[image]"'STAND!' CRIED DICK, DASHING FORWARD. 'LEAVE HIM, OR WE'LL FIRE.'"A sudden silence fell upon the scene. The men who held Penwarden's arms stood aside; the others edged away, taken aback by this unexpected intervention; there had not been time for the tidesmen to arrive from the village. Dick and Sam stood over the exciseman, pointing their useless muskets at the crowd. For a moment there was absolute stillness; then one of the men murmured:"'Tis young Maister Trevanion.""Yes," cried Dick, "and I warn you that if any of you lays a hand on the old man again I will report you all to Sir Bevil. I know you, for all your black faces. There's Doubledick, and Tonkin, and——""Iss, 'tis I, and I don't care who knows it," interrupted Tonkin, pushing forward. "What 'nation call ha' you got to meddle, cuss you!""I don't meddle with your trade; it's nothing to me; but I won't see an old fellow killed by a pack of ruffians."Tonkin cursed again, but some one drew him back and spoke to him in low tones. The fact that the interruption had come from the Squire's son was more daunting than the lads' muskets, which had no terror for armed men accustomed to contend with equal numbers. But the name of Trevanion, in spite of the fallen fortunes of the house, was still a moral power in the country-side, and, further, if any harm befell the Squire's heir, they could not escape a heavy retribution.After a few moments' colloquy, a man came forward."Hark 'ee, sir," he said, and Dick recognised his voice as Doubledick's, in spite of an attempt to disguise it. "We take it hard as you've meddled wi' honest free-traders as never did 'ee no harm. As for old Joe, 'twas only a bit of fun—hee! hee!—he bean't for drownin'. What I says I says for all, and that is, we'll let 'ee take un away if you do give us yer sacred word not to gie our names to Sir Bevil or Mr. Mildmay,—them as you knows.""I don't want to play informer," replied Dick. "I agree to that.""Not a word to a soul?""No. I've said so.""That's fair spoke," said the man, turning to the rest.A murmur of approval broke from them. Dick at once lifted Penwarden, with Sam's help, from the pool of water in which he was lying. It was difficult to keep him on his feet, for he was as yet only partially conscious. Without either assistance or interference from the smugglers they led him slowly to the foot of the path, and, one on each side of him, began to carry, rather than walk, him up the cliff. One of the smugglers dogged them throughout the toilsome ascent. When they came to the place where the man had fallen, after a shrewd thrust from Penwarden's cutlass, they found that he had disappeared, having no doubt made his way homeward."Thank 'ee for this, Maister Dick," murmured Penwarden when they paused to rest at the cliff-top. "I'll have the law of those tidesmen for not comin' when they was called.""No doubt they didn't see your light. And look here, Joe, I promised not to split on the men, so I want you to promise too.""Daze me if I could split if I tried. I didn't see one of 'em plain, nor hear their voices, and I got this crack on the head afore I could tell one from t'other.""Do it hurt much, maister?" asked Sam."More'n you'd care about, young Sam. But 'tis nawthin' at all to the cracks and wounds we got when we served wi' Lord Admiral Rodney. Have I telled 'ee what 'a said to me purticler one day on Plymouth Hoe?""Yes, yes," said Dick, quickly. "The sooner you are in bed the better."They took him slowly to his cottage, where Dick put him to bed, gave him some brandy, and bathed his wounded head."You'll stop with him to-night, Sam," he said. "Don't leave him until Gammer Oliver comes in the morning.""What'll 'ee say to Feyther, Maister Dick? I'm afeard he'll be in a terrible rage wi' poor me.""I'll make that right. Now, lock the door when I've gone, and give Mr. Penwarden anything he wants during the night. I'll come over in the morning."It was nearly two o'clock before Dick got to bed, and day was breaking before he slept. Meanwhile the smugglers finished their work unmolested, and before morning eighty tubs of good French spirits lay in the capacious cellars beneath the Dower House.CHAPTER THE SEVENTHThe Breach WidensNext morning John Trevanion, fresh and ruddy, dressed in white breeches and a blue coat with shining buttons, rode gaily down to the Five Pilchards and summoned Doubledick to the door."Well, you did the business, I see," he said jovially. "A small beginning: I wish my cellars held more.""Iss, fay, a little small haul, to be sure; little and good. Hee! hee! But, Maister Trevanion, I've summat plaguey awk'ard to tell 'ee.""What's that?" said Trevanion, with an uneasy look."Why, drown me if old Joe didn' come upon us, and, worse than that, when we'd cracked him on the head, who should come bouncing down-along but Squire's boy and young Sam Pollex, vowin' and swearin' they'd shoot us through the gizzard if we laid a finger on the old man.""The deuce they did! and you knocked them on the head, of course?"The look of uneasiness passed from Trevanion's face."Well, no, not 'zackly. 'Twas Squire's son, you see.""What of that? You should have cracked their numskulls together and sent 'em home howling. Afraid of two boys! What did you do, may I ask?""Crackin' skulls is all very fine, but we didn' want a crowner's 'quest on young Squire. No, no, we don't want hangman's necklace chokin' the breath out of us. We let 'em take old Joe home-along, arter they'd give their Bible word to be mum as gravestones.""Then you were a pack of fools. Don't you see the monkeys were spying on you? 'Twas they brought Joe, without a doubt, though I'd like to know how they got wind of the business.""Well, if I didn' think it! ... Here's Zacky Tonkin. Maister Trevanion was sayin' as they two brats spied on us, Zacky.""Not they, 'a b'lieve," said Tonkin, who had come up. "Young Squire said he'd no mind to meddle wi' the business, but was only a bit tender over old Joe.""And you believe that!" said Trevanion, angrily flicking his riding-whip. "Make no mistake, the Squire has turned on you. I happen to know that Mildmay has been twice to the Towers of late; the Squire's as poor as a church mouse, and informer's pay will be riches to him.""Squire turn informer!" cried Tonkin. "I can't believe it.""I can, though," said Doubledick. "When a man's as low down in the world as Squire, he'll do a deal o' dirtiness to fill his purse, 'a b'lieve.""Of course he will," said Trevanion. "You don't know the world, Tonkin. Depend upon it, a good many golden guineas will find their way to the Towers before a week's out."Tonkin was an honest fellow, save in so far as the King's revenue was concerned, and had that simplicity of soul which is incredulous of trickery in others. He was not proof against the cunning suggestions of Trevanion. Naturally short-tempered and violent, he smote the flank of Trevanion's horse a blow that set it prancing, and cried with a savage oath:—"Then I'll make 'em pay for 't, as sure as my name be Zack Tonkin. I will so.""Hee! hee! That 'a will," said Doubledick, rubbing his hands. "They golden guineas 'll be a bad egg, to be sure."Trevanion smiled. He had laid the train; he could trust his minions to fire it."Well, we'll speak no more of that," he said. "I'm riding to Truro: can you tell what for?""Not for more furnichy?" said Tonkin."Goin' a-courtin', hee! hee!" smirked Doubledick."No, no; I shan't trouble the parson yet awhile. I'm going to open the mines again, my men.""Then I'm sorry for 'ee," said Tonkin bluntly. "Mines were worked out long ago.""Maybe, maybe not. I'm going to try. I shall begin in quite a small way. I shan't fling my money into the earth as my cousin did. But I mean to try my luck, and within a week or two I shall have a few men at work.""'Twill be good for the parish," said Doubledick. "The miners are drouthy souls, and have a proper taste for good sperits. Ay, sure, 'twill do us all good.""You won't give up the trade, sir?" enquired Tonkin."Not I. The Polkerran men will do more than ever before. A fig for your Mildmays and Polwheles—Polwhele is still riding-officer, isn't he? My wits against them any day. We'll double our trade with Roscoff this winter.""If Delarousse bean't nabbed," said Tonkin. "His game of privateerin' will souse him in hot water one o' these days.""Oh! we can do without Delarousse. There's a man in Roscoff, no friend of his, who will deal with us better than he.""It do maze me, Maister Trevanion," said Doubledick, "that arter bein' away all these years ye know so much about the trade.""I keep my eyes open, that's all," replied Trevanion, with a laugh. "Well, I must be off. You can tell the neighbours about the mines. I'm glad to do something for the old village."He rode away, giving smiling greetings to the people, men and women, whom he passed on the road."A fine feller!" said Doubledick, enthusiastically. "'Twill be heyday in village, Zacky; stirring life, and not so much of a tomb as 'tis since Squire became a pauper.""But I'm sorry he do want us to break with Delarousse. He be a good trader, for a Frenchman. Howsomever, if there be a better, all the better for we, to be sure."The men parted, to retail to their friends and neighbours the pleasing news of the great things John Trevanion was about to do for the village.Roscoff, the place mentioned in the course of their conversation, was a little port in Brittany which had become the chief seat of the contraband trade with the south-west of England since a restrictive Act of Parliament had put a stop to it in the Channel Islands. The French Government had made it a free port to smugglers, and in a few years it had grown from a tiny fishing village to a thriving town. There were three classes of people engaged in the contraband trade. The freighters consigned or received the goods, and paid the expenses of their shipment. The boatmen conveyed them from port to port, always on moonless nights, and usually when a strong wind was blowing. The tub-carriers bore them to their destination. The boatmen received a fixed sum for each trip, the tub-carriers for each cargo run, and frequently in addition a portion of the goods, or a small share in the proceeds.Until John Trevanion reappeared in Polkerran, Isaac Tonkin had been the principal freighter of the village, and was the owner and master of the lugger which plied between it and Roscoff. His dealings were chiefly with a certain Jean Delarousse, a ship-owner of Roscoff, who was notorious also