And then he scrambled up the side 
 of the chalkpit, in the opposite direction to 
 that which Barbara had taken, and away he 
 rushed, like one pursued, across the com- 
 mon, and night found him still going on, 
 on, on, he knew not, cared not whither, 
 so that he £ot out of the neighbourhood of 
 Pencombe, and the chance of detection and 
 arrest,
 
 ACQUITTED. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Oh, how blest are ye whose toils are ended, 
 Who, through death, have unto God ascended, 
 
 Ye have arisen 
 From the cares which keep us still in prison." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 l15t 00R Mr< Peni r n ' left t0 himself b y 
 
 tfe^a the death of his wife and of his 
 aunt, spent his time principally in 
 the education of Paul. 
 
 Being an Oxford man himself, and having 
 taken high honours, he was admirably cal- 
 culated to prepare so intelligent, dutiful, 
 and docile a youth as Paul. A turbulent 
 or a rebellious pupil he could not have 
 managed. 
 
 They worked hard together, did the father 
 and son, with the view of Paul's competing 
 for an open scholarship at Baliol College
 
 236 ACQUITTED. 
 
 as soon as lie should have completed his 
 seventeenth year. 
 
 Paul dearly loved his father. 
 
 He revered him for his fine scholarship 
 and intellectual powers, even while he could 
 not but secretly deplore the amiable weak- 
 ness of his character, which showed itself in 
 his credulity, his too ready compliance with 
 the wishes of others, and the difficulty, nay 
 impossibility it was to him to refuse any- 
 thing asked of him, — in short, his reluctance 
 to say Xo. 
 
 Paul, aware of this weakness, but of 
 course respecting his father too much ever 
 to allude to it, tried all he could to supply 
 the place of that strong-minded noble- 
 hearted w^ife, and that resolute and almost 
 martial aunt, who had kept tempters from 
 Mr. Penryn's path. 
 
 But Paul himself, with all his intelligence, 
 his genius, and his moral courage was at 
 this time a simple-minded, inexperienced 
 country lad, much disposed to believe people
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 to be what they appeared, and that they 
 thought, felt, and meant what they ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 Penrvn Manor House was an interesting 
 old place, and the home farm attached to 
 it supplied the father and son with most 
 of the necessaries of life; but both were 
 left, by Paul's provident grandfather, who 
 knew his son's weakness, so tied up and so 
 entailed, that even if he had wished it, or 
 needed it ever so much, he could not have 
 raised sixpence on it. 
 
 Miss Priscilla Penryn, who had had a 
 small fortune of her own, distrusting her 
 nephew's weakness as much as his father had 
 done, left her little all to him and to Paul after 
 him, still more heavily fettered and tightly 
 secured; at any attempt at forestalling it, 
 it was to be forfeited to a public charity — 
 namely, the Penzance " Idiot Asylum/' to 
 which, in such a case, even in her will she 
 prophesied her brother would ultimately be 
 consigned.
 
 238 ACQUITTED. 
 
 It was now many years since Miss Pris- 
 cilla and Mrs. Penryn, who thought discre- 
 tion the better part of valour, had reso- 
 lutely put Mr. Penryn out of the reach of 
 Mr. Downy's specious arguments, and the 
 great temptation he held out to him of 
 trebling his niece's little fortune. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Penryn had often 
 seen Sligo Downy's name as the actuary of 
 a very popular and flourishing life assurance 
 — as on the committee of many promising 
 speculations, and joint-stock banks; and 
 latterly it had figured as connected with 
 a project for converting into a fashionable 
 watering-place — by means of a great 
 Building Society, of which he was a go- 
 vernor — a small picturesque hamlet, called 
 " Beech," not more than a mile from Pen- 
 combe. 
 
 Owing to this speculation, Downy was at 
 Pencombe at the time of Lord Derwent's 
 burial. 
 
 As he and Mr. B were old friends.
 
