ardrew were old friends; being the two most notable persons in
the parish, save Jones the lieutenant, Heale the doctor, and another
gentleman, of whom we shall speak presently. Both of them too, were
thorough-going Protestants, and though Churchmen, walked sometimes
into the Brianite Chapel of an afternoon, and thought it no sin. But
each took the curate's "Puseyism" in a different way, being two men as
unlike each other as one could well find.

Tardrew--steward to Lord Scoutbush, the absentee landlord,--was a
shrewd, hard-bitten, choleric old fellow, of the shape, colour, and
consistence of a red brick; one of those English types which Mr.
Emerson has so well hit off in his rather confused and contradictory
"Traits:"--

"He hides virtues under vices, or, rather, under the semblance of
them. It is the misshapen, hairy, Scandinavian Troll again who lifts
the cart out of the mire, or threshes the corn which ten day-labourers
could not end: but it is done in the dark, and with muttered
maledictions. He is a churl with a soft place in his heart, whose
speech is a brash of bitter waters, but who loves to help you at a
pinch. He says, No; and serves you, and his thanks disgust you." Such,
was Tardrew,--a true British bulldog, who lived pretty faithfully up
to his Old Testament, but had, somehow, forgotten the existence of the
New.

Willis was a very different and a very much nobler person; the most
perfect specimen which I ever have met (for I knew him well, and loved
him) of that type of British sailor which good Captain Marryat has
painted in his Masterman Ready, and painted far better than I can,
even though I do so from life. A tall and graceful old man, though
stooping much from lumbago and old wounds; with snow-white hair and
whiskers, delicate aquiline features, the manners of a nobleman, and
the heart of a child. All children knew that latter fact, and clung
to him instinctively. Even "the Boys," that terrible Berserk-tribe,
self-organised, self-dependent, and bound together in common
iniquities and the dread of common retribution, who were in Aberalva,
as all fishing towns, the torment and terror of all douce fogies, male
and female,--even the Boys, I say, respected Captain Willis, so potent
was the influence of his gentleness; nailed not up his shutters, nor
tied fishing-lines across his doorway; tail-piped not his dog, nor
sent his cat to sea on a barrel-stave; nor put live crabs into his
pocket, nor dead dog-f