"You ought to ’ave give it to me and I could ’av paid’n." "So I should ’av," she answered peaceably, "if you’d been in to see me. But I give it to Isolda instead." He was not to be placated. "Looks mighty queer you don’t trust me with the money. I’ve to keep the place goin’ and if I don’t pay the ’inds who’s to know I’m maister?" "There’s no need, for you bain’t maister. You may blate morning till night, you won’t ’av Wastralls, no never for, come to that, I don’t trust ’ee." "S’bina!" She held up her hand. "You do take too much on your own ’ead." He knew then that the tale of his imprudent labours had run before him and that she was expressing her disapproval. She was not angry with him; a mother is not angry when she sequestrates a forbidden toy. "I always thought," he stammered, making no further mystery of the matter, "that we should grow sugar-beet." "An’ you was welcome to try it—at Polnevas. Now come, it bain’t too late to put the li’l medder in dredge-corn. You’d better see to’t at once, or I’ll ’av Tom do’t." He cried out at that last humiliation and it was still the same cry, the cry his wife thought so unreasonable. "You’d put Tom Rosevear over me? You’d take away what belong to me?" "’Long to you? I should like to know ’ow it come yours." "You give it me, you give it me when we married." "Never." In his disappointment and rage he stumbled over his words. "You’ll see, you’ll see! Iss, you’ll see whether I won’t ’av it or no." "’Tis mazedness of ’ee to think so," she answered. "Come, be sensible. I’ll pay for these old fads of yours and you can pile’n away where you mind to. I’ll pay this once, but ’twas a fulish game for ’ee to play and maybe you’ll see that before you’m done." *CHAPTER III* Near St. Cadic Mill, at the head of the valley, a hamlet had gathered, a few deep-set cottages built of cliff stone and planted irregularly about a smithy. Sheltered by a rise in the land from sea winds their gardens were rich with produce. A green broadened from their little gates and in the wall of the smithy had been set a scarlet post-box, a flaring touch of the official in a land sufficient unto itself. In these, houses, which were known far and wide as ’Cottages,’ dwelt a cobbler, who was also the barber of the community: Mrs. Bate, the Stripper; her friend Aunt Louisa Blewett, the seamstress: one or two independent labourers, and an old sailor. Here, too, was the Dolphin, where could be obtained a little muddy cider and some home-brewed; also, the village shop. The self-respecting and thrifty community was like a family which, having grown up and married, had continued to live in a group, separated only by the walls of their homes and gardens. Ties, acknowledged and unacknowledged, linked them, linked them also with the farmer folk; and, as all respected the axiom that you must not ’step on a Cornishman’s tail,’ the hamlet was to the outward eye an abode of peace.