Down in the little cottage Aunt Butson found Mrs. Trevarthen standing beside a half-filled packing-case and contemplating a pair of enormous china spaniels which adorned the chimney-piece, one on either side of Chinese junk crusted with sea-shells.
"What's to be done with 'em?" Mrs. Trevarthen asked. "They'll take up more room than they're worth, and I doubt they'll fetch next to nothing if I leave 'em behind for the sale. My old man got 'em off a pedlar fellow for two-and-threepence apiece, back-along when we first set up house. A terrible extravagance, as I told 'en at the time; but he took such a fancy to the things, I never had the heart to say what I thought about their looks."
"You can leave 'em bide," answered Aunt Butson. "Unpack that there case agen an' turn it over to me. I'm goin' to quit."
"There's too much red-tape about the Widows' Houses," Mrs. Trevarthen pursued. "The Matron says, if I want to bring Tom's parrot, I must speak to Sir George an get leave: 'tis agen the rules, seemingly."
"Be quiet with your parrot, an' listen to me! I'm goin' to shut up school, an' quit. Go an' make your peace wi' that Judas Rosewarne: tell 'en you're gettin' the rids of me, an' he'll let you down easy enough."
Mrs. Trevarthen for a moment did not seem to hear, but stood meditatively fingering the china ornaments. Suddenly she swung round upon her lodger.
"You're goin' to give in? After all your talk, you're goin' to let that slave-driver ride roughshod over you?"
"My dear,"—Aunt Butson hunched her shoulders—"'tis no manner of good. Who's goin' to pay me tuppence a week, when that smooth-featured girl up the hill teaches ten times better for a penny? I've been up there to see, and I ben't a fool. She teaches ten times better than ever I did in my life. How many children do 'ee think turned up this mornin'? Five. And I've taught five-an'-thirty at one time. I sent 'em away; told 'em to come again to-morrow, and take word to their fathers and mothers to step around at twelve o'clock. They'll think 'tis to come to an arrangement about the fees; but what I have to tell is that the school's wound up."
"You may do as it pleases you, Sally Butson. You may go, if you choose, and ask Rosewarne to put his foot on your neck. But if you think I make any terms with 'en, you're mistaken. He've a-driven my Tom from home an' employ; he've a-cast a good son out o' my sight and knowledge, and fo'ced 'en, for all I know, into wicked courses—for Tom's like his father before 'en; you can lead 'en by a thread, but against ill-usage he'll turn mad. Will I forgive Rosewarne for this? He may put out the fire in my grate and fling my bed into the street, and I'll laugh and call it a little thing; but for what he've a-done to the son of a widow I'll put on him the curse of a widow, and not all his wrath shall buy it off by an ounce or shorten it by one inch."
Mrs. Trevarthen—ordinarily a mild-tempered woman—shook with her passion as an aspen shakes and whitens in the wind. Aunt Butson laid a hand on her shoulder.
"There—there! Put on the kettle, my dear, and let's have a drink of tea. It takes a woman different when she've a-got children. But it don't follow, because I'm a single woman, I can't read a lad's fortune. You mark my words, Tom'll fall on his feet."
Early next morning Mrs. Butson left the cottage with a small pile of books, disinterred from the depths of the box which contained all her belongings—cheap books in gaudy covers of red, blue, and green cloth, lavishly gilded without, execrably printed within:The Wide, Wide World; Caspar; Poor John, or Nature's Gentleman; The Parents' Assistant. Her system of education recognised merit, but rewarded it sparingly. As a rule, she had distributed three prizes per annum, before the Christmas holidays, and at a total cost of two shillings and sixpence. To-day she spread out no fewer than ten upon her desk, covering them out of sight with a duster before her scholars arrived.
A few minutes before nine she heard them at play outside among the elms, and at nine o'clock punctually called them in to work by ringing her handbell—the clapper of which (vain extravagance!) had recently been shortened by the village tinsmith to prevent its wearing the metal unequally. Five scholars answered its summons—'Thaniel Langmaid, Maudie Hosken, Ivy Nancarrow, Jane Ann Toy and her four-year-old brother Luke. Their fathers, one and all, though dwelling in the village, were employed in trades on the other side of the ferry, and therefore could risk offending Mr. Rosewarne; but their independence had not yet translated itself into steady payment of the fees, and Mr. Toy (for example) notoriously practised dilatoriness of payment as part of his scheme of life.