as a daring seaman, and in his privateer vessel preyed on English shipping in the Channel between Poole and the Lizard. Delarousse had never come to Polkerran, but he was well known to Tonkin and the crew of his lugger, the Isaac and Jacob. Tonkin having little capital, the cargoes run at Polkerran were usually small, and were disposed of solely among the innkeepers, farmers, and gentry of the neighbourhood. Now that Trevanion had come home, the Polkerran folk expected great developments in the trade, and looked forward to an exciting and profitable winter. Apart from the monetary gain, the risks of smuggling exercised a fascination upon those engaged in it, providing the only excitement in their otherwise dull and monotonous lives. The fraud on the revenue weighed very lightly on their consciences. In their view they were entitled to the full value of the goods for which they had honestly paid, and the Government officials were thieves and tyrants. To best the Customs and Excise was both a business and a sport.It was not long before the consequences of Dick's intervention on behalf of Joe Penwarden made themselves felt. Hitherto the smugglers had recognised the Trevanions of the Towers as rather for them than against them, but now, actuated by John Trevanion's malicious suggestion, they looked on them in a different light. For the first time a Trevanion had ranged himself on the side of the representatives of the law, and Tonkin, resenting what he regarded as defection, soon began to show that in threatening vengeance he meant to be as good as his word.One morning Dick, going down with Sam to inspect the night lines he had set in the waters of Trevanion Bay, discovered with surprise and annoyance that they had been cut. A day or two afterwards they found their boat, which they had drawn up as usual above high-water mark, bumping among the rocks half a mile up the coast. They did not report these occurrences, hoping that they were nothing but a mark of temporary ill-feeling and would soon cease. But when for the third time their lines were tampered with, Dick became seriously concerned. The fish they caught were a very important part of the provisions for the household. What was not required at once was salted and dried for consumption when fishing was over for the season. Without these constant supplies they would have to draw more largely on their pigs and poultry, which they were accustomed to sell. Dick was unwilling to impart his troubles to any one, and for several nights he and Sam kept watch, hoping that if the culprits were caught in the act, the fear of exposure would put a stop to their mischief. On three nights nothing happened: and yet, on the first night when they left the lines unguarded, the same fate befell them."This is more than I can bear," cried Dick, in the morning. "I shall tell Petherick."Petherick was the village constable, who filled also the offices of sexton, bell-ringer, and beadle in the parish church."Bless 'ee, you'll waste yer breath," said Sam. "Old Petherick be a crony o' Tonkin, and wouldn' lift a finger against him, without it were murder or arson: and then he'd have to get the sojers to help him. Why, 'tis said he've let 'em keep the tubs in church-tower sometimes when the preventives have been smellin' too close.""Well, we must put a stop to it somehow. I'll tell Joe, and see what he has to say."Later in the day he went into the village to buy some new fishing tackle at a general-shop, where the folk could buy tea, sugar, cheese, needles, thread, letter-paper, bootlaces—in short, every small article they needed. On his return, he heard a hubbub proceeding from the village green, where wrestling-bouts, games of quoits, dog-fights, and other sports took place. In the midst was a duck-pond. Bending his steps thither to see what was going on, he beheld Sam with his back against a tree, sturdily defending himself with fists and feet against a crowd of the village lads, among whom the hulking form of Jake Tonkin was conspicuous."Heave un in duck-pond," he heard Jake cry."You'd better!" he shouted, rushing forward to assist his companion.The crowd fell back as he forced his way through it, bowling one fellow over like a ninepin, and driving another out of his path with a shove that nearly sent him into the pond. It is probable that his energy, and the prestige attached to him as the Squire's son, would have put an end to the affair; but it chanced that John Trevanion rode by at this moment, and reining up his horse, contrived in some subtle manner to indicate that his sympathy was with the larger party. Only this could explain the sudden change in their attitude. They closed round Dick and Sam with derisive yells."Gie un both a duckin'," shouted one, and they made a sudden concerted rush, trying to seize the two boys.Dick, never having been to school, had never had occasion or opportunity to learn the noble art; but his muscles were in good condition, and the obvious necessity was to make full use of them. Standing beside Sam against the tree, he hit out against any head, trunk, or shoulder that came within reach, Sam making good play as before with feet as well as arms. One young fisher retired with a crimson nose, another with a bump over one eye, a third shouting that his leg was broken. All the time John Trevanion sat his horse, smiling, and flinging out now and then an encouraging word, which might have been intended for either side, but was appropriated by Tonkin's crew.Courage and the best will in the world cannot prevail over a triple excess of numbers. The fisher-lads were still six when their wounded comrades had retired to the rear. Led by Jake Tonkin they hurled themselves upon the two defenders. For a few minutes there was a brisk scrimmage; many good blows were given and exchanged; then Dick and Sam fell, to be immediately pounced on by the victors, who caught them by legs and arms and began to drag them down to the pond.They were within a yard of the brink when a loud voice thundered a command to halt, and a riding-whip cracked and curled its thong round the legs and backs of the aggressors. With howls of pain they released their victims and fled across the green. Rising, bruised and muddy, from the ground, the two boys saw Mr. Polwhele, the riding-officer, close by on horseback, his face flushed and stern-set with anger."You look on and do nothing!" he said indignantly to John Trevanion."My dear sir, why should I interfere? Boys must fight, let them fight it out.""Three to one—is that your idea of fair play?"Trevanion shrugged."Hadn't you better reserve your whip for stimulating your tidesmen, Mr. Polwhele? They need a little spiriting, if what I hear is true."And with that as a parting shot Trevanion rode away."What was the origin of this?" asked Mr. Polwhele. "I'm sorry to see it, Master Trevanion.""'Twas like this, sir," said Sam, rubbing his head and legs alternately. "I comed upon they chaps, and Jake Tonkin says to me, 'Catched any fish lately, young Sam?' Says I, ''Tis easier to cut lines, to be sure,' says I, and then they set on me, and they'd ha' melled and mashed me if Maister Dick hadn't come up.""Have they been cutting your lines, then?"Dick saw no help for it but to acquaint the riding-officer with the petty persecution he had lately suffered, and the cause of it, which hitherto Mr. Polwhele had not known."'Tis rascally, 'pon my soul it is," said the officer, "and I'm sorry Penwarden has brought it on ye. Not but 'twas your own doing, Master Dick; you'd better have kept out of it, though I own 'twas a good deed to old Joe. I'm on my way to see Sir Bevil, and I'll tell him as a magistrate, and he'll engage to commit any ruffian that molests ye.""Not on my account, if you please, Mr. Polwhele," said Dick earnestly. "There's bad blood between the Towers and the village as it is, and 'twill be ten times worse if Sir Bevil comes into it.""Maybe you're in the right. Well, I'll see you safe home, and if I may advise ye, keep out of the way o' the village folk. You're not friends with Mr. Trevanion seemingly. Is he backing the smugglers, d'ye know?""I can't say anything about that. My father has nothing to do with him.""Well, well, these family quarrels are common enough. Come along beside me."Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the intervention of the riding-officer. Purely accidental as it was, the villagers regarded it as another proof of the new alliance between the Towers and the enemy. John Trevanion did not fail to describe to the elder Tonkin, the next time he met him, how savagely Mr. Polwhele had laid his whip upon Jake, and the irate smuggler swore that if he encountered the riding-officer he would make him pay for it.That evening Dick consulted Joe Penwarden on the situation, as he had intended. Joe was much distressed to think that he was the cause of the bitterness with which the village folk now regarded the family at the Towers."I don't know what you can do," said he. "But let things bide; maybe they'll see by long and late they've misread 'ee.""But we can't have our fishing spoilt time after time, Joe.""'Tis a pretty stoor, be dazed to it!" said Joe, angrily. "And all for a wambling old carcase like me! Ah! I warn't allus like as I be now. When Lord Admiral Rodney spoke to me on Plymouth Hoe I was as limber a young feller as you'd see in Devon or Cornwall. He was goin' along with two handsome females——but there, I think I've telled 'ee. What I say is, why did Maister John come home, cuss him? There was none o' this afore.""I don't think that's fair, Joe. They'd have run a cargo all the same, if he were at the ends of the earth; and I couldn't have done differently.""Ye may say so, but I hold to it, whatever ye say. He's ill-wished 'ee, that's the truth, and a pity it is he ever showed his face here."Two evenings later, when Dick was struggling with a piece of Latin prose for Mr. Carlyon, there was a knock at the outer door, and Reuben admitted Penwarden, with Jake Tonkin firmly in his clutch."Axe Squire if I can have speech with him, Reuby," he said.Mr. Trevanion came out into the hall."Well, what's this, Joe?" he asked."I catched this young reptile a-meddlin' wi' Maister Dick's lines, Squire," said Penwarden, "so I brought him up to be dealt with according to law.""Meddling with his lines, indeed!" cried the Squire in surprise. "Why should he do that? What have you to say for yourself, rascal?"Jake had nothing to say for himself, but stood with a sullen glower