long after the currency had been changed. That would account for the
sovereigns being so many and the guineas by comparison so few.

He was aching sorely in back and reins: his leg, too, wanted ease.
. . . He would take a rest and spend it in examining the window, by
which alone he could get rid of the rubbish without courting inquiry.
It was his only postern gate.

It had not been opened for many years--never, indeed, in the time of
his tenancy. Door and fireplace had provided between them all the
ventilation he was conscious of needing.

It cost him three minutes to push up the lower sash. He managed to
open it some ten inches, and then, as a protest against this
interference with its gradual decay, the sash-cord broke. He heard
with a jump of the heart the weight thud down behind the woodwork:
then, as he groped hastily behind him for a brick, to prop the sash,
it came down with a run, and closed its descent with a jar that shook
out two of its bottle panes to drop into the water that rushed below.
Prompt upon this came a flutter and scurry of wings in water, and a
wild quacking, as a bevy of ducks dashed for shore.

A casement window was thrust open on the far side of the stream.
A woman's voice shrilled--

"That's _you_, is it? Oh, yes--you Penhaligon children! You needn'
clucky down an' hide--an' after breakin' Mr Nanjivell's windows, that
hasn' sixpence between hisself an' heaven, to pay a glazier!"

(But it was Mr Nanjivell himself who cowered down out of sight,
clutching the woodwork of the window-sill with wealth behind him
surpassing the dreams of avarice.)

"Proper young limbs you be," the voice went on. "With no father at
home to warm 'ee!"--

(Let this not be mistaken for a tribute to Mr Penhaligon's parental
kindness, good father though he was. To "warm" a child in Polpier
signifies to beat him with a strap.)

"And him in danger of submarines, that snatch a man before his Maker
like a snuff of a candle, while you can find no better way of
employing your holidays than scatterin' other folks' glass to the
danger o' my ducks! You just wait till I've wiped my arms, here, and
I'll be round to tell your mother about 'ee!"

Nicky-Nan had recognised the voice at once. It belonged to Mrs
Climoe, possibly the champion virago of Polpier, and a woman of her
word--a woman who never missed an opportunity to make trouble.
Her allusion to wiping her arms before action he as swiftly
understood. Th