Without a twitch of her fierce features she ranged up her attenuated class, distributed the well-thumbed books—with a horn-book for little Luke Toy—and for two hours taught them with the same joyless severity under which their fathers and mothers had suffered. For spelling 'lamb' without the final b, Ivy Nancarrow underwent the punishment invariably meted out for such errors—mounted the dunce's bench, and wore the dunce's cap; nor did 'Thaniel Langmaid's knuckles escape the ruler when he dropped a blot upon his copy, 'Comparisons are Odious'—a proposition of which he understood the meaning not at all. The cane and the birch-rod on Mrs. Butson's desk served her now but as insignia. She had not wielded them as weapons of justice since the day (four years ago) when a struggle with Ivy Nancarrow's elder brother had taught her that her natural strength was abating.
At twelve o'clock she told the children to close their books, dismissed them to play, and sat down to await the invited company.
Mr. Toy was the first to arrive. He came straight from the jetties—that is to say, as straight as a stevedore can be expected to come at noon on Saturday, after receiving his week's pay. He wore his accustomed mask of clay-dust, and smelt powerfully of beer, two pints of which he had consumed in an unsocial hurry at the Ferry Inn on his way.
"Good-morning." Mrs. Butson welcomed him with a nod. "Your wife is coming, I hope?"
"You bet she is," Mr. Toy answered cheerfully, smacking the coins in his trousers pocket. "She don't miss looking me up this day of the week." Recollecting that certain of the shillings he so lightly jingled were due to Mrs. Butson, he suddenly grew confused, and his embarrassment was not lightened by the entrance of Maudie Hosken's parents. Mr. Hosken tilled a small freehold garden in his spare hours, and Mr. Toy owed him four shillings and sixpence for potatoes, and had reason to believe that Mrs. Hosken took a stern view of the debt.
Next came Mrs. Langmaid, a seaman's widow, and lastly Mrs. Toy, who noted that all the others had made themselves tidy for the ceremony, and at once began to apologise for her husband's appearance.
Aunt Butson cut her short, however, by ringing the school bell, and marshalling her five pupils back to their seats. The parents dropped themselves here and there among the many empty benches in the rear, and the schoolmistress, after rapping the desk with her cane, from force of habit, mounted the platform, uncovered the row of books, and began to arrange them with hands that trembled a little.
"Friends and neighbours, the reason I've called 'ee together is for a prize-giving. I'll have to say a word or two when that's done; but just now a prize-giving it is, and we'd best get to business. Girls: Maudie Hosken, first prize for good conduct; Ivy Nancarrow, consolation prize, ditto; Jane Ann Toy, extra consolation prize, ditto. Step up, girls, and take your books."
Until Mrs. Hosken leaned forward and nudged her daughter in the back, the children did not budge, so bewildered were they by these sudden awards. When Maudie, however, picked up courage, the other two bravely bore her company, and each received a book.
"Boys: 'Thaniel Langmaid, first prize for good conduct; Luke Toy, consolation prize for ditto."
"Seemin' to me," remarked Mr. Toy audibly, nudging his wife, "there's a deal o' consolation for our small family."
"Hush!" answered his wife. "There's as much gilt 'pon Lukey's book as 'pon any; an' 'tis almost as big."
"Girls: English prize, Ivy Nancarrow—and I hope that in futur', whoever teaches her, she won't think L-A-M spells 'lamb.' Sums and geography prize, Maudie Hosken; junior prize, Jane Ann Toy."
"Boys: General knowledge, 'Thaniel Langmaid; general improvement, Luke Toy."
"That makes four altogether." Mr. Toy jingled his shillings furtively. "Look here, Selina," he whispered, "we'll have to pay the old 'ooman something on account. How else to get out o' this, I don't see."
"An' now, friends an' neighbours," began Aunt Butson resolutely, "I've a-fetched 'ee together to say that 'tis all over; the school's come to an end. You've stuck by me while you could, and I thank you kindly. But 'tis hard for one of my age to fight with tyrants, and tyrants and Government together be too much for me. I've a-taught this here village for getting-up three generations. Lord knows I never loved the work; but Lord knows I was willing to go on with it till He called me home. Take a look at thicky there blackboard an' easel, bought but the other week; and here's a globe now, cost me fifteen shillin'—an' what'll I do with it?" She detached it from its frame, and before passing it round for inspection, held it between her trembling palms. "Here be all the nations o' the earth, civilised and uncivilised; and here be I, Sarah Butson, with no place upon it, after next Monday, to lay my head."
She looked up with fierce, tearless eyes, and looking up, caught sight of Mr. Samuel Rosewarne in the doorway.
"Oh, good-morning, Mrs. Butson!" nodded Mr. Sam easily. "I looked in to see if you'd collected your school-fees this week, as the law requires. You are doing so, it seems?"
"Rosewarne—" Mrs. Butson stepped down from her platform, globe in hand.
"Eh? I beg your pardon?" But before the mischief in her eyes he turned and fled.
She followed him to the door.
"Takethat, you thievin' Pharisee!"
The globe missed his head by a few inches, and went flying down the roadway toward the ferry. Aunt Butson strode back among her astonished audience.
