"Bruce, don't go away--don't go away at all--"
Carrington slipped from the saddle and stood at her side.
"Do you mean that, Betty?" he asked. He took her hands loosely
in his and relentlessly considered her crimsoned face. "I reckon
it will always be right hard to refuse you anything--here is one
settler the Purchase will never get!" and he laughed softly.
"It was the Purchase--you were going there!" she cried.
"No, I wasn't, Betty; that notion died its natural death long
ago. When we are sure you will be safe at Belle Plain with just
the Cavendishes, I am going into Raleigh to wait as best I can
until spring." He spoke so gravely, that she asked in quick
alarm.
"And then, Bruce--what?"
"And then--Oh, Betty, I'm starving--" All in a moment he lifted
her slender figure in his arms, gathering her close to him. "And
then, this--and this--and this, sweetheart--and more--and--oh,
Betty! Betty!"
When Murrell was brought to trial his lawyers were able to
produce a host of witnesses whose sworn testimony showed that so
simple a thing as perjury had no terrors for them. His fight for
liberty was waged in and out of court with incredible bitterness,
and, as judge and jury were only human, the outlaw escaped with
the relatively light sentence of twelve years' imprisonment; he
died, however, before the expiration of his term.
The judge, where he returned to Raleigh, resumed his own name of
Turberville, and he allowed it to be known that he would not be
offended by the prefix of General.
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