upon his face."'Tis not the first time either, Squire, and I be mazed as you didn' know it," Penwarden continued."I knew nothing about it. Dick," he called into the room, "come here."Dick obeyed reluctantly."Penwarden tells me," said his father, "that your lines have been tampered with. Is that true?""Yes, sir.""How often?""Three or four times within a week or so.""Why did you not tell me?""I didn't want to bother you, sir.""But this is new; it shows a hostile spirit——. Well, I'll say no more now. As for you, you young scoundrel, I'm not a justice, or I'd commit you. You shall take your choice; a sound flogging, or haled before Sir Bevil: that will mean three months in Truro jail. Which is it to be?""I don't want to see Sir Bevil," said Jake, sullenly."Strip off your coat, then. Reuben, bring my whip."Dick went away: he could not remain to see the lad thrashed."Now, Reuben, half a dozen lashes," said the Squire when his man returned. "No; I'll do it myself. Stoop!"Dick pressed his fingers into his ears when at the third or fourth stroke Jake began to howl. The Squire gave him full measure; then bade him begone, and take care not to offend again, declaring that he should not get off so easily next time."Now, Dick," he said, returning to the room, "what is the meaning of all this?"Thereupon Dick made a clean breast of it, telling all that had happened since the rescue of Penwarden. The Squire's face clouded as he listened to the story."John Trevanion is at the bottom of this," he cried, thumping the table. "They would never believe I was against them unless their minds had been poisoned. I will see Tonkin to-morrow and get at the truth." Then, with one of the swift changes of mood characteristic of him, he added: "No, I won't do it. I won't gratify that cur; he shall never think I care a snap for him. Tell me if anything of the kind happens again, and I will myself go over to see Sir Bevil. On my life, the toad shall smart if he is proved to be stirring folk against me."Every succeeding incident in this series did but confirm the village folk in their conviction that the Squire was now their declared enemy, and in staunch alliance with the revenue officers.CHAPTER THE EIGHTHA Light on the MoorNext day everybody in Polkerran knew of Jake Tonkin's thrashing. It was discussed by the men in tap-rooms, on the jetty, in barns and piggeries, in mills and cobblers' work-rooms. Fishwives chattered about it on their doorsteps and at their windows. Boys meeting their playmates asked if they had heard that Jake Tonkin had been walloped by Squire, and Jake, as the victim of two assaults of this nature in succession, was looked upon as something of a hero. Public opinion was dead against the Squire, and was perhaps only the stronger because it was in the wrong.It was clear that John Trevanion intended to make himself as unpleasant as possible to his relative. In the afternoon a number of men were seen mounting the steep road from the village to the cliff, drawing trolleys laden with short narrow planks of wood. On reaching the green level they proceeded to erect fences on the ground that had formerly been the Squire's, and was now John Trevanion's. By the end of the next day a large portion of the land was enclosed, the effect of these operations being that the inmates of the Towers were cramped in their movements out of doors, being restricted to the high road and the various rights of way, which even the landlord could not close against them.Sam Pollex hoped that the Squire would retaliate. The Beal, from which the huer was accustomed to show his signals to the pilchard fishers, was still Mr. Trevanion's property, and he could, if he chose, fence it round in the same way. But there was nothing petty in the Squire's nature. He was not the man to take a mean revenge on his neighbours, so that when a fisher reported one evening that he had seen sharks and grampuses some distance out at sea, a sure sign that the pilchards were coming, the villagers went to bed without any fear that access would be forbidden to the usual haunt.Just before dawn next morning, Nathan Pendry, father of John Trevanion's portmanteau carrier, the most experienced fisher in the village, took his stand at the extremity of the Beal, carrying his bush. Seaward, the sky was gloomy; in the east a pale orange and pink glow on the horizon announced the rising sun. The air was very still, only the slow ripples washing the sand at the foot of the cliff breaking the silence. In the fairway lay three boats, the largest of them a smack of eight tons burden, manned by six oarsmen, together with Tonkin and a fisher nearly as large as he. These men and the occupants of the other boats sat without speaking, their eyes fixed on the huer above. He stood motionless, gazing intently on the surface of the sea. Beyond the promontory the village was as yet asleep; one man stood solitary at the end of the jetty.Suddenly the huer bent forward, in an attitude of intense expectancy. A few minutes passed; then lifting himself he waved his bush aloft. His experienced eyes had detected a shadow in the water, moving across the bay in a direction parallel with the shore. Instantly the men in the first boat fell to their oars, and Tonkin, standing up in the stern, and making a trumpet of his hands, shouted, "Havar! havar!" towards the single figure on the jetty. This man repeated the cry; it was taken up in the village; and soon from every street and lane a crowd of men, women, and children poured up towards the cliffs, dressing themselves as they ran, and shouting, "Havar! havar! Yo-hoy, hoy, hoy!"Meanwhile the rowers were tugging at their oars with all their might, Ike Pendry, who was rowing bow, having his eyes fixed on his father, and directing the steersman in accordance with the movements of the bush. The ground behind the huer was now thronged with spectators, no longer shouting, but watching Pendry and the boatmen in tense silence. All at once the huer dropped his bush; the rowers shipped oars; and Tonkin and his mate grasped a long net, which had lain folded ready to their hands, and with a few deft movements shot it overboard."Yo-hoy, yo-hoy!" broke from every throat. Then the crowd relapsed into silence, watching the further proceedings in the bay.The "seine net," as it was called, was a quarter of a mile long and sixteen fathoms broad at the middle. It was fastened on each side to two stout double ropes, and at each corner to four strong warps about fifty fathoms long. Corks were fixed to the upper edge, and leaden weights to the lower. When it was "shot," the corks buoyed up one end to the surface of the water, the leads sank the other perpendicularly to the bottom. The boat meanwhile was rowed round the shoal, following the directions of the huer, until, the two extremities being made fast, the fish were imprisoned in an oblong barrier of network. As Tonkin straightened his back after completing his part of the work, another shout rent the air, and the huer, his task also accomplished, broke through the dignified calm which had hitherto distinguished him, and waved his cap triumphantly.Now came the turn of the "tuck-boat," one of those that had remained as yet in the fairway. It was rowed within the area enclosed by the seine, and laid close to the seine-boat, to the bows of which one end of a smaller net, called the "tuck," was fastened by a rope. The boat then slowly made the inner circuit of the seine, the tuck being paid out and deftly hooked at intervals to the larger net. Meanwhile the men in the third boat beat the water with their oars, so as to scare the fish into the middle of the enclosure.Now came the most exciting moment of the day. The cliff-top all round the bay was dark with spectators. Small boys, eager to get in front, dodged and shoved among the legs and skirts of their elders. The village blacksmith was there; cobblers with bent backs and leather aprons; tinkers, tailors, wheelwrights, carpenters, ploughmen, dairymaids, old men with sticks and crutches, old women who could scarcely totter, mothers with babies in their arms: all were agog with excitement to see the final act. Sam Pollex was there, and when he caught sight of the parlourmaid of the Dower House he sidled up to her elbow, listened with delight to her exclamations of "My gracious!" "Look 'ee see, now!" "Lawk-a-massy me!" and by-and-by ventured to instruct her ignorance of the movements passing below.With the shouts of the boys were now mingled the deeper tones of the seiners as, ranged in a row in their boat, they began to haul on the tuck, calling "Yo, heave ho!" in time with their rhythmic movements. "Pull away, boys!" shouts the huer; "Yo-hoy!" scream the boys. "Up she comes! Look at 'em! Look at 'em!" The water eddies like a mill-race; in the midst is seen a heaving mass of gleaming scales; and from round the point come boats of all sizes, which range themselves in a circle about the shoal. Men lean over the sides, dip their baskets, lift them full of shining fish, empty them into the boats, and dip them again for more. Soon they stand ankle deep in pilchards, and when the boats sink to the gunwales, they are rowed away to the jetty, where men are waiting with shovels and barrows, ready to carry the fish to the salting-house.Dick Trevanion was among the spectators. He never missed the first haul of the season. But to-day he was acutely conscious of a change. Last year the villagers had greeted him with smiles and cheery words; to-day they lowered their eyes, passed him in silence, and edged away from him as he moved from place to place. He could not but feel bitterly his isolation. Why did they so misjudge him? He had not changed: he knew well that, in any ordinary contest between the smugglers and the revenue officers, his sympathy would have been with the former; friendly as he was with Mr. Mildmay, he would enjoy nothing better than that gentleman's discomfiture, if it were due to fair means and the villagers' wits. Yet, because he had intervened to prevent harm to an old man, he was now regarded by the villagers as their enemy, one who would descend to play the mean part of spy and informer.With gloomy face he turned away and walked back along the promontory. At the end he met Mr. Carlyon, who had just ridden up on his cob. The parson's ruddy face was suffused with cheerfulness; he knew by the jubilant shouts of the crowd that the catch was a good one, and rejoiced that his parishioners were winning from the deep their