e court and chittered to him by the hour together like an
angel.

Tummels, all this while, kept quiet at Porthleah, like a wise man, and sat
watching Phoby Geen like a cat before a mousehole. Phoby had turned up at
the Cove in the _Nonesuch_ on the fourth day after the lugger was lost,
and at once began crying out, as innocent as you please, upon the mess
that Dan'l had made through his wrongheadedness. Also the crew of the
_Nonesuch_ couldn't make out where the plan had broken down. But Tummels,
piecing their information with what Dr. Chegwidden had told him, saw
clearly enough what trick had been played. Also by pumping old Bessie
Bussow (who had already been pumped by Phoby) he learned that Phoby knew
of Dan'l's return to the Cove and disappearance into hiding.
Tummels scratched his head. "The fellow knows that Dan'l is alive," he
reasoned. "He knows, too, there's a price on his head. Moreover he knows
my share in hiding the man away. Then why, if he's playing honest even
now, doesn't he speak to me? . . . But no: he's watching to catch me off
my guard, in the hope that I'll give him the clue to Dan'l's hiding."
Thus Tummels reasoned, and, though it went hard with him to get no news,
he decided that 'twas safer to trust in no news being good news than,
by making the smallest move, to put Phoby Geen on the track. In this he
did wisely; but he'd have done wiser by not breathing a word to Amelia
Sanders of where he'd stowed her sweetheart. For what must the lovesick
woman do--after a week's waiting and no news--but pack a basket and set
out for St. Ives, under the pretence of starting for Penzance market?
She carried out the deception very neatly, too; actually went into
Penzance and sold two couple of fowls, besides eggs of her own raising;
and then, having spent the money in a few odds-and-ends her sweetheart
would relish, slipped out of the town and struck away north.

What mischief would have followed but for a slant of luck, there's no
knowing: for Master Phoby had caught sight of her on the Helston Road
(where he kept a watch), pushed after her hot-foot, worked her through the
market like a stoat after a rabbit, and more than half-way to St. Ives
(laughing up his sleeve), when his little design went pop! and all through
the untying of a shoe-lace!

On the road after you pass Halsetown there's a sharp turn; and, a little
way farther, another sharp turn. For no reason that ever she discovered,
'twas ju