 ACQUITTED. 239 
 
 he was of course invited to the funeral, and 
 supplied with a hatband, scarf, and gloves. 
 
 After the funeral, Sligo Downy drew near 
 to Mr. Penryn, who with his son Paul had 
 withdrawn to a certain shady nook beneath 
 a branching yew tree, where a marble slab 
 revealed the entrance to the family vault of 
 the Penryn s of Penryn Manor. The names 
 of those recently interred there were legible, 
 but many of those of past centuries were 
 some of them quite, and some partly 
 effaced. 
 
 Paul and his father had planted violets 
 round this slab, and they were now in 
 bloom, and they embalmed the air. 
 
 They were gazing with moistened eyes 
 on the name of Eva Maria Penryn, beloved 
 wife of Paul Penryn, Esquire, setat. 35 — 
 followed by that of Priscilla Xerissa Pen- 
 ryn, spinster, aetat, 84 — when a shadow was 
 thrown on those two names on which the 
 sun was shining; and, turning round, Mr. 
 Penryn and Paul beheld the stout form of
 
 240 ACQUITTED. 
 
 an elderly man standing, uncovered, behind 
 them, holding his hat, decked with a rich 
 silk hatband, in his hand, and a very large 
 organ of benevolence literally shining on 
 the top of his bald head. 
 
 Mr. Penryn, always absent, did not at 
 first recognise Sligo Downy. 
 
 "Your servant, sir!" said Downy. " For- 
 give my intruding, but I had heard of your 
 bereavements, sir ! I wished to bow before 
 the last resting-place of those two admirable 
 ladies ! Beautiful woman, the late Mrs. 
 Penryn ! and good as beautiful, and wise as 
 good ! And your aunt, sir ! fine old lady ! 
 Allow me to bend my knee, and to drop a 
 tear, sir!" 
 
 Mr. Penryn, who had a quick sense of 
 the ludicrous, could hardly repress a smile. 
 
 Paul must have laughed, but that he re- 
 membered who was lying there ; and then 
 his young heart was full of tears. 
 
 " Ah, well, sir ! we must all die !" re- 
 sumed Sligo Downy. "They've the best
 
 ACQUITTED. 241 
 
 of it, sir! I'm glad to see you looking 
 well, all things considered. I meant to 
 have done myself the honour of calling 
 upon you, sir. Are you going home? if 
 so, my carriage is at hand, close by. Allow 
 me to see you and this young gentleman to 
 your own door ! — Fine youth, sir!" he said 
 (holding his hand to his lips so that Paul 
 might not hear). " Mother's beauty, and 
 father's intellect ! — There's my carriage." 
 
 He raised his stick, and the footman per- 
 ceiving him, the carriage — a very smart 
 new brougham, with a pair of glossy grey 
 horses — drove up. Mr. Penryn got in, be- 
 cause he was requested to do so, and could 
 not say Xo. 
 
 Paul, who wanted to hurry down to the 
 beach before dinner to learn from Rosy 
 when Mary was expected, politely declined, 
 and set off across the fields to the lane that 
 led to the sands. 
 
 When Mr. Penryn and Sligo Downy ar- 
 rived at the Manor House, the former 
 
 vol. 1. 16
 
 242 ACQUITTED. 
 
 thought he could not do less than ask the 
 latter to walk in; and on Mr. Downy 's re- 
 marking that he should scarcely get back 
 to the Chequers before the fish he had 
 ordered was boiled to rags, and the fowl 
 dried to a cinder, Mr. Penryn asked him to 
 stay to dinner. 
 
 Mr. Downy did not touch on matters of 
 business at first, but he did go so far as to 
 say that he had seen Ann Penryn lately, 
 that she was grown a pretty but rather 
 delicate girl, and that when the old lady, 
 her aunt, dropt, and Ann had only her 
 thousand pounds to look to, he couldn't think 
 what would become of her ! 
 
