King Nick screwed round in his chair, turning the other side of his face to the light, and Ortho saw, with a shock of revulsion, that the ear had been sheared off and his face furrowed across and across with two terrible scars—relics of the Cawsand affair. It was as though the old man was revealing the other side of him, spiritual as well as physical.
“Come nearer, lad. How do ’e knaw I want horses?”
“I heard you. I was pulling stroke in boat.”
“Son o’ yourn, George? He don’t favor ’e, seem me.”
“Naw. Young Squire Penhale from Bosula up-valley.”
“You knaw en?”
“Since he were weaned.”
“Ah, ha! Ah, ha!” The smuggler’s blue eyes rested on Ortho, benevolent yet probing. “And where can you find thirty horses, my son? ’Tis a brear passell.”
“Gypsy Herne rests on my land over winter; he has plenty.”
“An Egyptian! An idolater! A worshiper after false gods! Put not thy trust in such, boy—though I do hear many of the young ones is baptized and coming to the way of Light. Hum! Ha! . . . But how do ’e knaw he’ll do it!”