Eustace Marchmont: a Friend of the People
Copyright© 2025 by Evelyn Everett-Green
Chapter 11: Duke and Defaulter
BRIDE made three steps forward and stood beside the horse ridden by the young officer, the moonlight shining clear upon her, and adding to the pure pale character of her beauty.
“Captain O’Shaughnessy,” she said gently, “I think you are making a mistake about this man.”
In a second the young officer was off his horse and on his feet. He recognised the speaker now, although his astonishment at such an encounter at such an hour of the night—or rather morning, for the dawn would soon begin to break—was past all power of expression.
“Lady Bride!—Can it be you? or do I see a ghost?”
“No, it is I,” answered the girl quietly; “I came out with our good clergyman, Mr. Tremodart, to see if we could persuade our foolish and misguided fishermen from St. Bride to come quietly home. We were afraid they were bent on mischief. But we only came up as the crowd was dispersing. Your prisoner there was refusing to permit an attack on the machinery at Farmer Teazel’s, which the men were eager to make. That is why I say that I think you are making a mistake in arresting him.”
The young officer, who had received hospitality from the Duke on occasion, as all the officers of the regiment quartered near to Pentreath did from time to time, looked from his prisoner to the lady and from the lady to the prisoner in some perplexity, and then said doubtfully—
“Do you not think you are mistaken, Lady Bride? Was not the man urging them to make the attack?”
“No,” answered Bride at once. “He would have been willing to do so had they marched upon my father’s place, where there would have been a warm welcome for them, and hard fighting; but his followers were not prepared for that. They wished to go where there would be little or no resistance, and where they could effect their purpose with impunity. But your prisoner there threatened to knock down the first man who attempted such a thing, and his words had the effect of dispersing the crowd. As you yourself saw, he was alone when you came up. But for him, that dispersed crowd would have been in full march upon one of the nearest farms here. Are you arresting him for that?”
“Faith no!” answered the young man, evidently rather nonplussed by the lady’s story, and uncertain how to proceed. “Nevertheless this is the man, as I take it, whom I was sent out to capture. Is not your name Saul Tresithny?” he asked, turning towards the prisoner, who stood perfectly still and quiet between his guards, making no attempt at escape.
“Yes.”
“And you were leading the mob in Pentreath this night—helping to set fire to the mills?”
“I was with them part of the time,” answered Saul fearlessly.
“And you are the man who makes speeches that sends them all stark raving mad? I’ve heard of you, Saul Tresithny. I think it is high time you had a taste of prison discipline.”
“I do what I can for the cause of freedom,” answered Saul, throwing back his head with a gesture that was rather fine. “I cry death to tyranny and tyrants wherever they be, but I’ll have no hand in harming poor men’s goods. If my men would have marched on the castle to-night, I’d have led them with all my best ability; but they had not the stomach for it—poor, ill-fed wretches—one can’t wonder. Courage and starvation are not wont to walk hand in hand, so they melted away like a mist just before you came. But I am here, ready to lay down my life for the cause, if that will be any good to it.”
The young officer shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the lady with a gesture that spoke volumes.
“There, Lady Bride, you see what kind of a temper that fellow has got; your pleadings are quite thrown away on such as he.”
“He is only repeating what he has been taught, and that by those who should know better,” pleaded Bride gently, yet earnestly. “Captain O’Shaughnessy, I have known that young man all my life, and until he was led away by the voice of this cruel agitation he bore the best of characters; and to-night he has dispersed a lawless mob by the strength of his own determination. Men are not punished for their intentions but for their deeds. He says he would have injured my father’s property; but he did not do it. What he did do was all in the cause of law and order. Mr. Tremodart, tell Captain O’Shaughnessy what we saw and heard; then he will understand better that he is making a mistake about Saul.”
“I can only testify that what you’ve said is the truth, Lady Bride. I can’t say, of course, what the young man has been doing earlier on; but we came out to try and stop the boys of St. Bride from getting intu mischief, which is a way they have when mischief is afloat; and we came upon the young fellow making a speech which had the effect of sending them tu the right-about and dispersing them. That’s all true as gospel; but whether yu are justified in letting your prisoner escape yu, I don’t profess to judge. Yu should know your duty better than we can teach it yu.”
“And I’m afraid my duty is to arrest him and take him back to Pentreath,” said the young man regretfully. “Lady Bride, I don’t like doing anything against your wishes, but my orders were to ride after the mob and disperse it, and capture Saul Tresithny if possible. I don’t think I should be justified in letting him escape me after that—once having my hands upon him. You wouldn’t wish me, I am sure, to fail in my own duty and obedience?”
The young fellow spoke almost pleadingly, and Bride’s face changed. The soft eager light went out of her eyes, and was replaced by one of sadness and resignation.
“I must persuade no one to fail in duty and obedience,” she said, with a sigh, “least of all one of his Majesty’s soldiers. But will you remember all that I have spoken in his favour, and let it be known what he did to-night?”
“Faith and I will. I’ll say everything I can in his favour—how he didn’t resist us, but behaved as quietly and as well as possible, and had sent all the people to the right-about before ever we had got up to them. I’ll say everything I know for him, poor fellow. For he’ll need it—with the charges they’ll bring against him.”
The soldiers, at a sign from their superior, had walked the prisoner a little farther away, and Bride, looking anxiously into Captain O’Shaughnessy’s face, asked, in a low voice—
“What charges will they bring?”