 " Ah, my dear sir," he added, "that poor 
 little thousand, the orphan's pittance, would 
 have trebled itself by this time if you'd 
 sold out and invested it as I wished you to 
 do some years ago ! Two thousand five 
 hundred pounds in the name of Sir Simon 
 Cribb, a friend of mine, also in the 3 per 
 cents., have now — in the same concern I
 
 ACQUITTED. 243 
 
 recommended to you — have now become five 
 thousand pounds. He knew I never make 
 a mistake. That money was not his, he 
 was only trustee for a sister's son. He's 
 put four thousand into the 3 per cents, for 
 his nephew's benefit, and one thousand he's 
 kept for himself, and handed it over to me 
 to treble for him, as he said, in the last, 
 safest, and best of all my speculations, 
 namely, the New Building Company for 
 converting the hamlet of Beech into a 
 fashionable watering-place ; a pier, public 
 baths, a reading-room, an assembly-room, 
 and a hundred villas, besides two large 
 hotels, are now decided on." 
 
 At this moment, Paul, who never failed 
 in punctuality, came into the drawing-room 
 ready for dinner, and the next moment old 
 Patience, the one servant of the family, 
 announced that it was on the table. 
 
 Mr. Sligo Downy was full of anecdote 
 and small- talk 
 
 He amused Mr. Penryn and delighted 
 
 1G— 2
 
 2U ACQUITTED. 
 
 Paul, to whom all his stories and jokes were 
 new. 
 
 He lingered on till a late hour, and then 
 said he dreaded to go back to his bed at 
 the Chequers, giving a ludicrous descrip- 
 tion of its discomforts. 
 
 Mr. Penryn, who had several spare 
 rooms, at once offered him a bed, and 
 Downy gladly accepted it. 
 
 Paul, who always rose very early to study, 
 retired at ten o'clock, just as Mr. Penryn 
 had ordered (urged to do so by sundry 
 hints of Downy's) a kettle of boiling water, 
 sugar and a lemon, and had gone down 
 into the cellar to bring thence one of his 
 few remaining bottles of fine old Cognac, 
 and one of Jamaica rum. 
 
 An old china bowl and a silver ladle 
 with a twisted whalebone handle, and a 
 guinea at the bottom of the bowl, having 
 caught the mild blue eye which Downy so 
 often moistened with a tear, he proposed to 
 Mr. Penryn to concoct a bowl of punch,
 
 ACQUITTED. 245 
 
 professing to have a receipt given to his 
 father by the great Richard Brinsley 
 Sheridan himself. 
 
 Mr. Penryn was very fond of punch, but 
 had not tasted any for many years. 
 
 He could not say " no" to any proposition, 
 and least of all to that. 
 
 Mr. Downy's horses and carriage had 
 been put up at Mr. Penryn's, and Patience 
 was driven almost wild by having to pro- 
 vide supper and beds for the coachman and 
 footman. 
 
 Mr. Penryn, unaccustomed to drink 
 punch, soon became a little fuddled. 
 
 Sligo Downy (a well-seasoned toper) pre- 
 tended to be so, but was not the least affected 
 bv the beverage. 
 
 He now had it all his own way. 
 
 There was no strong-minded, true-hearted 
 wife, no resolute, clear-sighted aunt, to rush 
 in to the rescue. 
 
 Downy convinced him that he could 
 easily enable him to treble Ann Penryn's
 
 246 ACQUITTED. 
 
 little fortune, and clear a thousand pounds 
 for himself, as Sir Simon Cribb had done. 
 
 Mr. Penryn had no command of money, 
 and he wanted books for Paul, but he said 
 he would not touch a penny, till, instead 
 of the one thousand, sold out of the 3 per 
 cents., he had -invested three thousand for 
 Ann's use! 
 
 Another glass, and then another, and 
 " one bumper at parting," and then Mr. 
 Downy proposed, that as his carriage, 
 horses and servants were in attendance, 
 they should start for London by the ex- 
 press, which left Pencombe station at 6.15, 
 to do which they must be up and off at 
 5.45. 
 