"That's my last word tohe," she said, panting; "and here's my last to you." She picked up her chalk, advanced to the blackboard, and wrote rapidly, in bold, clear hand—
"You may go, friends," said she. "I'd like to be alone, if you please."
Although Master Calvin Rosewarne, by telling tales, first set the persecution going against Nicky Vro, he did so without any special malevolence. It was an instance of Satan's finding mischief for idle hands. The child, in fact, had no playmates, and little to do; and happening to pass Mrs. Trevarthen's cottage as her household stuff and sticks of furniture were being removed in a hand-cart, he followed downhill to the ferry to watch the transhipment.
Some minutes later, Mrs. Trevarthen, having locked her door for the last time, laid the key under a geranium-pot on the window-sill. There was no sentiment in her leave-taking. A few late blossoms showed on the jasmine which, from a cutting planted by her in the year of Tom's birth, had over-run and smothered the cottage to its very chimney. Her Michaelmas daisies and perennial phloxes—flowers of her anxious care—were in full bloom. But the old soul had no eyes for them, now at the last, being flustered by the importance of her journey and the thought of many things, hastily packed, which might take harm in crossing the ferry. Mr. Toy (a neighbourly fellow with all his failings, and one of that not innumerous class of men who delight in any labour, so it be unprofitable) had undertaken to load the ferry-boat; but having in mere exuberance of good-nature imbibed more beer than was good for him, he could not be trusted with the chinaware.
Neighbours appeared at every doorway—the more emotional ones with red eyes—to wish Mrs. Trevarthen good-bye. She answered them tremulously; but her mind, all the way down the street, ran on a hamper of chinaware, the cover of which she could not remember to have tied. Her left arm rested in Aunt Butson's (who carried the parrot's cage swathed in an old petticoat); on her right she bore a covered basket.
At the slip Mr. Toy handed her on board. He himself would cross later in the horse-boat, with his handcart and the heavier luggage.
"Better count the parcels, missus," he advised. "There's fifteen, as I make out; and Mr. Vro'll hand 'em out careful 'pon t'other side. You'd best wait there till I come across with the rest."
Instead of taking her seat at once, Mrs. Trevarthen stood for a moment bewildered amid the packages crowding the thwarts and the sternsheets; and most unfortunately Old Vro selected this moment to thrust off from shore with his paddle. The impetus took her at unawares, and she fell forward; her basket struck against the boat's gunwale, its cover flew open, and forth from it, half-demented with fright, sprang her tabby cat, Methuselah. The poor brute lit upon the parrot's cage, which happened to be balanced upon an unstable pile of cooking utensils at the end of Nicky Vro's thwart. Cat, cage and parrot, a gridiron, two cake tins, a bundle of skewers, and a cullender, went overboard in one rattling avalanche, and Master Calvin laughed aloud from the shore.
Nicky Vro, with a wild clutch, grabbed hold of the cage before it sank, and dragged it and the screaming bird out of danger. The gridiron and skewers went down at once—luckily in four feet of water, whence they could be recovered at low-ebb. The cullender sank slowly and with dignity. The cat headed straight for shore, and, defying all attempts of Mr. Toy and Aunt Butson to head him off, slipped between them and dashed up the hill on a bee-line for home. Master Calvin, seated astride the low wall above the slipway, almost rolled off his perch with laughter. Uncle Vro, cage in hand, turned on him with sudden fury.
"Better fit you was at your lessons," he called back, shaking his fist, "than grinning there at your father's dirty work! Toy, run an' pull the ears of 'en!—'twon't be noticed if you pull 'em an inch longer than they be."
The boy, as Mr. Toy ran towards him with a face that meant business, dropped off the wall on its far side, and charged up the hill for home in a terror scarcely less urgent than Methuselah's. Nor did he feel safe until, at the gate of Hall, he tumbled into his father's arms and panted out his story.
"Talked about my 'dirty work,' did he?" mused Mr. Sam, pulling at his under-lip. He wheeled about and walked straight to the counting-house, where Mr. Benny sat addressing Michaelmas bills.
"Put those aside for a moment," he commanded. "I want a letter written."
Mr. Benny took a sheet of notepaper from the rack, dipped his pen, and looked up attentively.
"It's for the ferryman below here—Old Vro, as you call him. Write that after Saturday next his services will not be required."
Mr. Benny laid down his pen slowly and stared at his master.
"I beg your pardon, sir—you can't mean that you're dismissing him?"
"Why not?"
"What, old Nicky Vro?" Mr. Benny shook his head, as much as to say that the thing could not be done.
"He has been grossly impudent. Apart from that, his incompetence is a scandal, and I have wondered more than once how my father put up with it. In justice to the public using the ferry, and to Lady Killiow as owner of the ferry rights—But, excuse me, I prefer not to argue the matter. He must go. Will you, please, write the letter, and deliver it when you cross the ferry at dinner-time."
