That same afternoon they transhipped the parcels into a cart, and drove ahead themselves in a light gig, and so came down, a little before sunset, to the "Passage Inn" yonder. There, of course, they had to unload again and wait for the ferry to bring them across to their own parish. It surprised the Parson a bit to find the ferry-boat lying ready by the shore and my grandfather standing there head to head with old Arch'laus Spry, that was constable of Mawnan parish.
"Hallo, Calvin!" the Parson sings out. "This looks bad—Mawnan and Manaccan putting their heads together. I hope there's nothing gone wrong since I've been away?"
"Aw, Parson dear," says my grandfather, "I'm glad you've come—yea, glad sure 'nuff. We've a-been enjoying a terrible time!"
"Then something has gone wrong?" says the Parson.
"As for that," my grandfather answers, "I only wish I could say yes or no: for 'twould be a relief even to know the worst." He beckoned very mysterious-like and led the Parson a couple of hundred yards up the foreshore, with Arch'laus Spry following. And there they came to a halt, all three, before a rock that someone had been daubing with whitewash. On the top of the cliff, right above, was planted a stick with a little white flag.
"Now, Sir, as a Justice of the Peace, what d'ee think of it?"
Parson Polwhele stared from the rock to the stick and couldn't say. So he turns to Arch'laus Spry and asks: "Any person taken ill in your parish?"
"No, Sir."
"You're sure Billy Johns hasn't been drinking again?" Billy Johns was the landlord of the "Passage Inn," a very ordinary man by rule, but given to breaking loose among his own liquors. "He seemed all right yesterday when I hired the trap off him; but he does the most unaccountable things when he's taken bad."
"He never did anything so far out of nature as this here; and I can mind him in six outbreaks," answered my grandfather. "Besides, 'tis not Billy Johns nor anyone like him."