“Arson, for one thing,” answered the young man significantly. “You see, there’s been a lot of damage done in Pentreath to-night, and it’s pretty well known that Tresithny and another little cobbler fellow have been the stirrers-up of all this turbulence. They’ve got the cobbler fast enough; and now I’ve got Tresithny too. They’ll be examined to-morrow before the magistrates, and most likely committed for trial. It’s been a bad bit of business, and the country is getting exasperated with all this senseless rioting and destruction of property. They make signal examples now and again of ringleaders—just to try and deter others.”
Bride turned very white in the dying moonlight.
“What do you think they will do to him?” she asked, in a low voice.
“Well, I can’t say. I’ll tell all you’ve told me, Lady Bride. I’ll say what there is to say in his favour, for he’s a plucky fellow, and deserves a better fate. He’d make an uncommon fine soldier, if he were only in the ranks now. But many men have been hanged for less than has been astir in Pentreath these past few days, and there’s a strong feeling in the place against this fellow Tresithny.”
Bride caught her breath a little sharply, but her voice was quite calm as she bowed her adieus to the young officer.
“Well, I must not detain you any longer, Captain O’Shaughnessy. I am grateful to you for telling me the truth, and for promising to befriend Saul Tresithny as far as you are able. You say he will be brought before the magistrates to-morrow—does that mean to-day? It is their day for sitting, I know.”
“To-day! why, to be sure it is to-day,” answered the young man, with a short laugh. “Good morning, Lady Bride. I must be off after my men. They have been out the best part of the night. I’ll say all I can for that fellow Tresithny; but——”
He sprang on his horse, and the rest of the sentence, if it was ever finished, was lost on Bride. She took Mr. Tremodart’s arm, and he felt that she was trembling all over.
“This has been too much for you, Lady Bride,” he said, with his awkward gentleness. “I ought not to have let you come.”
“It is not that,” answered Bride, in a very low voice. “I am not tired; it is the thought of that. Oh, Mr. Tremodart, is it true?—can they hang him for it?”
“The magistrates cannot hang him,” answered Mr. Tremodart; “and if he is committed for trial, several weeks will elapse before the assize comes on, and things may have happened to divert public attention; so perhaps the feeling against him will not be running so high. All those things make a great difference.”
“But have they hanged men before for this sort of thing?”
“Yes—they have certainly done so.”
Bride shuddered again. She spoke some words, as if to herself, in so low a voice that he could not catch them; but he thought he heard the name of Eustace pass her lips.
He shook his own head sorrowfully.
“I was afraid Mr. Marchmont was wrong in trying to stir up the people to be discontented and rebellious. He meant well—all those reformers mean well, and have a great deal on their side; but they go to work so often in the wrong way, and their followers make the blunder ten times worse. It’s not easy to say out of hand how the thing should be done; but I take it they’ve not got hold of the right end of the stick yet.”
The two walked with rapid steps, their thoughts keeping them silent for the most part. Bride’s mind was hard at work; her feelings were keenly stirred within her. The burden of the song which kept ringing in her ears was, “This is Eustace’s doing, this is Eustace’s work. Oh, how can we let another die, and die perhaps unfit and impenitent through his act, through his teaching? It must not be. Oh, it shall not be! Saul must not die through Eustace’s fault!”
Bride had come to think of Eustace in a way she scarcely understood herself. She had not greatly liked him on his visit. For many weeks she had thought little of him, and later on, when she knew him better, she saw too much in him to disapprove to grow in any way dependent upon him. And yet since his departure she was conscious that he filled a good deal of her thoughts, that she felt a certain responsibility in his career, and that she was unable to help identifying herself with him in a fashion she could neither understand nor explain.
True he had made her an offer of marriage, and had professed an undying love for her. He had gone away half pledged to return and seek her again; and no woman can be utterly indifferent towards a man who loves her, especially when she is young, and has never known what it is to be wooed before. Bride had shrunk back in justifiable reproof when Eustace spoke of her as being the sun and star of his life, the elevating power which could raise him to what heights she would; but none the less did his words leave an impress on her sensitive mind, and gave her much food for reflection. She was too well taught, as well as too full of spiritual insight, to be confused by such an outburst, or to come to look upon herself as responsible for the soul of the man who had almost offered it to her to make what she would of; but she had begun to wonder what she might be able to do for him by prayer and unceasing intercession, and the thought was helping her to take a keener and more personal interest in any matter in which Eustace was concerned than would otherwise have been the case.
The dawn was breaking as Bride reached home, but she slipped up to her room unobserved. She was too worn out and weary to think any more just then; and slipping off her clothes and getting into bed, she fell into a deep sleep, which lasted till the attendant came to rouse her in the morning.
Refreshed by those few hours of dreamless sleep, but with her mind as full as before of the events of the past night, she rose and dressed, and found her way to the breakfast-room just as her father was entering.
The Duke’s face was very stern. He had just heard of the riots in Pentreath. Mr. St. Aubyn had come half-an-hour earlier to speak to him on the matter. He was on his way to Pentreath, for both he and Mr. Tremodart, according to the prevailing custom of the day, were on the magisterial bench, and he often came in on his way to a sitting to consult the Duke on some point of law, or ask leave to look in his many and valuable books for some information on a knotty point. He was in the library at this moment, and the Duke was ordering some refreshment to be taken to him there, as he had no time to come to the breakfast-room.
When he saw his daughter, he greeted her with an air of abstraction; and as the two sat at table together, he told her in a few words the news which had reached him, and spoke of his own intention of accompanying Mr. St. Aubyn to Pentreath, in order to make personal inquiries and inspection as to the magnitude of the riot.
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