off than
when he began. Happy for him if some chance word is not let drop,
which will afford the whole assembly an excuse for falling on him
open-mouthed, as the cause of all their woes!

That chance word came. Mr. Penruddock gave a spiteful hit, being, as
he said, of a cantankerous turn, to Mr. Treluddra, principal "jowder,"
_i.e._ fish salesman, of Aberalva. Whereon Treluddra, whose conscience
told him that there was at present in his back-yard a cartload and
more of fish in every stage of putrefaction, which he had kept rotting
there rather than lower the market-price, rose in wrath.

"An' if any committee puts its noz into my back-yard, if it doant get
the biggest cod's innards as I can collar hold on, about its ears, my
name is not Treluddra! A man's house is his castle, says I, and them
as takes up with any o' this open-day burglary, for it's nothing less,
has to do wi' me, that's all, and them as knows their interest, knows
me!"

Terrible were these words; for old Treluddra, like most jowders,
combined the profession of money-lender with that of salesman; and
there were dozens in the place who were in debt to him for money
advanced to buy boats and nets, after wreck and loss. Besides, to
offend one jowder was to offend all. They combined to buy the fish at
any price they chose: if angered, they would combine now and then not
to buy it at all.

"You old twenty per cent rascal," roared the Lieutenant, "after making
a fortune out of these poor fellows' mishaps, do you want to poison
'em all with your stinking fish?"

"I say, Lieutenant," says old Beer, whose son owed Treluddra fifty
pounds at that moment, "fair's fair. You mind your Coastguard, and
we'm mind our trade. We'm free fishermen, by charter and right; you'm
not our master, and you shall know it."

"Know it?" says the Lieutenant, foaming.

"Iss; you put your head inside my presences, and I'll split mun open,
if I be hanged for it."

"You split my head open?"

"Iss, by--." And the old grey-bearded sea-king set his arms akimbo.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake!" cries poor Headley, "this
is really going too far. Gentlemen, the vestry is adjourned!"

"Best thing too! oughtn't never to have been called," says one and
another.

And some one, as he went out, muttered something about "interloping
strange doctors, colloquies with popish curates," which was answered
by a--"Put 'mun in the quay pule," from Treluddra.

Tom stepped up to Tre