Hidden away in the recesses of a tortuous valley, amid hills whose steep sides bristled with tier after tier of bare, broken rocks, to reach or to leave Polperro by any other mode than on foot was a task of considerable difficulty. Wagons were unknown, carts not available, and it was only at the risk of his rider's life and limbs that any horse ventured along the perilous descents and ascents of the old Talland road. Out of these obstacles, therefore, arose the necessity for a number of men who could manage the drays, dorsals and crooks which were the more common and favored modes of conveyance. With the natural love of a little excitement, combined with the desire to do as you would be done by, it was only thought neighborly to lend a hand at whatever might be going on; and the general result of this sociability was that half the place might be found congregated about the house, assisting to the best of their ability to impede all progress and successfully turn any attempt at work into confusion and disorder.
To add to this tumult, a keg of spirits was kept on tap, to which all comers were made free, so that the crowd grew first noisy and good-tempered, then riotously merry and quarrelsomely drunk, until occasions had been known when a general fight had ensued, the kegs had got burst open and upset, the men who were hired to deliver them lay maddened or helpless in the street, while the spirit for which liberty and life had been risked flowed into the gutters like so much water.
In vain had Adam, to whom these scenes afforded nothing but anger and disgust, used all his endeavors to persuade his fellow-workers to give up running the vessel ashore with the cargo in her. The Polperro men, except under necessity, turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, and in many cases preferred risking a seizure to foregoing the fool-hardy recklessness of openly defying the arm of the law. The plan which Adam would have seen universally adopted here, as it was in most of the other places round the coast, was that of dropping the kegs, slung on a rope, into the sea, and (securing them by an anchor) leaving them there until some convenient season, when, certain of not being disturbed, they were landed, and either removed to a more distant hiding-place or conveyed at once to their final destination. But all this involved immediate trouble and delay, and the men, who without a complaint or murmur would endure weeks of absence from their homes, the moment those homes came in sight grew irritable under control and impatient of all authority.
With a spirit of independence which verged on rebellion, with an uncertain temperament in which good and bad lay jostled together so haphazard that to calculate which at any given moment might come uppermost was an impossibility, these sons of the sea were hard to lead and impossible to drive. Obstinate, credulous, superstitious, they looked askant on innovation and hated change, fearing lest it should turn away the luck which they vaunted in the face of discretion, making it their boast that so many years had gone by since any mischance had overtaken the Polperro folk that they could afford to laugh at the soldiers before their faces and snap their fingers at the cruisers behind their backs.
Under these circumstances it was not to be supposed that Adam's arguments proved very effective: no proposition he made was ever favorably received, and this one was more than usually unpopular. So, in spite of his prejudice against a rule which necessitated the sequence of riot and disorder, he had been forced to give in, and to content himself by using his authority to control violence and stem as much as possible the tide of excess. It was no small comfort to him that Eve was absent, and the knowledge served to smooth his temper and keep down his irritability. Besides which, his spirits had risen to no common height, a frequent result of the reaction which sets in after great emotion, although Adam placed his happy mood to the credit of Eve's kind words and soft glances.
It was late in the afternoon before the kegs were all got out and safely cleared off; but at length the last man took his departure, the visitors began to disperse, Uncle Zebedee and Jerrem disappeared with them, and the house was left to the undisturbed possession of Joan and Adam.
"I shall bring Eve back when I come," Adam said, reappearing from the smartening up he had been giving to himself.
"All right!" replied Joan, but in such a weary voice that Adam's heart smote him for leaving her sitting there alone, and with a great effort at self-sacrifice he said, "Would you like to go too?"
"Iss, if I could go two p'r'aps I should," retorted Joan, "but as I'm only one p'r'aps I might find myself one in the way. There, go along with 'ee, do!" she added, seeing him still hesitate. "You knaw if there'd bin any chance o' my goin' you wouldn't ha' axed me."
A little huffed by this home-thrust, Adam waited for nothing more, but, turning away, he closed the door after him and set off at a brisk pace up the Lansallos road, toward Aunt Hepzibah's house.