Dick was too weak to reply. He began to laugh childishly, for within a few feet of him, swathed in a steaming blanket, sat his old enemy, Jake Tonkin, even more feeble than himself.
"'Twas him ye did it for!" cried Sam indignantly. "No one could ha' blamed 'ee if ye'd let the villain drown."
Dick shook his head.
"Now, young Sam Pollex," cried Mrs. Doubledick, "you be off! Maister Trevanion don't want 'ee kiddlin' and quaddlin' about when he do feel bad. Just pick up his clothes out o' that plosh o' water and spread 'em on this chair-back. Then go. We'll send him home-along in a cart or a wheelbarrow when he's better."
"Daze me if I go, Mistress!" cried Sam. "Here I bide till Maister be able to shail along, so I tell 'ee."
"Let the chiel bide," said Nathan Pendry. "They be like two twains in everything, mischief and all, and they 'm best not parted."
"Iss, fay, my brother Ben was twain to me," said Simon Mail, "and 'a quenched away when they took un from me."
"Why, dear life now, neighbour Mail," cried Mrs. Doubledick, "bean't it true, then, that yer brother Ben was shot in the nuddick at some great battle in Egypt, or other furrin land?"
"True, he was; but he couldn't ha' been if he hadn't been parted from I."
"A-course not, ye chucklehead!" said Mrs. Doubledick. "If ye hadn't been parted he would ha' been talkin' foolishness along with 'ee now. Off ye go now, neighbours all. The lads will do better wi'out ye, and there bean't no need to send over to Redruth for a doctor."