elayed travel
on the king's highway.

"You may leave your curses, young man, to them with a better right to use
'em. Thank the Almighty there's a boat to put you across. Hosken's blue
boat it is; you'll find her ready to launch, down 'pon the slip. Take her
and pull for the doctor. Tell 'en 'tis no use his bringing a horse, for
there's no boat to fetch a horse over. But there's Tank's grey mare up to
the inn. I'll have her ready saddled for him, if he'll promise to ride
steady and mind the sore 'pon her near shoulder."

All the village had heard the midnight gallop of hoofs; all the village
had guessed accurately who the rider was, and why he rode. But Nicky's
dismissal was known to a few only. Soon after daybreak the news of this
spread too, with the circumstance that only Nicky's good-nature had kept
clear the king's highway for a message which above all others needs to be
carried with speed.

Nicky sat complacent off the ferry-slip in Hosken's blue boat when the new
ferryman arrived (twenty minutes late, by reason of his having to fetch
the keys from Hall), and stolidly undid the padlock fastening the official
craft.

"Aw, good-mornin'!" Nicky hailed him.

"Mornin'," said the new ferryman.

"We're in opposition, it seems."

"Darned if I care." The new ferryman lit his pipe and spat. "My name's
Elijah Bobe."

"Then, Elijah Bobe, you may as well go home. 'Tis Sunday, and a slack
day; but, were it Saturday and full business, your takings wouldn't cover
your keep."

"Darned if I care," Mr. Bobe repeated. "I'm paid by the week." He sucked
at his pipe for a while. "Ticklish job, ain't it?--interferin' with a
private ferry?" he asked.

But Nicky had taken opinion upon this. So far as he could discover, the
case lay thus: Of the ferry itself nothing belonged to Lady Killiow but
the slipway on the near shore. The farther slipway was not precisely
no-man's-land, for the foreshore belonged to the Duchy, and the soil
immediately above it to Sir George Dinham; but here half a dozen separate
interests came into conflict. Sir George, while asserting ownership of
the land, would do nothing to repair or maintain the slip on it, arguing
very reasonably that he derived no profit from the dues, and that since
these went to Lady Killiow, she was bound to maintain her own
landing-places. Rosewarne, on the other hand, as Lady Killiow's steward,
flatly refused to execute repairs upon another person's property.