"Ah!" said Mr. Carlyon with a chuckle, "and there’s a lady in the case as usual. I understand that Sam takes a brotherly interest in Mr. Trevanion’s maidservant—a very good girl, behaves well in church, and seems most attentive to my sermons. Upon my word, Squire, we owe something to John Trevanion after all." "Humph!" grunted the Squire. "What does the Book say, Vicar? ’The wicked diggeth a pit, and falleth into it himself.’ That is true in the case of Doubledick, at any rate." "And he’s no loss to us," said Mr. Polwhele. "Without a doubt he hid that ruffian Delarousse. I suppose they’ll now be hob-a-nob together in Roscoff. What’s that at the window?" He sprang up and put his head out. "Do ’ee feel better now, sir?" asked Petherick, sympathetically. "What are you doing there, Petherick?" asked the Vicar, recognising his voice. "I wer just a-comin’ along to tell ’ee wheer I found ladder, yer reverence. ’Twas in the ditch over beyond the linney, and be-jowned if I wouldn’ give a silver sixpence, poor as I be, to know who ’twas carr’d un theer. We must clear out these owls and airy-mouses, to be sure." "Well, set about it to-morrow," said the Vicar, closing the window. "I’ll be bound the fellow has heard all that we’ve said," cried Mr. Polwhele. "Then you may be sure it will be all over the parish to-morrow," said Mr. Carlyon. CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH A High Dive The failure of their carefully-laid plan afflicted the smugglers with a numbness of dismay and stupefaction, and robbed them of all power to appreciate the success of the trick played on the revenue officers. Tonkin bitterly reproached himself for leaving the shipment of Penwarden to Doubledick and undertaking the seizure of John Trevanion’s guests. Moreover, honest and simple-minded as he was, a tiny seed of suspicion was beginning to germinate in his mind. Before John Trevanion came home, the freighting had been done by Tonkin on a modest scale in co-operation with Delarousse. Now, however, John Trevanion had taken the lead. For some reason, which none knew, and only Doubledick suspected, he had thrown over Delarousse, and did business with a rival and enemy of his in Roscoff. Having more capital than Tonkin, whose recent losses had indeed been crippling, he could buy more largely and employ more men, so that Tonkin found himself in a position of galling subordination. As Trevanion had said to Doubledick, the big man did not care to play second fiddle. He was beginning to wonder whether the jovial master of the Dower House was quite so good a friend as he seemed.