"But, indeed, Mr. Samuel—you must forgive me, sir—old Nicky may be cantankerous at times, but he means no harm to any living soul. The passengers make allowances: he's a part of the ferry, as you might say. As for impudence—if he really has been impudent—will you let me talk to him, sir? I'll engage he asks pardon and promises not to offend again. But think, before in your anger you turn him adrift—where can the old man go, but to the workhouse? What can he have saved, on twelve shillings a week? For every twelve shillings he's earned Lady Killiow three to five pounds, week by week, these forty years; and not one penny of it, I'll undertake to say, has he kept back from her ladyship. What wage is it, after all, for the years of a man's strength that now, with a few more years to live, he should lose it?"
"Have you done?"
Mr. Benny stood up. "I should never have done, sir, until you listened to me."
"You refuse to write the letter?"
"I humbly beg you, sir, not to ask me to write it."
"But I do ask you to write it."
Mr. Benny thrust both hands nervously beneath his coat-tails, walked to the window and stood for a second or two, staring out upon the garden. His cheeks were flushed. He had arrived at one of those moments in life which prove a man; but of heroism he was not conscious at all.
"I am very sorry, Mr. Samuel," said he, turning again to the table. "If your father had told me to write such a letter, I should have used an old servant's liberty and warned him that he was acting unjustly. Though it made him angry, he would have understood. But I see, sir, that I have no right to argue with you; and so let us have no more words. I cannot write what you wish."
"My father," answered Mr. Sam, wagging a finger at him, "tolerated many things I do not propose to tolerate. He suffered this old dotard to annoy the public, though long past work. I am not surprised to learn that he suffered you to forget your place."
Mr. Benny gathered up his papers without answering.
"Look here, Benny," Mr. Sam resumed, after watching him for a while, "I don't wish to be hard on you; I only require obedience. It's a bit foolish of you—eh?—to be quarrelling with your bread and butter."
"May be, sir."
"If you leave me, I wish it to be understood that 'tis by your own choice."
The little man met his master's eyes now with a look of something like contempt. "If that salves your conscience, sir, by all means have it so. But if 'tis to be plain truth between us, you want a younger clerk."
"Did I ever complain of your incompetence?"
"My incompetence, sir? 'Tis my competence you surely mean? I reckon no man can be sure of being a good servant till he has learnt to advise for his master's good against his master's will."
"What's the matter with 'ee, Peter?" asked Nicky Vro as he rowed Mr. Benny across the ferry at dinnertime. "You're looking as downcast as a gib cat."
"I was wondering," answered Mr. Benny gently, "how many times we two have crossed this ferry together."
Nicky Vro pondered. "Now that's the sort o' question I leave alone o' set purpose, and I'll tell 'ee for why. One night, years ago, and just as we was off to bed, my poor wife says to me, 'I wonder how many times you've crossed the ferry, first and last.' 'Hundreds and thousands,' I says, just likeso. She'd a-put the question in idleness, an' in idleness I answered it. Will you believe it?—between twelve and one in the morning I woke up with my head full o' figgers. Not another wink o' sleep could I get, neither. Soon as ever I shook up the bolster an' settled down for another try, I see'd myself whiskin' back and forth over this here piece o' water like a piston-rod in a steamship, and off I started countin' for dear life. Count? I tell you it lasted for nights, and by the end o' the week I had to see the doctor about it. I was losin' flesh. Doctor, he gave me a bottle o' trade—very flat-tasted stuff it was, price half a crown, with a sediment if you let it stand; and after a few days the trouble wore off. They tell me there's a new pupil teacher up to the school can answer questions like that while you're countin' his buttons. I've seen the fellow: a pigeon-chested poor creatur', with his calves put on the wrong way. I'd a mind to tell 'en that with figgers, as with other walks o' life, a man's first business is to look after his own. But I didn't like to, he looked so harmless. Puttin' one thing with another, Peter Benny, I'd advise you to leave these speckilations alone. Be it a thousand times or ten thousand, there's only one time that counts —the last; and only the Lord A'mighty knows when that'll be."
Mr. Benny sighed. "When the Lord sets a man free of his labour, Nicky, He does it gently. But we have to deal with an earthly master, we two, and his mercies aren't so gentle."
Nicky Vro nodded. "You'm thinkin' of they two poor souls up the hill. A proper tyrant Mister Sam can be, and so I told that ugly-featured boy of his, when I put Mrs. Trevarthen across this mornin'. 'Twas a shame, too, to lose my temper with the cheeld; for a cat couldn't help laughin'— supposin' he wasn't the partickler cat consarned." The old man told the story, chuckling wheezily.