means of subsistence for the winter. He marked Dick's clouded face, and, guessing the occasion of it, he tried to cheer him."Come, Dick," he said genially, "cheer up, my lad; this haul will put the folk in a good temper, and they will forget their grudge against you.""I hope they will, sir," replied Dick, "but there's one man who'll try to keep them in mind of it.""You mean your cousin?""Yes.""But surely he'll not be such a cur. He's a scoundrel—there now, what am I saying? I'll tackle him, my boy. Why, bless my soul, he was in church on Sunday, and my text was 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' I'll ride there now, and get him to give me some breakfast—though I detest the fellow," he added in one of his unconscious asides."He is away from home, I believe," said Dick."Well, then, I'll put it off till another day, but tackle him I will. I've a bit of news, Dick. The carrier brought me some books last night; that's not the news, though. No. You have heard, maybe, of a Frenchman named Delarousse?"He looked slyly at Dick; everyone in Polkerran knew the name of the Frenchman with whom the smugglers had such close dealings."As a natural enemy of our country I don't pity him," pursued the parson, "but as a—h'm—an honest free-trader I own I feel for him. His privateer was badly knocked about in the Channel by a revenue cruiser a week or two ago, and while she was being repaired, it appears that he tried to run a cargo at Polperro. As ill-luck would have it—dear me! I wonder if I ought to have said that," he added under his breath—"he ran into the arms of the revenue people; they seized his lugger and carried him to Plymouth, where he'll cool his heels for a time until they put him among the other French prisoners on Dartmoor.""Do they know it in the village yet, sir?""Probably not; the carrier was going straight on to Newquay; he had nothing for us except my books. But you may be sure the folk will soon know all about it. The carrier had a glass of brandy with Petherick, and Petherick, as you know, is the biggest gossip in the parish. His brandy is better than mine, the dog! I must ask him where he gets it."Dick could not help smiling at the parson's unconscious self-revelation."That's right; you're feeling better, I see," said Mr. Carlyon cheerily. "Now I'll go on and bespeak my basket. Pilchards of the first catch are the daintiest dish I know. 'Tis a holiday to-day, but I shall see you to-morrow. Good-bye."He rode on. Dick turned to watch him, and saw Sam Pollex walking beside the maid-servant of the Dower House. When Sam observed his young master he left the girl and came sheepishly towards him."I've been tellin' to she the hows and whys of it, Maister Dick," said he."Indeed.""Iss, I have. Bein' a furriner, she be 'mazin simple for such a well-growed female. She axed me why I never brought no more eggs.""And what did you say?""Well, not likin' to hurt her feelings, I telled her our hens be uncommon idle lately, and she said she knows they do have fits that way sometimes. Maister John's gone to Lunnon, to buy things for his mine.""I wish he'd stay there.""Her name be Susan.""Quite a common name.""She's as nice a female as ever I've seed."The pilchard fishing was for several days so engrossing an occupation that the villagers had no time for fostering their grievance against the Towers. Dick and Sam, who had formerly been in the thick of it, sometimes as spectators merely, occasionally as participators, kept away, and spent the greater part of their time in fishing quietly some few miles up the coast. One day Dick reverted to the project of hunting seals, which he had temporarily abandoned, partly through the diversion afforded by the discovery of the well, partly because he did not care to kill the parent seals while their offspring were so young. Now, however, the prospect of sport, and the practical wish to obtain a sealskin for his mother, made him resolve to try his luck in the cave, and he laid his plans in consultation with the ever-ready Sam.He guessed that the seals left the cave at low tide to find food in the deep, and returned when the sea flowed in. Since the cave was at such times inaccessible from the sea, he decided that it must be approached from the well, of which neither he nor Sam had now any remaining dread. One evening they sallied towards it, carrying a well-made rope-ladder, a musket apiece, a large hammer, and several torches, which would give more light than the ancient candle-lantern they had formerly carried. To one end of the rope-ladder they had attached a series of stout meat-hooks borrowed from old Reuben: they could more confidently trust their safety to a number of teeth gripping the rock than to the single fluke of their small boat anchor. They had timed their start so that they would reach the cave just as the tide turned.It was a dull, murky evening, with a touch of autumn rawness in the air. Twilight had not quite merged into darkness when they arrived at the ruined chapel at the well-head. They looked warily around to make sure that their presence was not observed, then prepared to descend."'Tis rayther fearsome," murmured Sam, as he looked into the black shaft. Now that he was on the spot, the tradition of ghostliness in which he had been brought up revived something of his former fears."Nonsense," said Dick, "we have laid the ghost for ever, Sam. I will go down first. Don't follow until I come to the door. I will whistle for you. When you hear me, fling down the ladder and the hammer. At a second whistle, come yourself."Sticking a lighted candle-end into his hatband, and slinging the musket over his shoulder, he stepped backward into the well, and began the descent. He found the successive staples entirely by the sense of touch, the candle throwing a deep shadow below him. At first he felt a little nervous, but gathered confidence after a few steps, and made the latter part of the descent very quickly.Sam, waiting above, heard a whistle, curiously prolonged by its reverberations from the walls. He threw down the hammer, and gave an involuntary start when he heard it thud upon the bottom. The ladder followed, and the unkindled torches; then, without lighting a candle for his own hat, he stepped over the brink, muttering to himself:"S'pose I fall! But I won't. S'pose I do though. But Maister Dick didn't. S'poseIdo. Well, if 'tis to be, 'tis, so I med as well go cheerful."In reality he descended more quickly than Dick had done. They gathered up their burdens, and made their way by the light of Dick's candle along the passage until they came to the ledge overlooking the cave.Here they stopped and peered over. The tide was rather lower than they had expected. Their eyes ranged the cave for a time without discovering any sign of the seals. Then Dick lit a torch, and holding it over the dark space beneath, he suddenly saw two orbs of light, like the eyes of a monstrous cat, in a far corner to the right of him. Moving along the ledge in that direction, he descried two seals, greyish in colour, and much larger than he had supposed them to be, lying on a rock, with the two young ones between them."We will only kill one, Sam," he whispered, "and I hope 'twill be the father."The seals were apparently fascinated by the glare of the torch, for they made no movement, their eight eyes glowing like balls of fire. In order to obtain more light upon his task, Dick kindled two more torches, and stuck all three into crevices of rock in such a way that they illuminated the whole corner of the cave where the seals lay. But now the animals had caught sight of him, and as if instinctively realising that the intruder was an enemy, they scrambled with clumsy movements off the rocks into the water."They be goin' out to sea, scrounch 'em!" whispered Sam, whose attitude to all prospective victims was an indignant surprise that they did not wait meekly for their doom.But the seals, after swimming a yard or two, took up their position behind a larger boulder, above which the tops of their sleek, massive heads could just be seen."We shall have to go down to them, Sam," said Dick."They be great big creatures," said Sam dubiously. "Wi' those terrible big flappers they could smite us flat as flounders.""You had better take the hammer in case I miss and they attack us. We must at any rate prevent one of them from getting away."They retreated to the further end of the ledge, to which the light of their torches scarcely reached, and carefully hooked the ladder to the jagged rock. Then in perfect silence they descended. The water only came to their knees. Wading through it with scarcely more noise than an otter might have made, they drew gradually nearer to the rock behind which the seals had sheltered. Here they found themselves baulked. The rock was close to the wall, and it was impossible to get a shot at the animals without circumventing it, which appeared to Dick a dangerous movement. The surprising quickness with which the seals had shuffled off their former perch showed that, if a shot failed, they might fling their heavy bodies upon the assailants before they could escape. He was considering what to do, when a movement among the seals forced him to act on the instant. The largest of the creatures heaved itself to the top of the rock, and lay there as if on the watch for the enemy, presenting the side of its head to Dick. He raised his musket, a firelock of ancient type, and fired. The reverberations in the hollow vault were broken in upon by a hoarse roar, and through the cloud of smoke the seal slid over the rock into the water, and came swimming towards the two boys. Dick seized Sam's musket, preparing to fire again; his first shot had only enraged the animal. But before he could raise the weapon, the seal threw itself out of the water, and he had just time to spring aside and evade its onset. As it passed, its flipper struck the musket from his grasp, and it fell with a splash into the water.Sam, for all his fear of ghosts, was brave enough before a real enemy. He was standing a yard or two in Dick's rear. As the seal plunged heavily into the sea, Sam brought the hammer down with all his force upon the creature's head. There was one tremendous convulsion of the water, then the seal's movements ceased and it sank to the bottom.
[image]"'STAND!' CRIED DICK, DASHING FORWARD. 'LEAVE HIM, OR WE'LL FIRE.'"
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"'STAND!' CRIED DICK, DASHING FORWARD. 'LEAVE HIM, OR WE'LL FIRE.'"
