“Have you done as well as you expected, Ortho?” “N-o, not quite. I’ve had the most damnable luck, old boy.” He took Eli’s arm. “You never heard of such bad luck in your life—and none of it my fault. I sold a few mules at first at good prices, but the money went—a man must eat as he goes, you know—and then there was that gun; it cost a pretty penny. Then trouble began. I lost three beasts at Tewkesbury. They got scared in the night. One broke a shoulder and two went over a quarry. But at Hereford . . . Oh, my God!” “What happened?” “Glanders. They went like flies. Pyramus saw what it was right off, and we ran for it, south, selling horses to the first bid; that is, we tried to, but they were too sick and word went faster than we. The crowd got ugly, swore we’d infected the country and they’d hang us; they would have, too, if we’d waited. They very nearly had me, boy, very nearly.” “Did they mark your face like that?” “They did, with a lump of slate. And that isn’t all. I’ve got half a dozen more like it scattered about.” He laughed. “But no matter; they didn’t get me and I’m safe home again, thank God!” “And the horses?” “They killed every one of ’em to stop the infection.” “Then you haven’t got any money?” Ortho shook his head. “Not a penny.” CHAPTER XIV Misfortune did not daunt Ortho for long; the promising state of the home fields put fresh heart in him. He plunged at the work chanting a pæan in praise of agriculture, tore through obstacles and swept up his tasks with a speed and thoroughness which left Eli and Bohenna standing amazed. The Penhale brothers harvested a record crop that season—but so did everybody else. The market was glutted and prices negligible. Except that their own staple needs were provided for, they were no better off than previously. Eli did not greatly care—he had done what he had set out to do, bring a good crop home—but Ortho fell into a state of profound gloom; it was money that he wanted. It seemed to make little difference in agriculture whether you harvested a bumper yield or none at all. He had no capital to start in the second-hand horse trade again—even did he wish to—and he had no knowledge of any other business. He was on the desperate point of enlisting in the army on the chance of being sent abroad and gathering in a little loot, when opportunity rapped loudly on his door. He had run down towards Tol-Pedn-Penwith with Jacky’s George one afternoon in late September. It was a fine afternoon, with a smooth sea, and all the coves between Merther Point and Carn Scathe were full of whitebait. They crowded close inshore in dense shoals, hiding from the mackerel. When the mackerel charged them they stampeded in panic, frittering the surface like wind-flaws. The gig’s crew attacked the attackers and did so well that they did not notice the passage of time.