"You went too far, Nicky. I have the best reasons for knowing that you went too far. Now listen to me. As soon as you get back, hitch up your boat, walk straight up to Hall, and tell Mr. Sam that you're sorry."
"Well, so I am in a way, though the fellow do turn my stomach. Still there wasn' no sense in rappin' out on the boy."
"It doesn't help the old woman, you know," said Mr. Benny, and sighed again, bethinking himself how vain had been his own protest.
"Not a bit," assented Mr. Vro cheerfully. "Well, I'll go back and make it up with the varmint. I reckon he means to give me a bad few minutes; but 'tis foolish to quarrel when folks can't do without one another, and so I'll tell 'en."
Half an hour ago Mr. Benny had been a brave man, but as he neared his home a sudden cowardice seized him. It was not that he shirked breaking the news to his wife; nay, he fiercely desired to tell her, and get the worst over. But in imagination he saw the children seated around the table, all hungry as hunters for the meal which, under God's grace, he had never yet failed to earn; and the thought that they might soon hunger and not be fed, for a moment unmanned him. He hurried past the ope leading to his door. The dinner-hour's quiet rested on the little town, and there was no one in the street to observe him as he halted by the church-gate, half-minded to return. The gate stood open, and as he glanced up at the tower the clock there rang out its familiar chime. He passed up the path, entered, and cast himself on his knees.
For half an hour he knelt, and, although he prayed but by fits and starts, by degrees peace grew within him and possessed his soul. He waited until the clock struck two—by which time the children would be back at school— and walked resolutely homeward.
Mrs. Benny and Nuncey were alone in the kitchen, where the board had been cleared of all but the tablecloth and his own knife and fork. They cried out together upon his dilatoriness; but while his wife turned to fetch his dinner from the oven, Nuncey took a step forward, scanning his face.
"Father?"
He put out a hand as he dropped into his seat, and stared along the empty table.
"I am dismissed."
Mrs. Benny faced about, felt for a chair, and sat down trembling. Nuncey took her father's hand.
"Tell us all about it," she commanded; and he told them.
His wife cast her apron over her head.
"But he'll take you back," she moaned. "If you go to 'en and ask 'en properly, he'll surely take you back!"
"Don't be foolish, mother." Nuncey laid a hand on her father's shoulder, and he looked up at her with brimming eyes. "'Tis Rosewarne that shall send to us before we go to him!"
She patted the tired shoulders, now bent again over the table.
"But what a brave little father it is, after all!"
"What's the matter with Benny?" asked Nicky Vro as he rowed Hester across that evening. They were alone in the boat. "The man seemed queer in his manner this morning, like as if he was sickenin' for something, and this afternoon I han't seen fur nor feather of 'en." He dug away with his paddles, and resumed with a chuckle, after a dozen strokes, "The man hasn't been quarrellin' with his bread and butter, I hope? I went up to see Mr. Sam on a little business o' my own after dinner, and he fairly snapped my nose off—called me an impident old fool, and gave me the sack. Iss fay, he did! I wasn't goin' to argue with the man. 'You'll think better o' this to-morrow,' I said, and with that I comed away. Something must have occurred to put 'en out before he talked that nonsense tome."
Next morning, Hester—who meanwhile had learned the truth—found the old fellow in the same cheerful, incredulous frame of mind. She might have told him how serious was his case; but it is improbable that she could have convinced him, and, moreover, Mr. Benny, before confiding to her the reason of his own dismissal, had made her promise to keep it a secret.
By Saturday, however, it was generally known that Mr. Sam had found some excuse or other to get rid of his father's confidential clerk. Now Mr. Benny had hitherto brought down Nicky's weekly wages on Saturday evenings as he crossed by the ferry. This week no Mr. Benny appeared, nor any messenger from Hall; and consequently on Sunday morning early Nicky donned a clean shirt-front and marched up to the house to claim his due.
"I make it a rule," said Mr. Sam, "to dispense no moneys on the Sabbath."
"The ferry charges double on the Sabbath, as you call it," answered Nicky, "and always has. I don't see where your squeamishness begins. Hows'ever, I'll call to-morrow rather than hurt any man's conscience; only let's have it clear when the money's to be paid in futur'."
"In future?" echoed Mr. Sam. "I hoped I had made it clear that after this week you cease to be ferryman."
"That's a good joke, now," said Nicky.
"I am glad you take it so pleasantly. Come to me to-morrow, and you shall be paid; and again next Saturday, after you have chained up for the night. That, I warn you, will be the last time."
"Oh, you'll think better of it by Saturday!"