A sudden silence fell upon the scene. The men who held Penwarden's arms stood aside; the others edged away, taken aback by this unexpected intervention; there had not been time for the tidesmen to arrive from the village. Dick and Sam stood over the exciseman, pointing their useless muskets at the crowd. For a moment there was absolute stillness; then one of the men murmured:
"'Tis young Maister Trevanion."
"Yes," cried Dick, "and I warn you that if any of you lays a hand on the old man again I will report you all to Sir Bevil. I know you, for all your black faces. There's Doubledick, and Tonkin, and——"
"Iss, 'tis I, and I don't care who knows it," interrupted Tonkin, pushing forward. "What 'nation call ha' you got to meddle, cuss you!"
"I don't meddle with your trade; it's nothing to me; but I won't see an old fellow killed by a pack of ruffians."
Tonkin cursed again, but some one drew him back and spoke to him in low tones. The fact that the interruption had come from the Squire's son was more daunting than the lads' muskets, which had no terror for armed men accustomed to contend with equal numbers. But the name of Trevanion, in spite of the fallen fortunes of the house, was still a moral power in the country-side, and, further, if any harm befell the Squire's heir, they could not escape a heavy retribution.
After a few moments' colloquy, a man came forward.
"Hark 'ee, sir," he said, and Dick recognised his voice as Doubledick's, in spite of an attempt to disguise it. "We take it hard as you've meddled wi' honest free-traders as never did 'ee no harm. As for old Joe, 'twas only a bit of fun—hee! hee!—he bean't for drownin'. What I says I says for all, and that is, we'll let 'ee take un away if you do give us yer sacred word not to gie our names to Sir Bevil or Mr. Mildmay,—them as you knows."
"I don't want to play informer," replied Dick. "I agree to that."
"Not a word to a soul?"
"No. I've said so."
"That's fair spoke," said the man, turning to the rest.
A murmur of approval broke from them. Dick at once lifted Penwarden, with Sam's help, from the pool of water in which he was lying. It was difficult to keep him on his feet, for he was as yet only partially conscious. Without either assistance or interference from the smugglers they led him slowly to the foot of the path, and, one on each side of him, began to carry, rather than walk, him up the cliff. One of the smugglers dogged them throughout the toilsome ascent. When they came to the place where the man had fallen, after a shrewd thrust from Penwarden's cutlass, they found that he had disappeared, having no doubt made his way homeward.
"Thank 'ee for this, Maister Dick," murmured Penwarden when they paused to rest at the cliff-top. "I'll have the law of those tidesmen for not comin' when they was called."
"No doubt they didn't see your light. And look here, Joe, I promised not to split on the men, so I want you to promise too."
"Daze me if I could split if I tried. I didn't see one of 'em plain, nor hear their voices, and I got this crack on the head afore I could tell one from t'other."
"Do it hurt much, maister?" asked Sam.
"More'n you'd care about, young Sam. But 'tis nawthin' at all to the cracks and wounds we got when we served wi' Lord Admiral Rodney. Have I telled 'ee what 'a said to me purticler one day on Plymouth Hoe?"
"Yes, yes," said Dick, quickly. "The sooner you are in bed the better."
They took him slowly to his cottage, where Dick put him to bed, gave him some brandy, and bathed his wounded head.
"You'll stop with him to-night, Sam," he said. "Don't leave him until Gammer Oliver comes in the morning."
"What'll 'ee say to Feyther, Maister Dick? I'm afeard he'll be in a terrible rage wi' poor me."
"I'll make that right. Now, lock the door when I've gone, and give Mr. Penwarden anything he wants during the night. I'll come over in the morning."
It was nearly two o'clock before Dick got to bed, and day was breaking before he slept. Meanwhile the smugglers finished their work unmolested, and before morning eighty tubs of good French spirits lay in the capacious cellars beneath the Dower House.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
The Breach Widens
Next morning John Trevanion, fresh and ruddy, dressed in white breeches and a blue coat with shining buttons, rode gaily down to the Five Pilchards and summoned Doubledick to the door.
"Well, you did the business, I see," he said jovially. "A small beginning: I wish my cellars held more."
"Iss, fay, a little small haul, to be sure; little and good. Hee! hee! But, Maister Trevanion, I've summat plaguey awk'ard to tell 'ee."
"What's that?" said Trevanion, with an uneasy look.
"Why, drown me if old Joe didn' come upon us, and, worse than that, when we'd cracked him on the head, who should come bouncing down-along but Squire's boy and young Sam Pollex, vowin' and swearin' they'd shoot us through the gizzard if we laid a finger on the old man."
"The deuce they did! and you knocked them on the head, of course?"
The look of uneasiness passed from Trevanion's face.
"Well, no, not 'zackly. 'Twas Squire's son, you see."
"What of that? You should have cracked their numskulls together and sent 'em home howling. Afraid of two boys! What did you do, may I ask?"
"Crackin' skulls is all very fine, but we didn' want a crowner's 'quest on young Squire. No, no, we don't want hangman's necklace chokin' the breath out of us. We let 'em take old Joe home-along, arter they'd give their Bible word to be mum as gravestones."
"Then you were a pack of fools. Don't you see the monkeys were spying on you? 'Twas they brought Joe, without a doubt, though I'd like to know how they got wind of the business."
"Well, if I didn' think it! ... Here's Zacky Tonkin. Maister Trevanion was sayin' as they two brats spied on us, Zacky."
"Not they, 'a b'lieve," said Tonkin, who had come up. "Young Squire said he'd no mind to meddle wi' the business, but was only a bit tender over old Joe."
"And you believe that!" said Trevanion, angrily flicking his riding-whip. "Make no mistake, the Squire has turned on you. I happen to know that Mildmay has been twice to the Towers of late; the Squire's as poor as a church mouse, and informer's pay will be riches to him."
"Squire turn informer!" cried Tonkin. "I can't believe it."
"I can, though," said Doubledick. "When a man's as low down in the world as Squire, he'll do a deal o' dirtiness to fill his purse, 'a b'lieve."
"Of course he will," said Trevanion. "You don't know the world, Tonkin. Depend upon it, a good many golden guineas will find their way to the Towers before a week's out."
Tonkin was an honest fellow, save in so far as the King's revenue was concerned, and had that simplicity of soul which is incredulous of trickery in others. He was not proof against the cunning suggestions of Trevanion. Naturally short-tempered and violent, he smote the flank of Trevanion's horse a blow that set it prancing, and cried with a savage oath:—
"Then I'll make 'em pay for 't, as sure as my name be Zack Tonkin. I will so."
"Hee! hee! That 'a will," said Doubledick, rubbing his hands. "They golden guineas 'll be a bad egg, to be sure."
Trevanion smiled. He had laid the train; he could trust his minions to fire it.
"Well, we'll speak no more of that," he said. "I'm riding to Truro: can you tell what for?"
"Not for more furnichy?" said Tonkin.
"Goin' a-courtin', hee! hee!" smirked Doubledick.
"No, no; I shan't trouble the parson yet awhile. I'm going to open the mines again, my men."
"Then I'm sorry for 'ee," said Tonkin bluntly. "Mines were worked out long ago."
"Maybe, maybe not. I'm going to try. I shall begin in quite a small way. I shan't fling my money into the earth as my cousin did. But I mean to try my luck, and within a week or two I shall have a few men at work."
"'Twill be good for the parish," said Doubledick. "The miners are drouthy souls, and have a proper taste for good sperits. Ay, sure, 'twill do us all good."
"You won't give up the trade, sir?" enquired Tonkin.
"Not I. The Polkerran men will do more than ever before. A fig for your Mildmays and Polwheles—Polwhele is still riding-officer, isn't he? My wits against them any day. We'll double our trade with Roscoff this winter."
"If Delarousse bean't nabbed," said Tonkin. "His game of privateerin' will souse him in hot water one o' these days."
"Oh! we can do without Delarousse. There's a man in Roscoff, no friend of his, who will deal with us better than he."
"It do maze me, Maister Trevanion," said Doubledick, "that arter bein' away all these years ye know so much about the trade."
"I keep my eyes open, that's all," replied Trevanion, with a laugh. "Well, I must be off. You can tell the neighbours about the mines. I'm glad to do something for the old village."
He rode away, giving smiling greetings to the people, men and women, whom he passed on the road.
"A fine feller!" said Doubledick, enthusiastically. "'Twill be heyday in village, Zacky; stirring life, and not so much of a tomb as 'tis since Squire became a pauper."
"But I'm sorry he do want us to break with Delarousse. He be a good trader, for a Frenchman. Howsomever, if there be a better, all the better for we, to be sure."
The men parted, to retail to their friends and neighbours the pleasing news of the great things John Trevanion was about to do for the village.
Roscoff, the place mentioned in the course of their conversation, was a little port in Brittany which had become the chief seat of the contraband trade with the south-west of England since a restrictive Act of Parliament had put a stop to it in the Channel Islands. The French Government had made it a free port to smugglers, and in a few years it had grown from a tiny fishing village to a thriving town. There were three classes of people engaged in the contraband trade. The freighters consigned or received the goods, and paid the expenses of their shipment. The boatmen conveyed them from port to port, always on moonless nights, and usually when a strong wind was blowing. The tub-carriers bore them to their destination. The boatmen received a fixed sum for each trip, the tub-carriers for each cargo run, and frequently in addition a portion of the goods, or a small share in the proceeds.