 " You can be back again here in less than 
 forty-eight hours," he said ; and then Mr. 
 Penryn really very unsteady and stagger- 
 ing, and Sligo Downy pretending to be so, 
 they retired.
 
 ACQUITTED. 2+7 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 For he can smile and smile, and be a villain." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 sis 
 
 OWNY was up again at five. 
 
 He went to Mr. Penryn's door 
 and called him. 
 He had already roused his own servants 
 up, and they were busy getting the carriage 
 ready. 
 
 Mr. Penryn was sleepy and giddy, and 
 felt very unwilling to rise, but Downy kept 
 him up to the mark. 
 
 He even helped him to dress, and made 
 him drink a glass of " early purl," which 
 he had mixed in his own room, and which 
 he said was a specific to keep off cold and 
 headache.
 
 248 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Having taken this mixture, Mr. Penryn, 
 who was beginning to have misgivings and 
 to think of drawing back, was again in 
 Downy's power. 
 
 The carriage drove up to the door. 
 
 " I must say good-bye to my boy," said 
 Mr. Penryn, pushing open the door of 
 Paul's room. 
 
 Paul was already hard at work, studying 
 Sophocles by candle-light. 
 
 " Good-bye, Paul; I'm going to town on 
 business," said his father. 
 
 "With Mr. Downy, father?" said Paul. 
 
 " Yes, my boy! I can't go in better com- 
 pany. Come and kiss me, Paul !" 
 
 Paul obeyed. He thought his father's 
 manner very strange, and that he smelt of 
 spirits and peppermint. 
 
 He had a faint recollection, too, of having 
 heard his mother and his aunt speak of 
 Downy as a dangerous man. 
 
 " Let me go with you, father," said 
 Pan.
 
 A( QUITTED. 249 
 
 "No, no, Paul; you stay and take care 
 ot' the house and of old Patty. Good-bye, 
 my dear boy !" 
 
 Paul attended his father to the carriage, 
 and watched till it was out of sight; and 
 then, rather disquieted, he returned to his 
 books. 
 
 Downy carried his point, but not without 
 a great deal of trouble. 
 
 Mr. Penryn had many misgivings. 
 
 It was the next day, after an early din- 
 ner, which he called luncheon, at Downy's 
 chambers, that Mr. Penryn, having taken a 
 good deal of fine old wine, Scotch ale, and 
 a glass of grog, got into Downy's carriage 
 and drove to the P>ank. 
 
 Even at the last, before he could be in- 
 duced actually to sell out the thousand 
 pounds invested by him as trustee, Downy 
 was obliged to give Mr. Penryn his note 
 of hand for the money, payable at three 
 months. 
 
 "The shares are going up so!'' said
 
 250 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Downy; "the thousand will be doubled by 
 that time. In fact, there wont be a share 
 to be had. It's a regular case of gobbling. 
 But if youVe got a ghost of a doubt or a 
 shadow of a fear on your mind, I'll give 
 you my I U, or my note of hand pay- 
 able at three months — the note of hand of 
 a man worth a hundred thousand pounds 
 if he's worth a penny. Come, you over- 
 squeamish guardian and over-tremulous 
 trustee, I think that clenches the matter ! 
 And by Jove we must be quick, for the 
 3 per cents, close in less than an hour!" 
 
 He took a stamped paper from his pocket, 
 converted it into a promissory note for 
 1000/. at three months' date, handed it, 
 with a flourish and a tear, to Mr. Penryn, 
 and then got him downstairs into the car- 
 riage and off to the Bank. 
 
 It was done — the trust-money was sold 
 out, the 1000/. was in Sligo Downy 's 
 hands, to be invested in his " newest, 
 safest, and best speculation."
 
 ACQUITTED. 251 
 
 Sligo Downy drove Mr. Penryn to the 
 South- Western Station just in time. 
 
