He is old enough to understand and clean
enough to profit. Shut the door, child. You know me, Sir John?"
My father bent his head. "I never forget a face," said he, quietly.
"Take notice of that, boy. Your father remembers me, whom to my
knowledge he never saw but once, and then as a magistrate, when he
sat to judge me. Never mind the offence, lad. I am a sinful woman,
and the punishment was--"
"Nay, nay!" put in my father, gently.
"The punishment was," she continued, hardening her voice, "to strip
me to the waist and whip me in public. The law allowed this, and
this they would have done to me. But your father, being chairman of
the bench--for the offence lay outside the borough--would have none
of it, and argued and forced three other magistrates to give way.
Little good he did, you may say, seeing that my name is such in
Falmouth that, only by entering my door, the Mayor just now did what
all his cleverness could never have done--stopped a riot by a silly
brutal laugh--the chief magistrate taking shelter with Moll
Whiteaway! You can't get below that for fun, as the folk will take
it; and yet I say your father did good, for he saved me from the
worst.
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