“Then let them suspect,” said he. “I do nothing to them, so what can they do to me.”
He still believed in the constitutional liberty of an Englishman.
“You know,” said Harriet, “you do say things to these Cornish people.”
“I only say, when they tell me newspaper lies, that they are lies.”
But now the two began to be hated, hated far more than they knew.
“You want to be careful,” warned one of the Cornish friends. “I’ve heard that the coast-watchers have got orders to keep very strict watch on you.”
“Let them, they’ll see nothing.”
But it was not till afterwards that he learned that the watchers had lain behind the stone fence, to hear what he and Harriet talked about.
So, he was called up the first time and went. He was summoned to Penzance, and drove over with Harriet, expecting to return for the time at least. But he was ordered to proceed the same afternoon to Bodmin, along with sixteen or seventeen other fellows, farm hands and working men. He said good-bye to Harriet, who was to be driven back alone across the moors, to their lonely cottage on the other side.
“I shall be back to-morrow,” he said.