rd," grumbled
Sir Harry; but noting the lad's face, how white and drawn it was, he
relented, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't take it too
seriously, my boy. It'll blow over--it'll blow over. Honoria likes
you, I know. We'll see what the trollop says: and if I get a chance
of putting in a good word, you may depend on me."

He walked with Taffy to the door--good, easy man--and waved a hand
from the porch. On the whole, he was rather glad than not to see his
young friend's back.

From his smithy window Mendarva spied Taffy coming along the road,
and stepped out on the green to shake hands with him.

"Pleased to see your face, my son! You'll excuse my not asking 'ee
inside; but the fact is"--he jerked his thumb towards the smithy--"
we've a-got our troubles in there."

It came on our youth with something of a shock that the world had
room for any trouble beside his own.

"'Tis the Dane. He went over to Truro yesterday to the wrastlin',
an' got thrawed. I tell'n there's no call to be shamed. 'Twas Luke
the Wendron fella did it--in the treble play--inside lock backward,
and as pretty a chip as ever I see." Mendarva began to illustrate it
with foot and ankle, but checked himself, and glanced nervously over
his shoulder. "Isn' lookin', I hope? He's in a terrible pore about
it. Won't trust hissel' to spake, and don't want to see nobody.
But, as I tell'n, there's no call to be shamed; the fella took the
belt in the las' round, and turned his man over like a tab. He's a
proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank 'pon en both ends, and
he'll rise up in the middle and look at 'ee. There was no one a
patch on en but the Dane; and I'll back the Dane next time they
clinch. 'Tis a nuisance, though, to have'n like this--with a big job
coming on, too, over to the light-house."

Taffy looked steadily at the smith. "What's doing at the
light-house?"

"Ha'n't 'ee heerd?" Mendarva began a long tale, the sum of which was
that the light-house had begun of late to show signs of age, to rock
at times in an ominous manner. The Trinity House surveyor had been
down and reported, and Mendarva had the contract for some immediate
repairs. "But 'tis patching an old kettle, my son. The foundations
be clamped down to the rock, and the clamps have worked loose.
The whole thing'll have to come down in the end; you mark my words."

"But, these repairs?" Taffy interrupted: "You'll be wanting hands."

"Why, o' course