th; and though he
couldn't see it from where he stood, even Mawnan church-tower had
been given a lick of the brush.

"But," said the Parson, fairly puzzled, "all this can only have
happened in broad daylight, and you must have caught the fellow at
it, whoever he is."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say I caught him," answered my
grandfather, modest-like; "but I came upon him a little above Bosahan
in the act of setting up one of his flags, and I asked him, in the
King's name, what he meant by it."

"And what did he answer?"

My grandfather looked over his shoulder. "I couldn't, Sir, not for a
pocketful of crowns, and your good lady, so to speak, within
hearing."

"Nonsense, man! She's not within a hundred yards."

"Well, then, Sir, he up and hoped the devil would fly away with me,
and from that he went on to say--" But here my grandfather came to a
dead halt. "No, Sir, I can't; and as a Minister of the Gospel,
you'll never insist on it. He made such horrible statements that I
had to go straight home and read over my old mother's marriage lines.
It fairly dazed me to hear him talk so confident, and she in her
grave, poor soul!"

"You ought to have demanded his name."

"I did, Sir; naturally I did. And he told me to go to the naughty
place for it."

"Well, but what like is he?"

"Oh, as to that, Sir, a man of ordinary shape, like yourself, in a
plain blue coat and a wig shorter than ordinary; nothing about him to
prepare you for the language he lets fly."

"And," put in Arch'laus Spry, "he's taken lodgings down to Durgan
with the Widow Polkinghorne, and eaten his dinner--a fowl and a jug
of cider with it. After dinner he hired Robin's boat and went for a
row. I thought it my duty, as he was pushing off, to sidle up in a
friendly way. I said to him, 'The weather, Sir, looks nice and
settled': that is what I said, neither more nor less, but using those
very words. What d'ee think he answered? He said, 'That's capital,
my man: now go along and annoy somebody else.' Wasn't that a
disconnected way of talking? If you ask my opinion, putting two and
two together, I say he's most likely some poor wandering loonatic."

The evening was dusking down by this time, and Parson Polwhele,
though a good bit puzzled, called to mind that his wife would be
getting anxious to cross the ferry and reach home before dark: so he
determined that nothing could be done before morning, when he
promised Arch'laus Spry to lo