“It’s come over me this bit back, John,” he said deliberatively, “that there’s a deal o’ queer work goes on i’ Horwick that folk knows little about.”
“Ay?” murmured the magistrate. “And in what sort?”
“Well, say there’s poaching. A man i’ your position doesn’t hear tell of it, but it’s spoken of openly among us. Magistrates can’t be everywhere.”
“No, no; we occupy a difficult position,” Emmason assented; but the slow shake of his head said a good deal more. It said (for instance) that, if in truth he were officially discredited, zeal against poachers would hardly reinstate him.
“Then, there’s more nor a bit o’ smuggling along th’ Causeway, fro’ the Lancashire ports,” Eastwood suggested, tentatively; and again Emmason shook his head.
“The person to inform of that is Cope,” he said.
“True, true,” said Eastwood; and when again he spoke it was very slowly indeed.
“The Law, ye say, doesn’t al’ays take plain speech; well, there’s another thing, that ye’d best not take official till ye know more.—Now and then th’ coin’s been tampered wi’.”
“Are you sure the draught was from the door?”
“Ay, ay; come a bit closer this way.—Now, if that’s so, ye ought to be informed; and supposing ye were to show some knowledge, as I might say, to the authorities—to interest ’em, like—then happen there’d be fewer letters wi’ this ‘Indeed?’ in ’em.”