would be violent again if I could help it. So I took him with one
hand by the cuff of the neck, and with the other by the waistband, and
just pitched him on a bramble bush,--quite mildly. He soon picked
himself up, for he is a dapper little chap, and became very blustering
and abusive. But I kept my temper, and said civilly, 'Little
gentleman, hard words break no bones; but if ever you molest Mrs.
Somers again, I will carry you into her orchard, souse you into the
duck-pond there, and call all the villagers to see you scramble out of
it again; and I will do it now if you are not off. I dare say you
have heard of my name: I am Tom Bowles.' Upon that his face, which
was before very red, grew very white, and muttering something I did
not hear, he walked away.

"Jessie--I mean Mrs. Somers--seemed at first as much frightened at me
as she had been at the Captain; and though I offered to walk with her
to Miss Travers's, where she was going with a basket which the young
lady had ordered, she refused, and went back home. I felt hurt, and
returned to my uncle's the same evening; and it was not for months
that I heard the Captain had been spiteful enough to set up an
opposition shop, and that poor Will had been taken ill, and his wife
was confined about the same time, and the talk was that they were in
distress and might have to be sold up.

"When I heard all this, I thought that after all it was my rough
tongue that had so angered the Captain and been the cause of his
spite, and so it was my duty to make it up to poor Will and his wife.
I did not know how to set about mending matters, but I thought I'd go
and talk to Miss Travers; and if ever there was a kind heart in a
girl's breast, hers is one."