 " Poor little Ann Penryn ! she'll thank 
 me and bless you for this day's work some 
 day," said Sligo Downy, with a tear in his 
 mild blue eye, as he waved his hat and 
 displayed his organ of benevolence, looking 
 brighter, whiter, and larger than ever. 
 
 Mr. Penryn slept almost all the way back, 
 thanks to Sligo Downy's early dinner and 
 alcohol in many shapes. 
 
 Paul was at the station watching; for his 
 father. 
 
 It was then just twenty- four hours since 
 Mr. Penryn had sold out the thousand 
 pounds, Ann's little fortune! 
 
 In the solitude and silence of Pen combe 
 Manor House Mr. Penryn sometimes grew 
 rather nervous about Ann Penryn's trust 
 money, but in a few days he received a 
 letter from Downy, saying " the shares 
 were going up every hour, and that he had 
 already made the sum fifteen hundred."
 
 252 ACQUITTED. 
 
 After this some time elapsed, and Mr. 
 Penryn heard no more. 
 
 Again he grew nervous and fidgety, but 
 he comforted himself by taking out Downy 's 
 note of hand. " At the worst," he said to 
 himself, u let the speculation succeed or 
 not, let the shares be at a premium, par, or 
 discount, here's the promissory note of a 
 man worth a hundred thousand pounds !" 
 
 One morning Mr. Penryn, who was not 
 habitually an early riser, being deficient 
 in that resolution which can conquer the 
 temptation of an extra half hour in a warm 
 bed, rose from a night of broken slumbers 
 and painful dreams. 
 
 Having thought a good deal of his brother 
 James during the day (as connected with 
 his orphan girl's little fortune) he naturally 
 dreamt of him at night. 
 
 He thought he saw him looking pale, re- 
 proachful, and even angry, and that he said 
 " I trusted thee, brother ; how hast thou re- 
 paid that trust? look at my child."
 
 ACQUITTED. 253 
 
 Mr. Penryn fancied that looking through 
 the window of a room in which they had 
 once lodged together (the first time they 
 were taken to town) he saw a pale thin girl, 
 barefooted and in rags, selling matches 
 in the streets, and crying with cold and 
 hunger, and that his brother James said 
 to him, " That is thy work! oh, unjust 
 steward." 
 
 This dream was so vivid that it haunted 
 Mr. Penryn long after he was awake. 
 
 He hoped to shake it off by rising and 
 taking a turn in the garden. 
 
 It was a lovely morning in May. 
 
 Nine o'clock was the breakfast hour at 
 Penryn Manor, but the post came in at 
 eight. 
 
 Old Patience always put the letters and 
 papers on the breakfast table. 
 
 Mr. Penryn had latterly become intensely 
 anxious for letters. 
 
 He went downstairs as soon as he was 
 dressed.
 
 254 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Old Patience, or Patty, as Paul called her, 
 was an excellent servant. 
 
 The breakfast table was spread in what 
 had once been the great hall of the Manor 
 House. 
 
 It was placed in a window recess. 
 
 Though Patty did everything herself, 
 and was cook, housemaid, laundress, and 
 waitress, everything was as nice (ay, and 
 much nicer) than in many houses where 
 there is a set of servants. 
 
 The sun came in through a quaint old 
 gothic window of stained glass, on which 
 were emblazoned the arms of the Penryns 
 of Penryn, with their motto 
 
 "NEC TeMERE NEC TlMIDE." 
 
 On the snow-white cloth, the china and 
 the beautifully bright, old-fashioned silver, 
 the sun shining through the stained glass, 
 threw a bright mosaic of green, blue, 
 crimson, purple, and gold. 
 
 Mr. Penryn's arm-chair was placed ready
 
 ACQUITTED. 25; 
 
 for him, and on his plate lay the Penzance 
 Chronicle, which came out every Saturday. 
 
 There were no letters. 
 
