“Up yon turn, ninth house, with a green door,” said Tom Jennen. “There’s a gashly old bit o’ rock opposite.”
As he spoke, he pointed to a narrow steep path which Geoffrey had passed, and which necessitated his running the gauntlet again, as it were.
But he was equal to the task.
“I say, fisherman,” he said, addressing Tom Jennen, but meaning it for the group, “If I were you I should use the rope’s-end there, and try to make those cowardly young lubbers men!”
Then thrusting his hands into his pockets, he walked coolly back, looking woman after woman in the face, turned up the passage, and was gone.
No sooner was his back turned, than the boys uttered a yell, and made as if to throw, but the women turned upon them fiercely, and Tom Jennen and his mates cleared the road by making a menacing charge.
“Well, of all the smart young chaps as ever I set eyes on,” said one woman, “he’s about the best. Put that there gashly old fish down, Jan Dwiod, or I’ll give you a smack i’ th’ mouth.”
“That’s pluck, that is,” said Tom Jennen, with his hands very far down in his pockets. “That’s the sorter stuff as men’s made on. That’s pluck, that is,” he continued, nodding at every one in turn, and then at intervals repeating the words—“that’s pluck!” Geoffrey did not know it then, but his cool treatment of the party lying in wait for him, had made him, as it were, a king, and in place of menace on his next appearance in the streets there was a smile on every lip, and he might have had the help of all for the holding up of a hand.
Meanwhile he had reached Pengelly’s cottage to knock and be told by a woman next door that the owner was gone out preaching, and wouldn’t be back till night.
“Ask him to run up to Mrs Mullion’s when he comes,” said Geoffrey, and the woman promising to convey his message, he went back to his lodgings to dine and complete his plans.