Until John Trevanion reappeared in Polkerran, Isaac Tonkin had been the principal freighter of the village, and was the owner and master of the lugger which plied between it and Roscoff. His dealings were chiefly with a certain Jean Delarousse, a ship-owner of Roscoff, who was notorious also as a daring seaman, and in his privateer vessel preyed on English shipping in the Channel between Poole and the Lizard. Delarousse had never come to Polkerran, but he was well known to Tonkin and the crew of his lugger, the Isaac and Jacob. Tonkin having little capital, the cargoes run at Polkerran were usually small, and were disposed of solely among the innkeepers, farmers, and gentry of the neighbourhood. Now that Trevanion had come home, the Polkerran folk expected great developments in the trade, and looked forward to an exciting and profitable winter. Apart from the monetary gain, the risks of smuggling exercised a fascination upon those engaged in it, providing the only excitement in their otherwise dull and monotonous lives. The fraud on the revenue weighed very lightly on their consciences. In their view they were entitled to the full value of the goods for which they had honestly paid, and the Government officials were thieves and tyrants. To best the Customs and Excise was both a business and a sport.
It was not long before the consequences of Dick's intervention on behalf of Joe Penwarden made themselves felt. Hitherto the smugglers had recognised the Trevanions of the Towers as rather for them than against them, but now, actuated by John Trevanion's malicious suggestion, they looked on them in a different light. For the first time a Trevanion had ranged himself on the side of the representatives of the law, and Tonkin, resenting what he regarded as defection, soon began to show that in threatening vengeance he meant to be as good as his word.
One morning Dick, going down with Sam to inspect the night lines he had set in the waters of Trevanion Bay, discovered with surprise and annoyance that they had been cut. A day or two afterwards they found their boat, which they had drawn up as usual above high-water mark, bumping among the rocks half a mile up the coast. They did not report these occurrences, hoping that they were nothing but a mark of temporary ill-feeling and would soon cease. But when for the third time their lines were tampered with, Dick became seriously concerned. The fish they caught were a very important part of the provisions for the household. What was not required at once was salted and dried for consumption when fishing was over for the season. Without these constant supplies they would have to draw more largely on their pigs and poultry, which they were accustomed to sell. Dick was unwilling to impart his troubles to any one, and for several nights he and Sam kept watch, hoping that if the culprits were caught in the act, the fear of exposure would put a stop to their mischief. On three nights nothing happened: and yet, on the first night when they left the lines unguarded, the same fate befell them.
"This is more than I can bear," cried Dick, in the morning. "I shall tell Petherick."
Petherick was the village constable, who filled also the offices of sexton, bell-ringer, and beadle in the parish church.
"Bless 'ee, you'll waste yer breath," said Sam. "Old Petherick be a crony o' Tonkin, and wouldn' lift a finger against him, without it were murder or arson: and then he'd have to get the sojers to help him. Why, 'tis said he've let 'em keep the tubs in church-tower sometimes when the preventives have been smellin' too close."
"Well, we must put a stop to it somehow. I'll tell Joe, and see what he has to say."
Later in the day he went into the village to buy some new fishing tackle at a general-shop, where the folk could buy tea, sugar, cheese, needles, thread, letter-paper, bootlaces—in short, every small article they needed. On his return, he heard a hubbub proceeding from the village green, where wrestling-bouts, games of quoits, dog-fights, and other sports took place. In the midst was a duck-pond. Bending his steps thither to see what was going on, he beheld Sam with his back against a tree, sturdily defending himself with fists and feet against a crowd of the village lads, among whom the hulking form of Jake Tonkin was conspicuous.
"Heave un in duck-pond," he heard Jake cry.
"You'd better!" he shouted, rushing forward to assist his companion.
The crowd fell back as he forced his way through it, bowling one fellow over like a ninepin, and driving another out of his path with a shove that nearly sent him into the pond. It is probable that his energy, and the prestige attached to him as the Squire's son, would have put an end to the affair; but it chanced that John Trevanion rode by at this moment, and reining up his horse, contrived in some subtle manner to indicate that his sympathy was with the larger party. Only this could explain the sudden change in their attitude. They closed round Dick and Sam with derisive yells.
"Gie un both a duckin'," shouted one, and they made a sudden concerted rush, trying to seize the two boys.
Dick, never having been to school, had never had occasion or opportunity to learn the noble art; but his muscles were in good condition, and the obvious necessity was to make full use of them. Standing beside Sam against the tree, he hit out against any head, trunk, or shoulder that came within reach, Sam making good play as before with feet as well as arms. One young fisher retired with a crimson nose, another with a bump over one eye, a third shouting that his leg was broken. All the time John Trevanion sat his horse, smiling, and flinging out now and then an encouraging word, which might have been intended for either side, but was appropriated by Tonkin's crew.
Courage and the best will in the world cannot prevail over a triple excess of numbers. The fisher-lads were still six when their wounded comrades had retired to the rear. Led by Jake Tonkin they hurled themselves upon the two defenders. For a few minutes there was a brisk scrimmage; many good blows were given and exchanged; then Dick and Sam fell, to be immediately pounced on by the victors, who caught them by legs and arms and began to drag them down to the pond.
They were within a yard of the brink when a loud voice thundered a command to halt, and a riding-whip cracked and curled its thong round the legs and backs of the aggressors. With howls of pain they released their victims and fled across the green. Rising, bruised and muddy, from the ground, the two boys saw Mr. Polwhele, the riding-officer, close by on horseback, his face flushed and stern-set with anger.
"You look on and do nothing!" he said indignantly to John Trevanion.
"My dear sir, why should I interfere? Boys must fight, let them fight it out."
"Three to one—is that your idea of fair play?"
Trevanion shrugged.
"Hadn't you better reserve your whip for stimulating your tidesmen, Mr. Polwhele? They need a little spiriting, if what I hear is true."
And with that as a parting shot Trevanion rode away.
"What was the origin of this?" asked Mr. Polwhele. "I'm sorry to see it, Master Trevanion."
"'Twas like this, sir," said Sam, rubbing his head and legs alternately. "I comed upon they chaps, and Jake Tonkin says to me, 'Catched any fish lately, young Sam?' Says I, ''Tis easier to cut lines, to be sure,' says I, and then they set on me, and they'd ha' melled and mashed me if Maister Dick hadn't come up."
"Have they been cutting your lines, then?"
Dick saw no help for it but to acquaint the riding-officer with the petty persecution he had lately suffered, and the cause of it, which hitherto Mr. Polwhele had not known.
"'Tis rascally, 'pon my soul it is," said the officer, "and I'm sorry Penwarden has brought it on ye. Not but 'twas your own doing, Master Dick; you'd better have kept out of it, though I own 'twas a good deed to old Joe. I'm on my way to see Sir Bevil, and I'll tell him as a magistrate, and he'll engage to commit any ruffian that molests ye."
"Not on my account, if you please, Mr. Polwhele," said Dick earnestly. "There's bad blood between the Towers and the village as it is, and 'twill be ten times worse if Sir Bevil comes into it."
"Maybe you're in the right. Well, I'll see you safe home, and if I may advise ye, keep out of the way o' the village folk. You're not friends with Mr. Trevanion seemingly. Is he backing the smugglers, d'ye know?"
"I can't say anything about that. My father has nothing to do with him."
"Well, well, these family quarrels are common enough. Come along beside me."
Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the intervention of the riding-officer. Purely accidental as it was, the villagers regarded it as another proof of the new alliance between the Towers and the enemy. John Trevanion did not fail to describe to the elder Tonkin, the next time he met him, how savagely Mr. Polwhele had laid his whip upon Jake, and the irate smuggler swore that if he encountered the riding-officer he would make him pay for it.
That evening Dick consulted Joe Penwarden on the situation, as he had intended. Joe was much distressed to think that he was the cause of the bitterness with which the village folk now regarded the family at the Towers.
"I don't know what you can do," said he. "But let things bide; maybe they'll see by long and late they've misread 'ee."
"But we can't have our fishing spoilt time after time, Joe."
"'Tis a pretty stoor, be dazed to it!" said Joe, angrily. "And all for a wambling old carcase like me! Ah! I warn't allus like as I be now. When Lord Admiral Rodney spoke to me on Plymouth Hoe I was as limber a young feller as you'd see in Devon or Cornwall. He was goin' along with two handsome females——but there, I think I've telled 'ee. What I say is, why did Maister John come home, cuss him? There was none o' this afore."
"I don't think that's fair, Joe. They'd have run a cargo all the same, if he were at the ends of the earth; and I couldn't have done differently."
"Ye may say so, but I hold to it, whatever ye say. He's ill-wished 'ee, that's the truth, and a pity it is he ever showed his face here."
Two evenings later, when Dick was struggling with a piece of Latin prose for Mr. Carlyon, there was a knock at the outer door, and Reuben admitted Penwarden, with Jake Tonkin firmly in his clutch.
