The men parted, to retail to their friends and neighbours the pleasing news of the great things John Trevanion was about to do for the village.
Roscoff, the place mentioned in the course of their conversation, was a little port in Brittany which had become the chief seat of the contraband trade with the south-west of England since a restrictive Act of Parliament had put a stop to it in the Channel Islands. The French Government had made it a free port to smugglers, and in a few years it had grown from a tiny fishing village to a thriving town. There were three classes of people engaged in the contraband trade. The freighters consigned or received the goods, and paid the expenses of their shipment. The boatmen conveyed them from port to port, always on moonless nights, and usually when a strong wind was blowing. The tub-carriers bore them to their destination. The boatmen received a fixed sum for each trip, the tub-carriers for each cargo run, and frequently in addition a portion of the goods, or a small share in the proceeds.
Until John Trevanion reappeared in Polkerran, Isaac Tonkin had been the principal freighter of the village, and was the owner and master of the lugger which plied between it and Roscoff. His dealings were chiefly with a certain Jean Delarousse, a ship-owner of Roscoff, who was notorious also as a daring seaman, and in his privateer vessel preyed on English shipping in the Channel between Poole and the Lizard. Delarousse had never come to Polkerran, but he was well known to Tonkin and the crew of his lugger, the Isaac and Jacob. Tonkin having little capital, the cargoes run at Polkerran were usually small, and were disposed of solely among the innkeepers, farmers, and gentry of the neighbourhood. Now that Trevanion had come home, the Polkerran folk expected great developments in the trade, and looked forward to an exciting and profitable winter. Apart from the monetary gain, the risks of smuggling exercised a fascination upon those engaged in it, providing the only excitement in their otherwise dull and monotonous lives. The fraud on the revenue weighed very lightly on their consciences. In their view they were entitled to the full value of the goods for which they had honestly paid, and the Government officials were thieves and tyrants. To best the Customs and Excise was both a business and a sport.
It was not long before the consequences of Dick's intervention on behalf of Joe Penwarden made themselves felt. Hitherto the smugglers had recognised the Trevanions of the Towers as rather for them than against them, but now, actuated by John Trevanion's malicious suggestion, they looked on them in a different light. For the first time a Trevanion had ranged himself on the side of the representatives of the law, and Tonkin, resenting what he regarded as defection, soon began to show that in threatening vengeance he meant to be as good as his word.
One morning Dick, going down with Sam to inspect the night lines he had set in the waters of Trevanion Bay, discovered with surprise and annoyance that they had been cut. A day or two afterwards they found their boat, which they had drawn up as usual above high-water mark, bumping among the rocks half a mile up the coast. They did not report these occurrences, hoping that they were nothing but a mark of temporary ill-feeling and would soon cease. But when for the third time their lines were tampered with, Dick became seriously concerned. The fish they caught were a very important part of the provisions for the household. What was not required at once was salted and dried for consumption when fishing was over for the season. Without these constant supplies they would have to draw more largely on their pigs and poultry, which they were accustomed to sell. Dick was unwilling to impart his troubles to any one, and for several nights he and Sam kept watch, hoping that if the culprits were caught in the act, the fear of exposure would put a stop to their mischief. On three nights nothing happened: and yet, on the first night when they left the lines unguarded, the same fate befell them.
"This is more than I can bear," cried Dick, in the morning. "I shall tell Petherick."
Petherick was the village constable, who filled also the offices of sexton, bell-ringer, and beadle in the parish church.
"Bless 'ee, you'll waste yer breath," said Sam. "Old Petherick be a crony o' Tonkin, and wouldn' lift a finger against him, without it were murder or arson: and then he'd have to get the sojers to help him. Why, 'tis said he've let 'em keep the tubs in church-tower sometimes when the preventives have been smellin' too close."
"Well, we must put a stop to it somehow. I'll tell Joe, and see what he has to say."
Later in the day he went into the village to buy some new fishing tackle at a general-shop, where the folk could buy tea, sugar, cheese, needles, thread, letter-paper, bootlaces—in short, every small article they needed. On his return, he heard a hubbub proceeding from the village green, where wrestling-bouts, games of quoits, dog-fights, and other sports took place. In the midst was a duck-pond. Bending his steps thither to see what was going on, he beheld Sam with his back against a tree, sturdily defending himself with fists and feet against a crowd of the village lads, among whom the hulking form of Jake Tonkin was conspicuous.