He ran along the cliff towards where a woman, in a bright-coloured petticoat, seemed to be coming towards him, half surrounded by at least fifty people--men and women, and great fisher lads, some of whom seemed to have headed the fugitive, who, as Geoffrey came up, had taken refuge in a narrow cleft that ran up from the track, where there was one of the quaint old Cornish crosses, and now stood at bay. In less time than it takes to describe it, Geoffrey Trethick had seen that the fugitive was Bessie Prawle, with her hair dishevelled, wild-eyed, her clothes torn, and fouled with mud and fish refuse, some of which had bespattered her face, now bleeding quite profusely; but she uttered no sound, only turned her fierce defiant eyes on the crowd, who yelled, hissed, and pelted her with any thing that came to hand, some of the rough mining women, in their excitement, tearing up scraps of heath and grass for an impotent fling. "Yah! witch! witch!" reached Geoffrey's ears as he dashed up, just as a great lout of a fisher lad, in a blue jersey, had picked up a lump of granite, and was about to fling it at the wretched girl. "Heave hard, my son," cried several. "Don't look at her eyes, or she'll ill-wish you." The lout raised the piece of stone, took good aim, and then struck heavily against a companion, who cannoned against another, and all three staggered over the cliff edge from the shelf on which they stood, to fall half-a-dozen feet, scrambling, on the granite slope below. For the impetus with which Geoffrey Trethick had thrown out one of his fists, driven by the full weight of his body, would have upset a giant, and coming as he did like a thunderbolt amongst them, the people divided right and left, some staggering, some falling, as he made his way up to where Bessie Prawle stood, in time to receive a dirty, half-rotten dog-fish right across his chest. "Who threw that?" he roared furiously. "I did," cried a great stupid-looking young fisherman, "but it warn't meant for you. Come away; she's a witch. She'll ill-wish you." "I'll ill-wish you and break every bone in your cowardly thick hide," roared Geoffrey. "Call yourself a man," he cried, "and throw at a woman!" "She's a witch--a witch! We're going to douse her," shrieked a wild-looking woman, a regular bare-armed virago. "Now gals, have her out. Lay hold of the man, lads; have him away." Urged by the woman's words the big fisherman uttered a shout to his companions, and made at Bessie Prawle's defender; but somehow, they did not know how, the little crowd saw the young fisherman go down, crash, and Geoffrey stamp one foot upon his chest and hold him there. This checked them, and the three lads who had gone over the cliff edge now scrambled back, furious, and ready to pick up stones or any thing that came within their reach. But they did not throw them, for Geoffrey's angry eyes, and the prostrate man beneath his foot, had a wonderfully calming effect upon their angry passions.