Shining Ferry Part 31

"Sure?"

"I reckon I ought to know the t.i.the-maps by heart; and, by them, this parcel of sh.o.r.e belongs to n.o.body, 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 canva.s.sed 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 TO N. VRO FERRYMAN THE 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 pa.s.senger 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 compet.i.tion, 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 doc.u.ment 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 Killow _versus_ Vro 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 a.s.sure '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 pretend _you_ be 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 pa.s.sed 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 doc.u.ments.

"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. G.o.d 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 doc.u.ment.

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.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE INTERCEDERS.

"Clem!"

The blind child awoke at the touch of his sister's hand on his shoulder, and turned drowsily in his bed.

"Eh? What's the matter?" A moment later he sat up in alarm and put out a hand as if to feel the darkness. "It isn't morning yet!"

"No; but the ground is all covered with snow, and you can't think what funny lights are dancing over it across the sky. I've been watching them for minutes and minutes."

"What sort of lights?"

"I can't tell you, because I never saw the like of them. Sometimes they're white, and sometimes they're violet, and then again green and orange. They run right across the sky like ribbons waving, and once they turned to red and lit up the snow as far as I could see."

"You've been catching your death of cold." Clem could hear her teeth chattering.

"I'm not so very cold," Myra declared bravely. "I took off the counterpane and wrapped it round me. You'll come, won't you, dear?"

Clem knew why he was summoned. Two days ago Susannah had told them of an old woman living at Market Jew who had mixed a pot of green ointment and touched her eyes with it, and ever afterwards seen the fairies. At once Myra, who was naught if not practical, had secreted Susannah's jar of cold cream (kept to preserve the children's skin from freckles) and a phial of angelica-water from the store-closet, had stirred these into a beautiful green paste, and had anointed her own eyes and Clem's with it, using incantations--