"Ha, ha, ha, missis! So you'm aboard, eh? Well, 'tis a funny picksher you makes, an' if tweern't murder an' hell-fire to do it, blamed if I wouldn't thraw 'e out the ship. 'Thou mad'st him lower than the angels,' but not much lower, I'm thinkin'. 'Tis all play an' no work wi' them. They ought to take a back seat 'fore the likes o' us. They abbun no devil at theer tails all times.
"'But I'll tame the wild devil afore very long.
If I caan't wi' my feests, I will wi' my tongue!'"
Thomasin Tregenza scuffled into her clothes while he babbled, and now, bidding him sleep in a shaking voice, putting out the candle and taking the matches with her, she fled into the night to rouse her neighbors and summon a doctor. She forgot all her other troubles before this overwhelming tragedy. And the man driveled on in the dark, concerning himself for the most part with those interests which had occupied his life when he was a boy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DESTINATION OF JOAN
Mary Chirgwin did not return to Newlyn after making inquiries at Penzance. There indeed she learned one fact which might prove important, but the possibilities to be read from it were various. Joan had been at the Penzance railway station, and chance made Mary question the identical porter who had studied the timetable for her cousin.
"She was anxious 'bout the Lunnon trains an' tawld me she was travelin' up to town to-morrow," explained the man. "I weer 'pon the lookout this marnin', but she dedn' come again."
"What time did you see her last night?"
"'Bout nine or earlier. I mind the time 'cause the storm burst not so very long arter, an' I wondered if the gal had got to her home."
"No, she didn't. Might she have gone by any other train?"