"Axe Squire if I can have speech with him, Reuby," he said.
Mr. Trevanion came out into the hall.
"Well, what's this, Joe?" he asked.
"I catched this young reptile a-meddlin' wi' Maister Dick's lines, Squire," said Penwarden, "so I brought him up to be dealt with according to law."
"Meddling with his lines, indeed!" cried the Squire in surprise. "Why should he do that? What have you to say for yourself, rascal?"
Jake had nothing to say for himself, but stood with a sullen glower upon his face.
"'Tis not the first time either, Squire, and I be mazed as you didn' know it," Penwarden continued.
"I knew nothing about it. Dick," he called into the room, "come here."
Dick obeyed reluctantly.
"Penwarden tells me," said his father, "that your lines have been tampered with. Is that true?"
"Yes, sir."
"How often?"
"Three or four times within a week or so."
"Why did you not tell me?"
"I didn't want to bother you, sir."
"But this is new; it shows a hostile spirit——. Well, I'll say no more now. As for you, you young scoundrel, I'm not a justice, or I'd commit you. You shall take your choice; a sound flogging, or haled before Sir Bevil: that will mean three months in Truro jail. Which is it to be?"
"I don't want to see Sir Bevil," said Jake, sullenly.
"Strip off your coat, then. Reuben, bring my whip."
Dick went away: he could not remain to see the lad thrashed.
"Now, Reuben, half a dozen lashes," said the Squire when his man returned. "No; I'll do it myself. Stoop!"
Dick pressed his fingers into his ears when at the third or fourth stroke Jake began to howl. The Squire gave him full measure; then bade him begone, and take care not to offend again, declaring that he should not get off so easily next time.
"Now, Dick," he said, returning to the room, "what is the meaning of all this?"
Thereupon Dick made a clean breast of it, telling all that had happened since the rescue of Penwarden. The Squire's face clouded as he listened to the story.
"John Trevanion is at the bottom of this," he cried, thumping the table. "They would never believe I was against them unless their minds had been poisoned. I will see Tonkin to-morrow and get at the truth." Then, with one of the swift changes of mood characteristic of him, he added: "No, I won't do it. I won't gratify that cur; he shall never think I care a snap for him. Tell me if anything of the kind happens again, and I will myself go over to see Sir Bevil. On my life, the toad shall smart if he is proved to be stirring folk against me."
Every succeeding incident in this series did but confirm the village folk in their conviction that the Squire was now their declared enemy, and in staunch alliance with the revenue officers.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
A Light on the Moor
Next day everybody in Polkerran knew of Jake Tonkin's thrashing. It was discussed by the men in tap-rooms, on the jetty, in barns and piggeries, in mills and cobblers' work-rooms. Fishwives chattered about it on their doorsteps and at their windows. Boys meeting their playmates asked if they had heard that Jake Tonkin had been walloped by Squire, and Jake, as the victim of two assaults of this nature in succession, was looked upon as something of a hero. Public opinion was dead against the Squire, and was perhaps only the stronger because it was in the wrong.
It was clear that John Trevanion intended to make himself as unpleasant as possible to his relative. In the afternoon a number of men were seen mounting the steep road from the village to the cliff, drawing trolleys laden with short narrow planks of wood. On reaching the green level they proceeded to erect fences on the ground that had formerly been the Squire's, and was now John Trevanion's. By the end of the next day a large portion of the land was enclosed, the effect of these operations being that the inmates of the Towers were cramped in their movements out of doors, being restricted to the high road and the various rights of way, which even the landlord could not close against them.
Sam Pollex hoped that the Squire would retaliate. The Beal, from which the huer was accustomed to show his signals to the pilchard fishers, was still Mr. Trevanion's property, and he could, if he chose, fence it round in the same way. But there was nothing petty in the Squire's nature. He was not the man to take a mean revenge on his neighbours, so that when a fisher reported one evening that he had seen sharks and grampuses some distance out at sea, a sure sign that the pilchards were coming, the villagers went to bed without any fear that access would be forbidden to the usual haunt.
Just before dawn next morning, Nathan Pendry, father of John Trevanion's portmanteau carrier, the most experienced fisher in the village, took his stand at the extremity of the Beal, carrying his bush. Seaward, the sky was gloomy; in the east a pale orange and pink glow on the horizon announced the rising sun. The air was very still, only the slow ripples washing the sand at the foot of the cliff breaking the silence. In the fairway lay three boats, the largest of them a smack of eight tons burden, manned by six oarsmen, together with Tonkin and a fisher nearly as large as he. These men and the occupants of the other boats sat without speaking, their eyes fixed on the huer above. He stood motionless, gazing intently on the surface of the sea. Beyond the promontory the village was as yet asleep; one man stood solitary at the end of the jetty.
Suddenly the huer bent forward, in an attitude of intense expectancy. A few minutes passed; then lifting himself he waved his bush aloft. His experienced eyes had detected a shadow in the water, moving across the bay in a direction parallel with the shore. Instantly the men in the first boat fell to their oars, and Tonkin, standing up in the stern, and making a trumpet of his hands, shouted, "Havar! havar!" towards the single figure on the jetty. This man repeated the cry; it was taken up in the village; and soon from every street and lane a crowd of men, women, and children poured up towards the cliffs, dressing themselves as they ran, and shouting, "Havar! havar! Yo-hoy, hoy, hoy!"
Meanwhile the rowers were tugging at their oars with all their might, Ike Pendry, who was rowing bow, having his eyes fixed on his father, and directing the steersman in accordance with the movements of the bush. The ground behind the huer was now thronged with spectators, no longer shouting, but watching Pendry and the boatmen in tense silence. All at once the huer dropped his bush; the rowers shipped oars; and Tonkin and his mate grasped a long net, which had lain folded ready to their hands, and with a few deft movements shot it overboard.
"Yo-hoy, yo-hoy!" broke from every throat. Then the crowd relapsed into silence, watching the further proceedings in the bay.
The "seine net," as it was called, was a quarter of a mile long and sixteen fathoms broad at the middle. It was fastened on each side to two stout double ropes, and at each corner to four strong warps about fifty fathoms long. Corks were fixed to the upper edge, and leaden weights to the lower. When it was "shot," the corks buoyed up one end to the surface of the water, the leads sank the other perpendicularly to the bottom. The boat meanwhile was rowed round the shoal, following the directions of the huer, until, the two extremities being made fast, the fish were imprisoned in an oblong barrier of network. As Tonkin straightened his back after completing his part of the work, another shout rent the air, and the huer, his task also accomplished, broke through the dignified calm which had hitherto distinguished him, and waved his cap triumphantly.
Now came the turn of the "tuck-boat," one of those that had remained as yet in the fairway. It was rowed within the area enclosed by the seine, and laid close to the seine-boat, to the bows of which one end of a smaller net, called the "tuck," was fastened by a rope. The boat then slowly made the inner circuit of the seine, the tuck being paid out and deftly hooked at intervals to the larger net. Meanwhile the men in the third boat beat the water with their oars, so as to scare the fish into the middle of the enclosure.
Now came the most exciting moment of the day. The cliff-top all round the bay was dark with spectators. Small boys, eager to get in front, dodged and shoved among the legs and skirts of their elders. The village blacksmith was there; cobblers with bent backs and leather aprons; tinkers, tailors, wheelwrights, carpenters, ploughmen, dairymaids, old men with sticks and crutches, old women who could scarcely totter, mothers with babies in their arms: all were agog with excitement to see the final act. Sam Pollex was there, and when he caught sight of the parlourmaid of the Dower House he sidled up to her elbow, listened with delight to her exclamations of "My gracious!" "Look 'ee see, now!" "Lawk-a-massy me!" and by-and-by ventured to instruct her ignorance of the movements passing below.
With the shouts of the boys were now mingled the deeper tones of the seiners as, ranged in a row in their boat, they began to haul on the tuck, calling "Yo, heave ho!" in time with their rhythmic movements. "Pull away, boys!" shouts the huer; "Yo-hoy!" scream the boys. "Up she comes! Look at 'em! Look at 'em!" The water eddies like a mill-race; in the midst is seen a heaving mass of gleaming scales; and from round the point come boats of all sizes, which range themselves in a circle about the shoal. Men lean over the sides, dip their baskets, lift them full of shining fish, empty them into the boats, and dip them again for more. Soon they stand ankle deep in pilchards, and when the boats sink to the gunwales, they are rowed away to the jetty, where men are waiting with shovels and barrows, ready to carry the fish to the salting-house.
Dick Trevanion was among the spectators. He never missed the first haul of the season. But to-day he was acutely conscious of a change. Last year the villagers had greeted him with smiles and cheery words; to-day they lowered their eyes, passed him in silence, and edged away from him as he moved from place to place. He could not but feel bitterly his isolation. Why did they so misjudge him? He had not changed: he knew well that, in any ordinary contest between the smugglers and the revenue officers, his sympathy would have been with the former; friendly as he was with Mr. Mildmay, he would enjoy nothing better than that gentleman's discomfiture, if it were due to fair means and the villagers' wits. Yet, because he had intervened to prevent harm to an old man, he was now regarded by the villagers as their enemy, one who would descend to play the mean part of spy and informer.
