saw Nick Tresidder come to the
market-place with two maidens. One I saw was his sister, the other was a
stranger to me. I knew they had come to add to my shame, and the sight
of them made me mad again. I tried to speak, but the socket was too
small, and I could not get enough breath to utter a word. Still, anger,
I am sure, glared from my eyes as I looked at Nick and his sister; but
when I looked at the other maiden, a feeling which I cannot describe
came over me. She was young--not, I should think, quite eighteen--and
her face was more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. Her eyes
were large and brown, while her hair was also brown, and hung in curls
down her back. Her face, thank God! was not like that of the Tresidders;
it was kind and gentle, and she looked at me in a pitying way.

"What has he done?" she asked, in a voice which, to me, was as sweet as
the sound of a brook purling its way through a dell in a wood.

"Done!" said Nick Tresidder. "He is a blackguard; he nearly killed both
me and my father."

She looked at me steadfastly, and as she did so my heart throbbed with a
new feeling, and tears came into my eyes in spite of myself.

"Surely no," she replied; "he has a kind, handsome face, and he looks as
though he might be a gentleman."

"Gentleman!" cried Nick. "He will be flogged presently, then you will
see what a cur he is."

"Flogged! Surely no."

"But he will be, and I wish that I were allowed to use the whip. Why, he
belongs to the scum of the earth."

By this time I felt my degradation as I had never felt it before, for I
felt that I would give worlds, did I possess them, to tell her the whole
truth. I wondered who she was, and I writhed at the thought of Nick
poisoning her mind against me.

Seeing them there others came up, and I heard one ask who this beauteous
maiden was.

"Don't you know?" was the reply. "She is Mistress Naomi Penryn."

"What is his name?" asked this maiden, presently.

"Can't you see?" replied Nick. "Ah! the eggs have almost blotted out the
name. It is Jasper Pennington, street brawler and vagabond."

And this was the way I first met Naomi Penryn.

CHAPTER IV

I ESCAPE FROM THE WHIPPING-POST, AND FIND MY WAY TO GRANFER FRADDAM'S
CAVE

No words can describe the shame I felt at the time. Before Naomi Penryn
came there and looked upon me I was mad with rage and desire for
vengeance. I longed to get to a place where I could meet the whole
Tresidder bro