The very urchins, chubby boys of eight and nine, grinned at him maliciously, and helped to give him confirmation of the fact that he was in an enemy’s country. When the ground began to rise again, at the end of the village, he came to a point where three roads met, and where the high hedges and another patch of wooded ground made it impossible to see far in any direction. As all three roads were in a most villainous condition, with deep ruts and pools and furrows of caked mud, and as all three bore marks of horses’ hoofs the lieutenant knew that it was useless to go further. So he returned through the village in a highly irritated state of mind. The excitement had subsided a little by this time, and most of the gossips had resumed their household occupations. There was a group of suspicious-looking loafers about the door of each of the two inns; but although it seemed to Tregenna that the word smuggler was writ large across the bloated features of every one, there was nothing to be done but to look as if he ignored their existence. Thus, in the very worst of humors, he again reached the entrance of the village, and, after a moment’s hesitation, struck up to the left in the direction of the Parsonage, at the garden gate of which he saw handsome Mistress Joan in conversation with another woman. He was still ostensibly bound on a mission of inquiry, yet it is doubtful whether he hoped to get much information from Joan, who had clearly shown herself to be one of the enemy. Still he strode up the hill with a resolute step, and saluted her in the most abrupt, business-like, and even somewhat offended manner. “Your pardon, Mistress Joan, for intruding. But ’tis in the performance of my duty. Can you inform me whither the smugglers be gone that rode by just now with the soldiers after them?” “How should I be able to tell you that, sir? Do you take me for a smuggler myself?” asked Joan, demurely.