With energy of purpose to form and execute the most daring
projects, her mental powers were confined to the servile drudgery of the
kitchen and the field until the sudden return of her long-lost brother
gave a new coloring to her life, and influenced all her future actions.
The bold audacious William Mathews, of whom she felt so proud, and whom
she loved so fiercely, carried on the double profession of a poacher on
shore and a smuggler at sea. Twice Mary had exposed her life to
imminent danger to save him from detection; and so strongly was she
attached to him, that there was no peril that she would not have dared
for his sake. Fear was a stranger to her breast. Often had she been
known to ride at the dead hour of night, through lonely cross-roads, to
a distant parish, to bring home her father from some low hedge-alehouse,
in which she suspected him to be wasting his substance with a set of
worthless profligates.
Twice during the short period of her life, for she had only just entered
upon her eighteenth year, she had suffered from temporary fits of
insanity; and the neighbors, when speaking of her exploits, always
prefaced it with, "Oh, poor thing! There is something wrong about that
girl. There is no account to be taken of her deeds."
From a child Mary had been an object of deep interest to the young
Hurdlestones.
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