 Mr. Penryn sat down in his arm-chair, 
 meaning to open the leaves of the paper 
 with one of the knives, so sharp, bright, and 
 worn, on the table, and then to take it with 
 him into the garden to read it till breakfast 
 time. 
 
 He had scarcely, however, glanced at the 
 leading article, when a cry of horror and 
 dismay escaped his blanched lips. The 
 words " Sudden bursting of the Great 
 Bubbles — The Pen combe Mining Company, 
 and the Beech Villa Building Society. 
 Sligo Downy, manager, absconded. His 
 fraudulent bankruptcy debts, three hundred 
 thousand pounds. Assets nil." 
 
 A sudden dizziness prevented Mr. Pen- 
 ryn's reading more than these dreadful 
 words. 
 
 For a minute his heart ceased to beat. 
 
 The icy cold of death stole over his frame.
 
 256 ACQUITTED. 
 
 The paper fell from his nerveless hand, 
 and fluttered to the ground. 
 
 His eyes closed, and he leant back in his 
 chair insensible. 
 
 Mr. Penryn had fainted.
 
 ACQUITTED. 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt." 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson. 
 
 |E left Dan Devrill, in his disguise as 
 a hawker, and in his abject terror 
 of the police and of detection and 
 apprehension. Lurrying along, unconscious 
 of fatigue, bent only on getting out of Corn- 
 wall and into Devonshire, among whose 
 riant rocks were hiding-places with which 
 he was well acquainted. 
 
 He knew that the warrant, which had 
 probably been issued for the arrest of the 
 supposed burglars, would be available only 
 in Cornwall, and therefore he associated 
 with Devonshire a sense of comparative, 
 though but temporary, security. 
 
 vol. I. I?
 
 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Who can tell what terrible consciousness 
 of undetected crime made him shake as with 
 an ague fit, at the thought of being taken ? 
 
 He well knew that when the man of 
 many crimes is taken and in the grip of the 
 law, evil deeds of long past years often 
 come to light, and Dan shuddered at the 
 thought that the wretch arrested as a 
 burglar might be tried for his vile life as a 
 murderer. 
 
 He had just reached the point where, as 
 he well knew, Cornwall adjoined Devon- 
 shire. 
 
 He recognised the spot, for a crime had 
 been committed there some two years back, 
 and no one knew better than Dan Devrill 
 by whom the dastardly deed was done. 
 
 The victim was a gentleman who had, by 
 strong, bold swimming, saved his life and 
 his money and valuables from the wreck of 
 the Indiana, and who, wandering to the 
 outskirts of this wild village in search of 
 food and shelter, had been overtaken and
 
 ACQUITTED. 25 > 
 
 savagely murdered by wreckers from the 
 coast below. 
 
 Taking alarm at the sound of approach- 
 ing steps and voices before they had dis- 
 posed of the murdered gentleman's body, 
 the wretches had taken to flight. 
 
 They had never been convicted, though 
 a large reward was offered. Even now, two 
 years after that dastardly and cruel murder, 
 a large old poster was still affixed to the 
 Avail of an unfinished building ; and as Dan 
 Devrill emerged from a copse in which he 
 had been hiding, and ascended the hill that 
 led to the village of Leabrook, the moon 
 came out from behind a cloud and shone 
 full on the words " Mukden — Wreckers — 
 500/. Reward." 
 
 This sum had been offered by the rela- 
 tives of the murdered gentleman, whose 
 identity had been established by the marks 
 on his linen, and some papers which the 
 wreckers had not had time to destroy. 
 
 He had been a <?ood, noble hearted,
 
 260 ACQUITTED. 
 
 generous man, and when it beeame known 
 to his wife and family that their beloved, 
 whom the waves had spared, had been mur- 
 dered by vile wreckers, the desire to bring 
 the murderers to the gallows became the 
 one great object of the victim's relatives. 
 