That Mr. Sam did not think better of it scarcely needs to be said; and during the next few days some of Nicky's confidence began to ooze away. His master made no sign; he could not hear that anyone had been engaged in his place, or that anyone had been proposed for the job, but this silence somehow disconcerted rather than reassured him. He discussed it with his neighbour Hosken (one of the few small freeholders in the parish, who along with a cottage and two acres of garden had inherited a deep ancestral suspicion of the Rosewarnes and all their ways), and between them the pair devised a plan to meet contingencies.
The ferry closed at eight p.m. during the winter months. At half-past eight on Saturday night Nicky again presented himself at Hall, and was politely received in the counting-house.
"Take a seat," suggested Mr. Sam.
"Thank 'ee, sir," said Nicky, somewhat reassured. This opening promised at least that Mr. Sam found the situation worth discussing. "Thank 'ee, sir; but 'tis a relief to me to stand, not to mention the trousers."
"Please yourself." Mr. Sam paused, and appeared to be waiting.
"'Tis nice seasonable weather for the time of year," said Nicky cheerfully, producing a large canvas bag and reaching forward to lay it on the writing-table. It contained his week's takings, mostly in coppers. "Three pounds, twelve shillings, and ninepence, sir, if you'll count it. There's one French penny, must have been put upon me just now after dark. I can't swear to the person, though I can guess. The last load but one, I brought across a sailor-looking chap, a bustious, big fellow, with a round hat like a missionary's, and all the rest of him in sea-cloth. Thinks I, 'You've broken ship, my friend.' The man had a drinking face, and altogether I didn't like his looks. So, next trip, I warned the constable across the water, in case he heard of a seaman missing from the west'ard. But this here French penny I only discovered just now, when I counted up the day's takings."
"I fancy you must be mistaken," said Mr. Sam. "The man has a good character for honesty."
"What? You know 'en?"
"He is the new tenant of Mrs. Trevarthen's cottage, and has come to take over the ferry." In the pause that followed, Mr. Sam counted and arranged the coins in small stacks. "Three-twelve-nine, did you say? Right. But excuse me, there's one thing you've forgotten."
Nicky understood. Very slowly he drew a chain from his left trouser pocket, detached two keys, and laid them on the table. His face worked, and for the moment he seemed on the verge of an outburst; but, when he spoke, it was with dignity, albeit his voice trembled.
"Mr. Samuel, you try to go where the devil can't, between the oak and the rind. Your father fought with men of his own size, and gave an' took what the fightin' brought; but as for you, you fight with women and children, and old worn-out men, such as the Lord helps because they can't help themselves. You han't beat us yet—not by a long way. I warn you to pray that the way may be lengthened; for 'tis when you've overcome us, an' the Lord takes up our cause, that your troubles'll begin."
Small sleep came to Nicky Vro that night. What troubled him most in the prospect of the struggle ahead—for a struggle he meant it to be—was his position as Rosewarne's tenant. Mean as was his hovel above the ferry— rented by him at £four a year—he clung to it, and Mr. Samuel would certainly turn him out. By good luck he paid his rent quarterly, and could not be evicted before Christmas. He had talked this over with his neighbour, Hosken, who had encouraged him to be cheerful. "Drat it all, uncle," said Hosken, himself the cheeriest of men, "if the worst comes to the worst, I'll take you in myself, and give you your meals and a crib."
Nicky shook his head. "You'd best talk it over with your wife," said he, "afore you make free with your promises. She's a good woman, but afflicted with tidiness. I doubt my ways be too messy for her."
While he lay on his straw mattress thinking of these things, a distant gallop of hoofs woke the night, and by and by, with much clattering of loose stones, a horse came plunging down the village street.
Old Nicky, who slept in his clothes, was out of bed and ready before the rider drew rein.
"'Tis young Tregenza from Kit's Harbour," he muttered. "I heard that his missus was expectin'. Lord, how a man will ride for his first! All right! all right!" he sung out, fumbling with the bar as the butt of a riding-whip rattled on the shutter. "Be that you, Mr. Tregenza?"
"For the Lord's sake, uncle!" an agitated voice made answer out of the darkness.
"There, there! Yours ben't the first case that have happened, my lad, and you'll ride easier next time. Hitch up the horse, and I'll have the boat out in two two's."
"Why can't you fetch out the horse-boat?"
"Because, my son, I ben't the proper ferryman. You must ride back up the hill if you wanthe; and even so, I doubt he'll have to knock up the folks at Hall to get at the keys."
Mr. Tregenza broke out into impatient swearing on all who delayed travel on the king's highway.
"You may leave your curses, young man, to them with a better right to use 'em. Thank the Almighty there's a boat to put you across. Hosken's blue boat it is; you'll find her ready to launch, down 'pon the slip. Take her and pull for the doctor. Tell 'en 'tis no use his bringing a horse, for there's no boat to fetch a horse over. But there's Tank's grey mare up to the inn. I'll have her ready saddled for him, if he'll promise to ride steady and mind the sore 'pon her near shoulder."
