folk
crowding to see the wonders, just as they had when the first traction
engine made its appearance in West Penwith. Yet Cornishmen, who are
conservative creatures, still cling to their straight-handled scythes,
although they are less convenient than those with curved handles in use
up-country. Nicky had small use for customs such as this, and he poured
forth ideas that would have turned John-James pale, if anything could
have affected his seamed and weather-beaten countenance.

John-James was an old man now--he had aged quickly with his outdoor
life; but always he refused to let Ishmael pension him off, and though
as overseer he had a wage passing any paid in the county, and though he
lived comfortably enough in his little cottage chosen by himself, with a
tidy body who came in from the village every day to attend to his wants,
he still showed all the premature ageing of the countryman. He had
never married, and with age had taken many queer ways, one of them being
a rooted dislike to having any woman except his sister Vassie in his
house. Georgie was never allowed to cross its threshold, and he always
called her "Mrs. Ruan." The two little girls he adored, and they knew he
was their uncle, though with the unquestioning faith of childhood they
accepted that he lived alone in a little cottage like a working man
because he was eccentric and mustn't be worried to live as father did.
Ishmael was very fond of this brother--as fond as John-James' rigid
taciturnity would let him be. John-James' chief peculiarity was
displayed always during the week's holiday he took every year; on each
day of this week he would make a pilgrimage to some cemetery. A new
graveyard was an unfailing magnet for him; he would spend hours there
and return next year to note what new headstones had taken root. "Why on
earth do you want to go and spend all your holiday in cemeteries,
John-James?" Georgie had once asked him; "you'll have to be there for
ever and ever some day; why do you want to go before you have to?"
John-James, attired in his best broadcloth, with a bowler hat firmly
fixed above his weather-beaten face, stared at her stonily "I go to the
graveyards," he said at length, "because them be the only places where
folks mind their own business...."

Tom had quite dropped out of the family circle made by Ishmael, Vassie,
and John-James. He found the annoyance of not being received in the same
circles as Ishmael and Vassie too irksome to