With gloomy face he turned away and walked back along the promontory. At the end he met Mr. Carlyon, who had just ridden up on his cob. The parson's ruddy face was suffused with cheerfulness; he knew by the jubilant shouts of the crowd that the catch was a good one, and rejoiced that his parishioners were winning from the deep their means of subsistence for the winter. He marked Dick's clouded face, and, guessing the occasion of it, he tried to cheer him.
"Come, Dick," he said genially, "cheer up, my lad; this haul will put the folk in a good temper, and they will forget their grudge against you."
"I hope they will, sir," replied Dick, "but there's one man who'll try to keep them in mind of it."
"You mean your cousin?"
"Yes."
"But surely he'll not be such a cur. He's a scoundrel—there now, what am I saying? I'll tackle him, my boy. Why, bless my soul, he was in church on Sunday, and my text was 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' I'll ride there now, and get him to give me some breakfast—though I detest the fellow," he added in one of his unconscious asides.
"He is away from home, I believe," said Dick.
"Well, then, I'll put it off till another day, but tackle him I will. I've a bit of news, Dick. The carrier brought me some books last night; that's not the news, though. No. You have heard, maybe, of a Frenchman named Delarousse?"
He looked slyly at Dick; everyone in Polkerran knew the name of the Frenchman with whom the smugglers had such close dealings.
"As a natural enemy of our country I don't pity him," pursued the parson, "but as a—h'm—an honest free-trader I own I feel for him. His privateer was badly knocked about in the Channel by a revenue cruiser a week or two ago, and while she was being repaired, it appears that he tried to run a cargo at Polperro. As ill-luck would have it—dear me! I wonder if I ought to have said that," he added under his breath—"he ran into the arms of the revenue people; they seized his lugger and carried him to Plymouth, where he'll cool his heels for a time until they put him among the other French prisoners on Dartmoor."
"Do they know it in the village yet, sir?"
"Probably not; the carrier was going straight on to Newquay; he had nothing for us except my books. But you may be sure the folk will soon know all about it. The carrier had a glass of brandy with Petherick, and Petherick, as you know, is the biggest gossip in the parish. His brandy is better than mine, the dog! I must ask him where he gets it."
Dick could not help smiling at the parson's unconscious self-revelation.
"That's right; you're feeling better, I see," said Mr. Carlyon cheerily. "Now I'll go on and bespeak my basket. Pilchards of the first catch are the daintiest dish I know. 'Tis a holiday to-day, but I shall see you to-morrow. Good-bye."
He rode on. Dick turned to watch him, and saw Sam Pollex walking beside the maid-servant of the Dower House. When Sam observed his young master he left the girl and came sheepishly towards him.
"I've been tellin' to she the hows and whys of it, Maister Dick," said he.
"Indeed."
"Iss, I have. Bein' a furriner, she be 'mazin simple for such a well-growed female. She axed me why I never brought no more eggs."
"And what did you say?"
"Well, not likin' to hurt her feelings, I telled her our hens be uncommon idle lately, and she said she knows they do have fits that way sometimes. Maister John's gone to Lunnon, to buy things for his mine."
"I wish he'd stay there."
"Her name be Susan."
"Quite a common name."
"She's as nice a female as ever I've seed."
The pilchard fishing was for several days so engrossing an occupation that the villagers had no time for fostering their grievance against the Towers. Dick and Sam, who had formerly been in the thick of it, sometimes as spectators merely, occasionally as participators, kept away, and spent the greater part of their time in fishing quietly some few miles up the coast. One day Dick reverted to the project of hunting seals, which he had temporarily abandoned, partly through the diversion afforded by the discovery of the well, partly because he did not care to kill the parent seals while their offspring were so young. Now, however, the prospect of sport, and the practical wish to obtain a sealskin for his mother, made him resolve to try his luck in the cave, and he laid his plans in consultation with the ever-ready Sam.
He guessed that the seals left the cave at low tide to find food in the deep, and returned when the sea flowed in. Since the cave was at such times inaccessible from the sea, he decided that it must be approached from the well, of which neither he nor Sam had now any remaining dread. One evening they sallied towards it, carrying a well-made rope-ladder, a musket apiece, a large hammer, and several torches, which would give more light than the ancient candle-lantern they had formerly carried. To one end of the rope-ladder they had attached a series of stout meat-hooks borrowed from old Reuben: they could more confidently trust their safety to a number of teeth gripping the rock than to the single fluke of their small boat anchor. They had timed their start so that they would reach the cave just as the tide turned.
It was a dull, murky evening, with a touch of autumn rawness in the air. Twilight had not quite merged into darkness when they arrived at the ruined chapel at the well-head. They looked warily around to make sure that their presence was not observed, then prepared to descend.
"'Tis rayther fearsome," murmured Sam, as he looked into the black shaft. Now that he was on the spot, the tradition of ghostliness in which he had been brought up revived something of his former fears.
"Nonsense," said Dick, "we have laid the ghost for ever, Sam. I will go down first. Don't follow until I come to the door. I will whistle for you. When you hear me, fling down the ladder and the hammer. At a second whistle, come yourself."
Sticking a lighted candle-end into his hatband, and slinging the musket over his shoulder, he stepped backward into the well, and began the descent. He found the successive staples entirely by the sense of touch, the candle throwing a deep shadow below him. At first he felt a little nervous, but gathered confidence after a few steps, and made the latter part of the descent very quickly.
Sam, waiting above, heard a whistle, curiously prolonged by its reverberations from the walls. He threw down the hammer, and gave an involuntary start when he heard it thud upon the bottom. The ladder followed, and the unkindled torches; then, without lighting a candle for his own hat, he stepped over the brink, muttering to himself:
"S'pose I fall! But I won't. S'pose I do though. But Maister Dick didn't. S'poseIdo. Well, if 'tis to be, 'tis, so I med as well go cheerful."
In reality he descended more quickly than Dick had done. They gathered up their burdens, and made their way by the light of Dick's candle along the passage until they came to the ledge overlooking the cave.
Here they stopped and peered over. The tide was rather lower than they had expected. Their eyes ranged the cave for a time without discovering any sign of the seals. Then Dick lit a torch, and holding it over the dark space beneath, he suddenly saw two orbs of light, like the eyes of a monstrous cat, in a far corner to the right of him. Moving along the ledge in that direction, he descried two seals, greyish in colour, and much larger than he had supposed them to be, lying on a rock, with the two young ones between them.
"We will only kill one, Sam," he whispered, "and I hope 'twill be the father."
The seals were apparently fascinated by the glare of the torch, for they made no movement, their eight eyes glowing like balls of fire. In order to obtain more light upon his task, Dick kindled two more torches, and stuck all three into crevices of rock in such a way that they illuminated the whole corner of the cave where the seals lay. But now the animals had caught sight of him, and as if instinctively realising that the intruder was an enemy, they scrambled with clumsy movements off the rocks into the water.
"They be goin' out to sea, scrounch 'em!" whispered Sam, whose attitude to all prospective victims was an indignant surprise that they did not wait meekly for their doom.
But the seals, after swimming a yard or two, took up their position behind a larger boulder, above which the tops of their sleek, massive heads could just be seen.
"We shall have to go down to them, Sam," said Dick.
"They be great big creatures," said Sam dubiously. "Wi' those terrible big flappers they could smite us flat as flounders."
"You had better take the hammer in case I miss and they attack us. We must at any rate prevent one of them from getting away."
They retreated to the further end of the ledge, to which the light of their torches scarcely reached, and carefully hooked the ladder to the jagged rock. Then in perfect silence they descended. The water only came to their knees. Wading through it with scarcely more noise than an otter might have made, they drew gradually nearer to the rock behind which the seals had sheltered. Here they found themselves baulked. The rock was close to the wall, and it was impossible to get a shot at the animals without circumventing it, which appeared to Dick a dangerous movement. The surprising quickness with which the seals had shuffled off their former perch showed that, if a shot failed, they might fling their heavy bodies upon the assailants before they could escape. He was considering what to do, when a movement among the seals forced him to act on the instant. The largest of the creatures heaved itself to the top of the rock, and lay there as if on the watch for the enemy, presenting the side of its head to Dick. He raised his musket, a firelock of ancient type, and fired. The reverberations in the hollow vault were broken in upon by a hoarse roar, and through the cloud of smoke the seal slid over the rock into the water, and came swimming towards the two boys. Dick seized Sam's musket, preparing to fire again; his first shot had only enraged the animal. But before he could raise the weapon, the seal threw itself out of the water, and he had just time to spring aside and evade its onset. As it passed, its flipper struck the musket from his grasp, and it fell with a splash into the water.
Sam, for all his fear of ghosts, was brave enough before a real enemy. He was standing a yard or two in Dick's rear. As the seal plunged heavily into the sea, Sam brought the hammer down with all his force upon the creature's head. There was one tremendous convulsion of the water, then the seal's movements ceased and it sank to the bottom.