England -- Fiction; Strikes and lockouts -- Fiction
'I cannot understand it,' exclaimed Dr. Bevary, after some explanation
had been given by Mr. Henry Hunter. 'It is incredible to suppose a
strange woman would attack you in that manner, unless she was mad.'
'Mad, or not mad, she did it,' returned Mr. Henry Hunter. 'I was riding
Salem--you know I took him with me, in that week's excursion I made at
Easter--and the woman set upon me like a tigress, clutching hold of
Salem, who won't stand such jokes. In his fury, he got loose from her,
dashing he neither knew nor cared whither, and this fine fellow saved us
on the very brink of the yawning pit--risking the chance of getting
killed himself. Had the horse not been arrested, I don't see how he
could have helped being knocked over with us.'
Mr. Hunter turned a warm grateful look on Austin. 'How was it you never
spoke of this, Henry?' he inquired of his brother.
'There's another curious phase of the affair,' laughed Mr. Henry Hunter.
'I have had a dislike to speak of it, even to think of it. I cannot tell
you why; certainly not on account of the escaped danger. And it was
over: so, what signified talking of it?'
'Why did she attack you?' pursued Dr. Bevary.
'She evidently, if there was reason in her at all, mistook me for
somebody else. All sorts of diabolical things she was beginning to
accuse me of; that of having evaded her for some great number of years,
amongst the rest. I stopped her; telling her I had no mind to be the
depository of other people's secrets.'
'She solemnly protested to me, after you rode away, sir, that you _were_
the man who had done her family some wrong,' interposed Austin. 'I told
her I felt certain she was mistaken; and so drew down her anger upon
me.'
'Of what nature was the wrong?' asked Dr. Bevary.
'I cannot tell,' said Austin. 'I seemed to gather from her words that
the wrong was upon her family, or upon some portion of her family,
rather than upon her. I remember she made use of the expression, that it
had broken up her happy home.'
'And you did not know her?' exclaimed the doctor, looking at Mr. Henry
Hunter.
'Know her?' he returned, 'I never set eyes on her in all my life until
that day. I never was in the place before, or in its neighbourhood. If I
ever did work her wrong, or ill, I must have done it in my sleep; and
with miles of distance intervening. Who is she? What is her name? You
told it me, Mr. Clay, but I forget what it was.'
'Her name is Gwinn,' replied Austin. 'The brother is a lawyer and has
scraped together a business. One morning, many years ago, a lady arrived
at his house, without warning, and took up her abode with him. She
turned out to be his sister, and the people at Ketterford think she is
mad. It is said they come from Wales. The little boys call after her,
"the mad Welsh woman." Sometimes Miss Gwinn.'
'What did you say the name was?' interrupted Dr. Bevary, with startling
emphasis. 'Gwinn?--and from Wales?'
'Yes.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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