 " Confound that cussed poster," said Dan 
 Devrill, with an oath, " who'd ever have 
 thought that, after two years and more, that 
 would be staring one in the face still? How 
 well I remember hiding up behind that 'ere 
 wall with Kit Koffin. Poor Kit, he's at Port- 
 land, rent free, leastways wor when last I 
 heerd on him. Cuss that poster, says I !" 
 
 He picked up a large sharp stone, and 
 flung it fiercely at the word " Murder." 
 
 He flung the stone with such force that 
 a bat, roused from his grim repose, flew out 
 of the unfinished building, and several 
 bricks fell inside the wall. 
 
 "Hollo! who's there? What are you 
 after?" cried a voice from behind the wall, 
 and through one of the apertures meant for
 
 ACQUITTED. 201 
 
 a window an evil countenance and a shaggy 
 head was protruded. 
 
 "What, Kit Koffin, is that thee? who'd 
 ever expected to see thee alive and out 
 o' limbo." 
 
 " What, Dan Devrill, is that thee, mate? 
 I'm right glad to see thee, I've work in 
 hand that made me wish for just such a pal 
 as thee !" 
 
 " I'm agreeable and ready, Kit," said 
 Dan ; " but let's get away from this cussed 
 spot. There's that confounded poster 
 staring one in the face, and the lane round 
 the corner ain't the scene of my pleasantest 
 recollections !" 
 
 " Well, I only took a bit o' a rest here, 
 but a mile on down on the beach my boat's 
 moored, so if you like, we'll push on so far, 
 and then we'll make for the Jolly Tar, at 
 
 S . I've shot in the locker, mate, if 
 
 you've none, and a good bed and a good 
 supper, and a glass of good grog will give 
 me strength to expound to you, and you to
 
 262 ACQUITTED. 
 
 hear and understand, how, if you're the 
 bold chap you were two year ago, we may 
 go snacks to the tune of five hundred pounds 
 each." 
 
 "Come along, meate, I'm your man!" - 
 said Dan Devrill, as Kit Koffin, taking a 
 flask from his pocket, handed it to his old 
 companion in iniquity, who drained it to 
 the dregs. 
 
 The two wreckers then hobbled away 
 together, both weary and footsore, but 
 animated by the prospect of renewing their 
 old partnership, and refreshed by the pros- 
 pect of sharing together the blood-stained 
 fruits of some fresh crime. 
 
 " Whatever' s that?" said Dan, as some- 
 thing flitted past him. "And Kit, look 
 there !" 
 
 It was the bat returning to his "Ni^ht 
 Refuge," whose funereal wings had struck 
 Dan Devrill in the face. 
 
 The object to which he directed Kit 
 Koran's attention was the shadow of a
 
 AC QUITTED. 2(53 
 
 sign-post thrown by the moon on the wall, 
 and which looming there black and huge, 
 appeared to the terrified and conscience- 
 stricken Dan what he most dreaded on 
 earth — a gallows. 
 
 " Why, thee never ain't a going to turn 
 coward — thee as never feared man nor 
 devil?" 
 
 11 I'm that hungry and dry and dead-beat, 
 that's all, meate,'' said Dan, apologetically. 
 
 " Aye, thee be many a cup too low, so 
 push on; I'll row thee in a jtiFy to the 
 Jolly Tar. A glass of good grog will warm 
 thy blood, meate. Hang it, we must all 
 die, but at least let's die game." 
 
 The wretched Dan tried to follow Kit's 
 advice. But terror had taken full posses- 
 sion of the cowardly ruffian's heart. He 
 trembled in every limb, but he forced him- 
 self to hobble, footsore and weary as he was, 
 after the bolder ruffian. 
 
 He could not bear to be left alone, and 
 so near that hideous gibbet, too.
 
 264 ACQUITTED. 
 
 Luckily for Dan, Kit, whistling as he 
 
 went on before, did not see that his 
 wretched accomplice was livid and shaking, 
 and that tears of utter misery were stream- 
 ing down his ashy, hollow cheeks. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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