All the village had heard the midnight gallop of hoofs; all the village had guessed accurately who the rider was, and why he rode. But Nicky's dismissal was known to a few only. Soon after daybreak the news of this spread too, with the circumstance that only Nicky's good-nature had kept clear the king's highway for a message which above all others needs to be carried with speed.
Nicky sat complacent off the ferry-slip in Hosken's blue boat when the new ferryman arrived (twenty minutes late, by reason of his having to fetch the keys from Hall), and stolidly undid the padlock fastening the official craft.
"Aw, good-mornin'!" Nicky hailed him.
"Mornin'," said the new ferryman.
"We're in opposition, it seems."
"Darned if I care." The new ferryman lit his pipe and spat. "My name's Elijah Bobe."
"Then, Elijah Bobe, you may as well go home. 'Tis Sunday, and a slack day; but, were it Saturday and full business, your takings wouldn't cover your keep."
"Darned if I care," Mr. Bobe repeated. "I'm paid by the week." He sucked at his pipe for a while. "Ticklish job, ain't it?—interferin' with a private ferry?" he asked.
But Nicky had taken opinion upon this. So far as he could discover, the case lay thus: Of the ferry itself nothing belonged to Lady Killiow but the slipway on the near shore. The farther slipway was not precisely no-man's-land, for the foreshore belonged to the Duchy, and the soil immediately above it to Sir George Dinham; but here half a dozen separate interests came into conflict. Sir George, while asserting ownership of the land, would do nothing to repair or maintain the slip on it, arguing very reasonably that he derived no profit from the dues, and that since these went to Lady Killiow, she was bound to maintain her own landing-places. Rosewarne, on the other hand, as Lady Killiow's steward, flatly refused to execute repairs upon another person's property. The Duchy, being appealed to, told the two parties (in effect) to fight it out. The Highway Board was ready enough to maintain the road down to high-water mark, but, on legal advice, declined to go farther. The Harbour Commissioners held that to repair a private ferry was no business of theirs, and, although the condition of the slipway had for years been a scandal, refused to meddle. The whole dispute raised the nice legal points, What is a ferry? Does the term include not only the boat but access to the boat? And, incidentally, if anyone broke a leg on the town shore on his way between highwater mark and the boat, from whom could he recover damages?
In short, Nicky felt easy enough about landing and embarking his passengers on the town shore. Rosewarne could not challenge him without raising the whole question of the slipway. But on the near shore he must act circumspectly. To be sure the approach to the water here was part of the king's highway. The whole village used it, and moored their boats without let or hindrance off the slip which (since the land belonged to the Killiow estate) the Rosewarnes had kept in good repair, and without demur. But it was clearly understood—and Nicky, a few hours ago, would have asserted it as stubbornly as anyone—that the sole right of taking a passenger on board here for hire and conveying him across to the town appertained to the Killiow ferryman.
As it happened, however, at the back of Nicky's cottage a narrow lane, public though seldom used, ran down to the waterside, to a shelf of rock less than a stone's throw from the slip, and, when cleared of weed below the tide-mark, by no means inconvenient for embarking passengers. A rusty ring, clamped into the living rock, survived to tell of days before steam-tugs were invented, when vessels had painfully to warp their way up and down the river. Through this ring, no man forbidding him, Mr. Hosken had run a frape, on which he kept his blue boat, now leased to Nicky for a nominal rent of sixpence a week.
"And why not use this for your ferry-landing?" Mr. Hosken suggested. "Rosewarne can't touch ye here."
"Sure?"
"I reckon I ought to know the tithe-maps by heart; and, by them, this parcel of shore belongs to nobody, unless it be to Her Majesty."
Nicky chuckled with a wheezy cunning.
It happened as he had promised the new ferryman. Mr. Sam's unpopularity had been growing in the village since the eviction of Mrs. Trevarthen. Aunt Butson, after a vain attempt to find labour in the fields, had followed her to the almshouse across the water. The cause of Mr. Benny's dismissal had been freely canvassed and narrowly guessed at. Against this new stroke of tyranny the public revolted. Living so far from their own church and a mile from the nearest chapel, numbers of the villagers were wont on Sundays to cross over to the town for their religion, and to-day with one consent they stepped into Nicky's blue boat, while Mr. Bobe smoked and spat, and regarded them with a lazy interest. Towards evening the old man jingled a pocketful of coppers.
"Why ever didn't I think o' this before?" he asked aloud. "Here I've a-been near upon fifty years earnin' twelve shillings a week, and all the while might ha' been a rich man and my own master!"
