“It’s this-a-way,” he said, addressing the parson. “Eli Tonkin his name is, or was; and, as he said, of this parish.”
Here Mr. Jope paused, apparently for confirmation.
“Tonkin?” queried the parson. “There are no Tonkins surviving in Botusfleming parish. The last of them was a poor old widow I laid to rest the week after Christmas.”
“Belay there! . . . Dead, is she?” Mr. Jope’s face exhibited the liveliest disappointment. “And after the surprise we’d planned for her!” he murmured ruefully. “Hi, Bill!” he called to his shipmate, who, having stored the cask, was returning to the boat.
“Wot is it?” asked Bill Adams, inattentively. “Look ’ere, where did we stow the hammer an’ chisel?”
“Take your head out o’ the boat an’ listen. The old woman’s dead!”
The tall man absorbed the news slowly. “That’s a facer,” he said at length. “But maybe we can fix her up, too? I’ll stand my share.”
“She was buried the week after Christmas.”
“Oh!” Bill scratched his head. “Then we can’t—not very well.”
“Times an’ again I’ve heard Eli talk of his poor old mother,” said Mr. Jope, turning to the parson. “W’ch you’ll hardly believe it, but though I knowed him for a West-country man, ’twas not till the last I learned what parish he hailed from. It happened very curiously—Bill, rout up A. Grigg and Son, an’ fetch him forra’d here to listen; you’ll find the tools underneath him in the stern sheets.”