Scoutbush was away at sea, nobody knew where; and a full fortnight elapsed before an answer came.
"My dear, you are quite mistaken if you think I can do anything. Nine-tenths of the houses in Aberalva are not in my hands; but copyholds and long leases, over which I have no power. If the people will complain to me of any given nuisance, I'll right it if I can; and if the doctor wants money, and sees any ways of laying it out well, he shall have what he wants, though I am very high in Queer Street just now, ma'am, having paid your bills before I left town, like a good brother: but I tell you again, I have no more power than you have, except over a few cottages, and Tardrew assured me, three weeks ago, that they were as comfortable as they ever had been."
So Tardrew had forestalled Thurnall in writing to the Viscount. Well, there was one more chance to be tried.
Tom gave his lecture in the school-room. He showed them magnified abominations enough to frighten all the children into fits, and dilated on horrors enough to spoil all appetites: he proved to them that, though they had the finest water in the world all over the town, they had contrived to poison almost every drop of it; he waxed eloquent, witty, sarcastic; and the net result was a general grumble.
"How did he get hold of all the specimens, as he calls them? What business has he poking his nose down people's wells and waterbutts?"
But an unexpected ally arose at this juncture, in the coast-guard lieutenant, who, being valiant after his evening's brandy-and-water, rose and declared, "that Dr. Thurnall was a very clever man; that by what he'd seen himself in the West Indies, it was all as true as gospel; that the parish might have the cholera if it liked,"—and here a few expletives occurred,—"but that he'd see that the coast-guard houses were put to rights at once; for he would not have the lives of Her Majesty's servants endangered by such dirty tricks, not fit for heathen savages," etc. etc.
Tom struck while the iron was hot. He saw that the great man's speech had produced an impression.
"Would he" (so he asked the lieutenant privately) "get some one to join him, and present a few of these nuisances?"
He would do anything in his contempt for "a lot of long-shore merchant-skippers and herringers, who went about calling themselves captains, and fancy themselves, sir, as good as if they wore the Queen's uniform!"
"Well, then, can't we find another householder—some cantankerous dog who don't mind a row?"