Next day he sought out Mr. Toy, and Mr. Toy obligingly painted and lettered a board for him, and helped to fix it against the wall of his hovel overlooking the lane—
THIS WAY TON. VRO FERRYMANTHE OLD FIRM
THIS WAY TON. VRO FERRYMANTHE OLD FIRM
Here was defiance indeed, a flaunted banner of revolt! The villagers, who had hitherto looked upon the old man as half-witted but harmless, suddenly discovered him to be a hero, and Mr. Toy gave himself a holiday to stand beneath the board and explain it to all the country folk coming to use the ferry. So well did he succeed that between sunset and sunrise the only passenger by the official boat was Mr. Sam himself, on his way to seek and take counsel with Lawyer Tulse.
Of their interview no result appeared for ten days, during which Nicky saw himself acquiring wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Already he despised what at first had been so terrible, the prospect of being turned out of house and home. He could snap his fingers, and let Mr. Sam do his worst. He no longer thought of hiring a bedroom; he would rent a small cottage from Hosken, and perhaps engage a housekeeper. It is to be feared that in these days Nicky gave way to boasting; but much may be forgiven to a man who blossoms out into a hero at eighty.
On the twelfth day of his prosperity, as he rested on his oars off the town-landing and dreamed of a day when, by purchasing a horse-boat, he would deprive the official ferry of its only source of revenue, and close all competition, a seedy-looking man in a frayed overcoat stepped down the slipway and accosted him.
"Is your name Nicholas Vro?"
"It is; and you'm askin' after the right boat, stranger though you be. Step aboard, mister."
"Thank you," said the seedy-looking man, "but I don't need to cross. The fact is, I've a paper to deliver to you."
Nicky, as he did not mind confessing, was 'no scholar'; he could read at the best with great difficulty, and he had left his spectacles at home.
"What's the meaning o' this?" he asked, turning the document over.
"It's an injunction."
"That makes me no wiser, my son."
"It's a paper to restrain you from plying this ferry for hire pending a suit KillowversusVro in which you are named as defendant."
"'Suit'—'verses'? Darn the fellow, what's to do with verses? Come to me with your verses!" Nicky tossed the injunction contemptuously down in the sternsheets.
"You'll find 'tis the law," said the stranger warningly.
"The law? I've a-seen the law, my friend, over to Bodmin, and 'tis a very different looking chap from you, I can assure 'ee. The law rides in a gilt coach with trumpets afore it, and two six-foot fellows up behind in silk stockings and powder. The law be that high and mighty it can't even wear its own nat'ral hair. And you come to me stinkin' of beer in a reach-me-down overcoat, and pretendyoube the law! You'll be tellin' me next you're Queen Victoria. But it shows what a poor kind o' case Rosewarne must have, that he threatens me wi' such a make-believe."
That Nicky had been alarmed for the moment cannot be denied. His uneasiness died away, however, as the days passed and nothing happened. The paper he stowed away at home in the skivet of his chest, and very foolishly said nothing about it even to his neighbour Hosken.
Indeed he had almost forgotten it when, just before Christmas, the stranger appeared again on the slip with another paper.
"Hullo! More verses?"
"You've to show cause why you shouldn't be committed for contempt."
"Oh, have I? Well, a man can't help his feelin's, but I'm sorry if I said anything the other day to hurt yours; for a man can't help his appearance, neither, up to a point."
"You've none too civil a tongue," answered the stranger, "but I think it a kindness to warn you. By continuing to ply this ferry you're showing contempt for the law, and the law is going to punish you."
Nicky thought this out, but could not understand it at all. If Mr. Sam had a legal right to stop him, why hadn't he sent the police, or at least a 'summons'? As for going to prison, that only happened to thieves and criminals. No man could be locked up for pulling a boat to and fro; the notion was absurd on the face of it.
Two days later he sought out Mr. Benny, and showed him the documents.
"I wish you'd make head or tail of 'em for me. They're pretendin' somehow that Queen Victoria herself is mixed up in it. God bless her! and me that have never clapped eyes on her nor wished her aught but in health an' wealth long to live, Amen."
"Oh, Nicky, Nicky!" Mr. Benny leapt up from his chair. "What have you done! and what a criminal fool was I not to keep an eye on you!"
"From all I hear," said Nicky, "you've had enough to do lookin' after yourself. Be it true, as I hear tell, that Rosewarne gave you the sack on my account?"
"Never talk of that," commanded Mr. Benny. "Go you home now, lock up your boat, get a night's rest, and expect me early to-morrow morning. Between this and then I will see what can be done." But his heart sank as he glanced again at the date on the document.
Indeed he was too late. After an ineffectual interview with Mr. Tulse, the little man rushed off to the ferry, intent on facing Mr. Sam in his den and pleading for mercy. But as he reached the slip the official ferryboat came alongside, and in the sternsheets beside the town policeman sat Nicky Vro, on his way to Bodmin gaol.