"’Twas like this, sir," said Sam, rubbing his head and legs alternately. "I comed upon they chaps, and Jake Tonkin says to me, ’Catched any fish lately, young Sam?’ Says I, ’’Tis easier to cut lines, to be sure,’ says I, and then they set on me, and they’d ha’ melled and mashed me if Maister Dick hadn’t come up." "Have they been cutting your lines, then?" Dick saw no help for it but to acquaint the riding-officer with the petty persecution he had lately suffered, and the cause of it, which hitherto Mr. Polwhele had not known. "’Tis rascally, ’pon my soul it is," said the officer, "and I’m sorry Penwarden has brought it on ye. Not but ’twas your own doing, Master Dick; you’d better have kept out of it, though I own ’twas a good deed to old Joe. I’m on my way to see Sir Bevil, and I’ll tell him as a magistrate, and he’ll engage to commit any ruffian that molests ye." "Not on my account, if you please, Mr. Polwhele," said Dick earnestly. "There’s bad blood between the Towers and the village as it is, and ’twill be ten times worse if Sir Bevil comes into it." "Maybe you’re in the right. Well, I’ll see you safe home, and if I may advise ye, keep out of the way o’ the village folk. You’re not friends with Mr. Trevanion seemingly. Is he backing the smugglers, d’ye know?" "I can’t say anything about that. My father has nothing to do with him." "Well, well, these family quarrels are common enough. Come along beside me." Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the intervention of the riding-officer. Purely accidental as it was, the villagers regarded it as another proof of the new alliance between the Towers and the enemy. John Trevanion did not fail to describe to the elder Tonkin, the next time he met him, how savagely Mr. Polwhele had laid his whip upon Jake, and the irate smuggler swore that if he encountered the riding-officer he would make him pay for it. That evening Dick consulted Joe Penwarden on the situation, as he had intended. Joe was much distressed to think that he was the cause of the bitterness with which the village folk now regarded the family at the Towers. "I don’t know what you can do," said he. "But let things bide; maybe they’ll see by long and late they’ve misread ’ee." "But we can’t have our fishing spoilt time after time, Joe." "’Tis a pretty stoor, be dazed to it!" said Joe, angrily. "And all for a wambling old carcase like me! Ah! I warn’t allus like as I be now. When Lord Admiral Rodney spoke to me on Plymouth Hoe I was as limber a young feller as you’d see in Devon or Cornwall. He was goin’ along with two handsome females——but there, I think I’ve telled ’ee. What I say is, why did Maister John come home, cuss him? There was none o’ this afore." "I don’t think that’s fair, Joe. They’d have run a cargo all the same, if he were at the ends of the earth; and I couldn’t have done differently."