As it happened, however, at the back of Nicky's cottage a narrow lane, public though seldom used, ran down to the waterside, to a shelf of rock less than a stone's throw from the slip, and, when cleared of weed below the tide-mark, by no means inconvenient for embarking passengers. A rusty ring, clamped into the living rock, survived to tell of days before steam-tugs were invented, when vessels had painfully to warp their way up and down the river. Through this ring, no man forbidding him, Mr. Hosken had run a frape, on which he kept his blue boat, now leased to Nicky for a nominal rent of sixpence a week. "And why not use this for your ferry-landing?" Mr. Hosken suggested. "Rosewarne can't touch ye here." "Sure?" "I reckon I ought to know the tithe-maps by heart; and, by them, this parcel of shore belongs to nobody, unless it be to Her Majesty." Nicky chuckled with a wheezy cunning. It happened as he had promised the new ferryman. Mr. Sam's unpopularity had been growing in the village since the eviction of Mrs. Trevarthen. Aunt Butson, after a vain attempt to find labour in the fields, had followed her to the almshouse across the water. The cause of Mr. Benny's dismissal had been freely canvassed and narrowly guessed at. Against this new stroke of tyranny the public revolted. Living so far from their own church and a mile from the nearest chapel, numbers of the villagers were wont on Sundays to cross over to the town for their religion, and to-day with one consent they stepped into Nicky's blue boat, while Mr. Bobe smoked and spat, and regarded them with a lazy interest. Towards evening the old man jingled a pocketful of coppers. "Why ever didn't I think o' this before?" he asked aloud. "Here I've a-been near upon fifty years earnin' twelve shillings a week, and all the while might ha' been a rich man and my own master!" Next day he sought out Mr. Toy, and Mr. Toy obligingly painted and lettered a board for him, and helped to fix it against the wall of his hovel overlooking the lane-- THIS WAY TO N. VRO FERRYMAN THE OLD FIRM Here was defiance indeed, a flaunted banner of revolt! The villagers, who had hitherto looked upon the old man as half-witted but harmless, suddenly discovered him to be a hero, and Mr. Toy gave himself a holiday to stand beneath the board and explain it to all the country folk coming to use the ferry. So well did he succeed that between sunset and sunrise the only passenger by the official boat was Mr. Sam himself, on his way to seek and take counsel with Lawyer Tulse.