"Iss, fay," said Tonkin, "and I went up-along to-night to say thank 'ee, as a true Cornishman oughted. And I tell 'ee what, friend, we been all wrong about Squire informin' and all that. I axed un plain, man to man, and he telled me I oughter be ashamed to think sech a thing, and I believe un."
"But did he deny it?" asked the innkeeper.
"Well, no, I couldn' go so far as to say that."
"Ah, Zacky, you be a simple plum-baked feller, to be sure. Ye don't know the windin's and twistin's o' these high gentry. Plain simple souls like 'ee don't know what eddication do for a man. That young whelp of Squire's do go to pa'son and larn all the wisdom and cleverness of ancient men of old; 'a can twist 'ee round his finger, I b'lieve."
Tonkin looked troubled. Doubledick had such a reputation for knowingness that his opinion carried weight.
"Well, time will show," said Tonkin. "I tell 'ee one thing, that I won't hev a hand no more in anything agen Squire, not till I do know sartin-sure. What do 'ee say, Nathan?"
"Iss, I say the same. Let's be sartin-sure, that's what I say," replied Pendry.
Doubledick puffed his scorn of such simple-mindedness.
"Well, I be tired, neighbours," he said. "Riding a-hoss-back from Megavissey hev well-nigh scat me in jowds" (by which he meant, broken him in pieces), "and I yearn for my bed. We'll see what we will see, I b'lieve."
The company broke up. The fishers went their way; Doubledick closed the door behind them, and raked out the fire. Before he ascended to his bedroom he locked his bundle of banknotes in a strong box which he kept under the stairs, and might have been heard chuckling gleefully.