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"Where are you going, Archy?" asked Maggie Hughson, as she ran after her brother, who was stealing away from the house, evidently not wishing to be intercepted. The young Hughson's home stood high up on the slope of a hill on the small island of Bressay, one of the Shetland group.
There is a fine directness about courtship in Hughson's class, it puts the dots upon the i's; but Sadie must have preferred them dotless, for she said, "My name is not Sadie." "Mercy." "Nor Mercy." "Mer Mercedes, then." "Nor Mercedes alone." "Well, Miss McMurtagh, though I've known you from a child."
In the previous summer she had found lodging with these people, a little later she had removed to Romme's, and just before Christmas she had come back to Hughson's, and a few weeks thereafter she became a mother.
"What, widow Hughson's son? Oh, boy, boy, you have acted a cruel part towards your poor mother. Anyhow, I would we had found you out two days ago. However, come along with me to the captain you'll hear what he has to say." Andrew led Archy aft, where Captain Irvine was standing, and explained in a few words what he knew of him.
From a quarrel which had occurred years before, he had long harboured an ill-feeling towards the Hughson's; and, for the purpose of thwarting and annoying Mrs Hughson, he was ready to encourage Archy in his disobedience to her. When once a person yields to the suggestions of Satan, he knows not into what crimes he may be hurried.
Hughson's house on the outskirts of the town was a resort for Negroes, and Hughson himself aided and abetted the Negro men in any crime that they might commit. Romme was of similar quality. Peggy was a prostitute, and it was Cæsar who paid for her board with the Hughsons.
Governor's House burned down. Other Fires. Suspicion of the People. Arrest and Imprisonment of the Blacks. Reward offered for the supposed Conspirators. Alarm and Flight of the Inhabitants. Examination and Confession of Mary Burton. Peggy, the Newfoundland Beauty, and the Hughson Family. The Conspiracy. Executions. Fast. Hughson's Hearing. Hung in Chains.
For three months, sentence of condemnation was on an average of one a day. The last execution was that of a Catholic priest, or rather of a schoolmaster of the city, who was charged with being one. Mary Burton, after an interval of three months, pretended to remember that he was present with the other conspirators she had first named as being in Hughson's tavern.
He conducted his own case with great ability, and brought many witnesses to prove his good character and orderly conduct; but he, of course, could not disprove the assertion of Mary, that she had some time or other seen him with the conspirators at Hughson's tavern for the latter, with his wife and Peggy, and the negroes she had before named, had all been executed.
Turning, with a simulation of round-eyed wonder, she met Miss Hughson's earnest gaze with the careless rejoinder, "What's the harm?" and went on with her story with all the reckless ease of a perfectly thoughtless nature. Miss Hughson abandoned her protest. How could she explain her reasons for it to one apparently uninitiated in the scandal associated with their especial clique.
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