When Doubledick left the house a few minutes later, he carried the bundle of crisp white notes snug in his breast-pocket. He said good-bye very cordially to his host, and, mounting his horse, rode boldly along the highway and down the hill to the inn. Most of the smugglers had returned to their homes, but Tonkin, Nathan Pendry, and one or two more still remained in the inn-parlour, with their legs stretched out towards a genial fire, their long churchwarden pipes filling the room with clouds of smoke. Mrs. Doubledick had gone to bed. No other visitors were to be expected at this hour, and the company would let themselves out at their own time. The woman was torn between hope and fear. Tonkin had learnt in Roscoff that Doubledick had left with Delarousse; and Mrs. Doubledick was relieved to know that her husband had escaped the miseries of confinement in a French prison; but she was troubled lest he should fall into equally rigorous hands at home. Doubledick entered the room quietly. "Well, neighbours all," he said behind their backs, "a man’s home be the fittiest place for un, I b’lieve." The men sprang up in amazement, grasped his hand, smote him on the back. "What did I tell ’ee!" said Tonkin. "Didn’ I say neighbour Doubledick was a clever feller, and ’t ’ud take a deal o’ cleverness to get over he?" "Ye did, there’s no denyin’ it," said Simon Mail. "Ah, neighbour Doubledick, you was born wi’ noble intellects." "But you be a terrible bold feller," said Pendry. "There’ll be a warrant out for ’ee, and ye’ll be carr’d to Trura jail, as sure as I be alive." "If ’tis to be, ’tis; and rayther would I be jailed in Cornwall than in France," replied Doubledick. "But I won’t be jailed nowheer, I b’lieve, and I’ll tell ’ee why. Theer was only two as seed me—Joe Penwarden and the young tom-holla at the Towers. Well, they dussn’t swear to me." "Why not, neighbour?" said Pendry. "Because they been up to jiggery theirselves, hee, hee!" "Speak yer meanin’ plain, for the sake o’ poor simple I," said Mail. "Hee, hee! I mind I telled old Joe he’d hev to answer for pickin’ and stealin’, and so ’a woll. Do ’ee know, neighbours, they brought out o’ well a noble store o’ raiment, purple and fine linen, as pa’son says?" "Never!" ejaculated Pendry and Mail together, Tonkin smoking in silence. "Iss, ’tis true as Gospel. They brought out silks and satins and who knows what all, and look ’ee, friends, that be thievin’!" "I don’t know about that," said Tonkin.