"Where had he come from?"
"Newquay, 'a said; but 'tis my belief he come out o' the smack we seed, and clomb the cliff, same as we."
"That's nonsense. He wouldn't come in a smack, and if he did he wouldn't land at the Cove. He has made no secret of his return, and there's no reason why he shouldn't land at the jetty."
"Ah, well, things be as they be; but I reckon he come in the smack, all the same."
"What is he doing in the village?"
"He bean't there no longer. This arternoon he packed up his traps and rid off on one of Doubledick's hosses to Trura. Feyther seed un go. 'A called to un as he rid by. 'Hoy, Reuben!' says he, ''tis a cold country, this!' That just 'mazed Feyther, 'cos it was a frizzlin' day. 'Spect he've been in furrin parts, wheer what's bilin' to we is nawthin' but chill-off to they. So 'tis, to be sure."
At this piece of news Dick felt much relieved. He hoped that Polkerran had seen the last of John Trevanion. But it turned out that the return of the native was only the first scene in a series of strange happenings that were to be long remembered in the village, and were vitally to affect the fortunes of the family at the Towers.
CHAPTER THE THIRD
The Blow Falls
For some days after the event just related, life at Polkerran and the neighbourhood flowed on its customary sluggish tide. The fishermen were idle, waiting for pilchards to appear off the coast. The harvest had been gathered in from the fields. There was little for the village folk to do except to gossip. Men gathered in knots on the jetty and at the inn-doors, chatting about the return of John Trevanion, the strange vessels that had been seen, and the revenue cutter's failure to catch them, the appearance of a ghost at St. Cuby's Well, the prospects of the fishing season, the chances of making good "runs," and besting Mr. Mildmay and the excisemen. At the Towers there was nothing to show that anything had happened to disturb the placid surface of existence, except that the Squire was more silent than usual, and went about with a pale face and a preoccupied and troubled look.