Part 11 (2/2)

”No, my friends, though I am loath to leave your pleasant company,”

replied he, ”I shall take the old road, for I have bought another piece of wit that telleth me never to leave an old road for a new one. Choose for yourselves. A short way hence, where the two roads join, the first that arrives can await the others.”

The merchants went on, saying, ”We shall soon meet again.”

When Tom came to where the roads joined, he saw the horses jogging homewards, without their owners. He looked along the road both ways, but saw no merchants. Then getting on a high bank, in a minute or two he beheld one of them coming across the downs stripped of his coat, hat, and wallet. He saw soon afterwards the two others, coming from different directions, almost naked.

”Halloo, my masters,” said Tom, when they came near, ”however are ye in this sad plight?”

”Ah, comrade,” answered they, ”we wish we had been so wise as thou.

Half-ways up the hill robbers fell on us and stripped us, as you see.”

”How many were they?” Tom asked.

In their confusion each merchant answering, ”Three attacked me;” they counted the robbers nine, till considering how they had separated at the onset, each one trying to save himself, they saw that the same men, having fallen on each one of them in turn, they were only three robbers after all. Tom remarked, in angry tones, ”One wouldn't take you for West Country men, yet I should think it's hard to find three stouter than you, this side of Hayle. But you forgot _One and All_; so I havn't much pity for 'e; each one trying to save himself took to his heels and left his comrades in the lurch; that's the way you are beaten; and serve 'e right. My old dad always said to me, ”Tom, my boy, mind _One and All_.

Fall fair, fall foul, stand by thy comrades, and in misfortune, stick all the closer, my son.” But we have no time to lose,” he continued, ”we are four of us together now; they can't be gone far, and, dash my b.u.t.tons, if we don't beat them yet. You have lost your sticks, I see, but here's what will serve your needs,” said he taking up his threshal (flail), undoing it, and putting the keveran (connecting piece of leather) in his pocket. ”One take the slash-staff, another the hand-staff, the other of 'e take my threshal-strings, and bind the rascals hand and foot as we knock them down. Now come on, boys! _One and All_ mind; or the devil take the first to run.”

The merchants, wis.h.i.+ng to recover their clothes and money, readily agreed to return with Tom in pursuit. They ran down the rocky lane. At the bottom, near where the roads separated, they saw, on a rock, by the side of the new road, bundles of clothes and the merchants' wallets.

Going on softly a few paces farther, they beheld the three robbers stretched on the gra.s.s, a little off the road, counting the stolen money and dividing their spoil. They sprang to their legs, but were scarcely up when Tom and the two merchants knocked them down and the other secured them.

”Ah!” said Tom, with a satisfied look, when he saw the robbers laid low, ”the buff coat and new boots on that big fellow, who looks like their captain, will suit me, and I will take them for my Sunday's wear.”

No sooner said than done with Tom. Whilst the merchants gathered up their money, he pulled off the captain's boots and stripped him of his buff; saying, ”Now, my fine fellow, you won't be able to run very fast over furze and stones, if you should be inclined to give chase when you come round again.”

The merchants, having well thrashed the robbers, left them stretched on the ground, half-killed, took their own clothes, and proceeded homewards, giving Tom much praise for his wit and valour.

They soon overtook their horses, and, without stopping, arrived at Coet-ny-whilly. Here the nearest road to Chyannor strikes off to the right of that leading to Treen. The merchants pressed Tom to go home and sup with them.

”No, thank 'e, not now, some other time,” he answered.

”Come along,” they again urged, all three; saying, ”thou art right welcome, and we will treat thee well.”

”No, not now,” replied he, ”but I don't doubt your welcome, though, as my master used to say, 'It is often good manners to ask, but not always to take.' Besides,” continued he, ”I am longing to get home quickly and see my wife and cheeld.”

Each party proceeded their separate ways. When Tom had pa.s.sed a place called the Crean, and was within half a mile of his dwelling, he sat down on a bank and lingered there till dusk, that he might get home about dark, and have a chance to look round unperceived, and thus find out if his wife had attended to her duty. Tom had learned but little about his family from the merchants. They merely told him that his wife had often been to Treen with yarn to sell, and, as she was a good spinster, they supposed the weavers gave her plenty of work. They knew nothing of either his wife or his daughter.

When it was all but dark Tom again went on slowly, and quickened his pace in going up the Bottom, till he approached within a stone's-cast of his dwelling. Here he paused a moment, on hearing a man's voice inside.

Then he went softly on to a little gla.s.s window--the only one glazed in his house--and peeped in.

On the chimney-stool he espied, by the fire-light, a man and a woman, hugging, kissing, and seeming very fond of each other.

”Oh! but this is double d.a.m.nation,” groaned Tom to himself, ”that I should ever come home, after working for years far away, to be greeted with such a sight. Where can the cheeld be? 'Tis enough to make one mad to see her f.a.ggot of a mother there, showing more love for that black-looking fellow than she did for me, except in our courting times and a week or so after marriage. I'll kill the villain, and drive the old huzzey to doors, that I will.”

Whilst such thoughts of vengeance pa.s.sed through Tom's mind, he recollected his last two pounds' worth of wit, and hesitated a minute at the door; but he was sure of what he saw; and now, hearing them laughing and couranting (romping) in their loving play, that aggravated him all the more. He grasped his stick and looked again to be certain, when a voice close behind him called out to him in tones like his wife's, ”Halloo, eaves-dropper! Who art thou, and what dost thee want there spying and listening? Thee west hear no good of thyself, I'll be bound!”

Tom looking round, saw his wife close by, with a 'burn' of ferns on her back.

”That can never be thee, wife,” said he, ”unless thee art a witch; for this instant thou wert sitting on the chimney-stool with a strange man, and behaving in a way that don't become thee.”

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