Upon these sweet little incidents I must venture to dwell no longer, while having so much of my yarn in the slack, and none but myself to tauten it. Enough that we came in about ten days to the genuine naked colony, without any meaning of surprise, but now as great ambassadors. And the least that we all expected was a true outburst of wild welcoming. Cannibal Jack had announced his intention to convert his relatives, while Dick and Joe only shook their heads, and seemed to doubt the advantage of it. But we need not have thought of the matter twice, for, strange to say, not one of the savages would for a moment acknowledge us. All the barbarous tribe stood aloof and scowled at their old members with utter abhorrence and contempt, as if at some vast degeneracy. Even Jack’s wife, or the woman who might in humanity have been called so, stood moping and mowing at him afar, as if his clothes made a sheep of him, while he with amazement regarded her as if she were only a chimpanzee. Whereupon all of them set up a yell, and rushed with such pelting of mud at us, that we thought ourselves lucky to make our escape without any further mischief.
After hauling out of action in this most inglorious manner, we brought up to refit and revictual at the nearest public-house, a lonely hut where four roads met, and the sign hung from an ancient gibbet. Here we were treated very kindly, and for very little money, so that I was quite astonished after all our feeding. And I happened to say to the landlady that I was surprised to find honesty within a league of Parson Chowne.
“Oh, sir, do you know that dreadful man?” she answered, with her apron up; “or would you like to see him, sir?”
“Madam,” said I, with that bow of mine which takes the women captive, “I should like to see him wonderfully; only without his seeing me.”
“Of course, of course. All people say that, because of the evil eye he hath. This house doth belong to him. He be coming for the rent again at two o’clock, and he never faileth. Every farthing will be ready now, through your honour’s generosity; and if so be you steps in here, when you hear me give three knuckles at the door, you may see him and welcome for nothing; only you must not speak forever so.”
The landlady showed me a little cellar, opening from our sitting-room, and having a narrow half-boarded hatchway bearing upon her sanded parlour, where she designed to receive the Parson. And then she was half afraid lest I might make a noise and so betray her. But almost before I had time to assure her of my perfect secrecy, the dash of horse’s hoofs was heard, and the sound of a man’s voice shouting.
“Well done!” said I to myself; “good Parson, years have not decreased thee.”
His strong step rang on the lime-ash floor, and his silver spurs made a jingle, and lo, there he stood in the sanded parlour, as noble a Chowne as ever. There was not the sign of a spot of weakness or relenting about him; on his shaven face no bloom of greyness, nor in his coal-black hair one streak. As vigorous, springy, and strenuous seemed he, as when he leaped on board and thrashed me, nearly twelve years agone, as I do believe.
“Woman, where is my money?” he cried, with the old pale frown overcoming him; “twice I have given you time. You know what I always do thereafter.”
“Yes, sir, I know what your Reverence doth. Your Reverence never calleth law, but taketh horsewhip to the mans of us.”
“Your memory is correct,” he answered; “my usual course is to that effect. I have brought my heaviest whip this time, for your husband has shown arrogance. Can you show cause why he should not have it?”
“Yes, your Reverence, here it is. And God knows how we have scraped for it.”
With the glow of triumph which a man’s face hardly ever shows, but a woman’s cannot be denied of, she spread before him all his rent upon an ancient tray, and every piece of it was copper. Thirty-six shillings she had to pay, and twenty-four times thirty-six was there for his Reverence to count. The hostess looked at him, with a chuckle brewing now under her apron strings, and ready to rise to her ample breast, and thence to her mouth, if expedient. But she mistook her customer.
“Woman,” said Chowne, in his deep low voice, which had no anger in it; “I am tired of signing warrants.”
“Warrants, your Worship! For what, if you please?”
“Warrants for thieves who are foisting sham Irish halfpennies on the public. I see no less than seven of them in this sterling stuff of yours. Three months at the treadmill now for yourself and your husband. Say no more. You have tried a trick. Tiverton jail for you both tomorrow.”
And there, if you wanted either of them, you must go to find them, only two days afterward, according to what I was told of it. No Welsh gentleman would have dreamed of behaving to his tenants thus, for trying a little joke with him; but Chowne had no sense of any joke, unless himself began it.
Our three cannibals had been trembling at the sound of the Parson’s voice, believing that he would drive them back, and feeling that they had no power to withstand his orders. But luckily we had made such a smoke—all our savages having taken to the use of tobacco gloriously—that when the Parson put his head
