the county
rate. The balance has come out of my pocket--from two to three
pounds for each. From the beginning the Squire refused to help to
bury sailors. He took the ground that it wasn't a local claim."

"Hullo!" said Taffy, for as he turned the leaves his eye fell on this
entry:--

Jan 30th, 187-. S.S. "Rifleman" (all hands). Cargo, China
clay: W. P., age about eighteen, fair skin, reddish hair, short
and curled, height 5ft. 10 and 3/4 in. Initials tattooed on
chest under a three-masted ship and semicircle of seven stars;
clad in flannel singlet and trousers (cloth): singlet marked
with same initials in red cotton: pockets empty--

"But he was in the Navy!" cried Taffy, with his finger on the entry.

"Which one? Yes, he was in the Navy. You'll see it on the opposite
page. He deserted, poor boy, in Cork Harbour, and shipped on board a
tramp steamer as donkey-man. She loaded at Fowey and was wrecked on
the voyage back. William Pellow he was called: his mother lives but
ten miles up the coast: she never heard of it until six weeks after."

"But we--I, I mean--knew him. He was one of the sailor boys on
Joby's van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at
_Indian Queens'?_ He showed me his tattoo marks that day."

And again he saw his childhood as it were set about with an enchanted
hedge, across which many voices would have called to him, and some
from near, but all had hung muted and arrested.

The inquest on the two drowned sailors was held next day at the
_Fifteen Balls_, down in Innis village. Later in the afternoon, the
four survivors walked up to the church, headed by the Captain.

"We've been hearing," said the Captain, "of your difficulties, sir:
likewise your kindness to other poor seafaring chaps. We'd have
liked to make ye a small offering for your church, but sixteen
shillings is all we can raise between us. So we come to say that if
you can put us on to a job, why we're staying over the funeral, and a
day's work or more after that won't hurt us one way or another."

Mr. Raymond led them to the chancel and pointed out a new beam, on
which he and Jacky Pascoe had been working a week past, and over
which they had been cudgelling their brains how to get it lifted and
fixed in place.

"I can send to one of the miners and borrow a couple of ladders."

"Ladders? Lord love ye, sir, and begging your pardon, we don't want
ladders. With a sling, Bil