"What are you doing there, Petherick?" asked the Vicar, recognising his voice.
"I wer just a-comin' along to tell 'ee wheer I found ladder, yer reverence. 'Twas in the ditch over beyond the linney, and be-jowned if I wouldn' give a silver sixpence, poor as I be, to know who 'twas carr'd un theer. We must clear out these owls and airy-mouses, to be sure."
"Well, set about it to-morrow," said the Vicar, closing the window.
"I'll be bound the fellow has heard all that we've said," cried Mr. Polwhele.
"Then you may be sure it will be all over the parish to-morrow," said Mr. Carlyon.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
A High Dive
The failure of their carefully-laid plan afflicted the smugglers with a numbness of dismay and stupefaction, and robbed them of all power to appreciate the success of the trick played on the revenue officers. Tonkin bitterly reproached himself for leaving the shipment of Penwarden to Doubledick and undertaking the seizure of John Trevanion's guests. Moreover, honest and simple-minded as he was, a tiny seed of suspicion was beginning to germinate in his mind. Before John Trevanion came home, the freighting had been done by Tonkin on a modest scale in co-operation with Delarousse. Now, however, John Trevanion had taken the lead. For some reason, which none knew, and only Doubledick suspected, he had thrown over Delarousse, and did business with a rival and enemy of his in Roscoff. Having more capital than Tonkin, whose recent losses had indeed been crippling, he could buy more largely and employ more men, so that Tonkin found himself in a position of galling subordination. As Trevanion had said to Doubledick, the big man did not care to play second fiddle. He was beginning to wonder whether the jovial master of the Dower House was quite so good a friend as he seemed.
The escape of Penwarden was a blow, the more crushing because so mysterious. After church on Sunday, Tonkin and his fellows foregathered with the tub-carriers in the Five Pilchards, where Mrs. Doubledick attended to them in her husband's absence. The young farm labourers had been in complete ignorance of the presence of Penwarden behind the stacked barrels. His projected deportation was the secret of Tonkin and a few trusty friends, who knew better than to run the risk of being betrayed by an informer. They were still anxious to guard their secret, and being unable to discuss the matter freely in the presence of the carriers, they made themselves so unpleasant that the latter presently betook themselves in dudgeon to the Three Jolly Mariners. But even when the important people had the taproom of the Five Pilchards to themselves, they were at a loss. In Doubledick's absence no light could be thrown on the mystery.
"Do 'ee know wheer yer man be, Mistress?" asked Tonkin of the gaunt woman behind the bar.