'd best all out to the quay-head, and whistle for a wind: it would
be an ill one that would blow nobody good just now!"

But the wind came not, nor the rain; and the cholera crept nearer and
nearer: while the hearts of all in Aberalva were hardened, and out of
very spite against the agitators, they did less than they would have
done otherwise. Even the inhabitants of the half-a-dozen cottages, which
Scoutbush, finding that they were in his own hands, whitewashed by main
force, filled the town with lamentations over his lordship's tyranny.
True--their pig-styes were either under their front windows; or within
two feet of the wall: but to pull down a poor man's pig-stye!--they
might ever so well be Rooshian slaves!--and all the town was on their
side; for pigs were the normal inhabitants of Aberalva back-yards.

Tardrew's wrath, of course, knew no bounds; and meeting Thurnall
standing at Willis's door, with Frank and Mellot, he fell upon him
open-mouthed.

"Well, sir! I've a crow to pick with you."

"Pick away!" quoth Tom.

"What business have you meddling between his lordship and me?"

"That is my concern," quoth Tom, who evidently was not disinclined to
quarrel. "I am not here to give an account to you of what I choose to
do."

"I'll tell you what, sir; ever since you've been in this parish you've
been meddling, you and Mr. Headley too,--I'll say it to your faces,--
I'll speak the truth to any man, gentle or simple; and that ain't enough
for you, but you must come over that poor half-crazed girl, to set her
plaguing honest people, with telling 'em they'll all be dead in a month,
till nobody can eat their suppers in peace: and that again ain't enough
for you, but you must go to my lord with your--"

"Hold hard!" quoth Tom. "Don't start two hares at once. Let's hear that
about Miss Harvey again!"

"Miss Harvey? Why, you should know better than I."

"Let's hear what you know."

"Why, ever since that night Trebooze caught you and her together--"

"Stop!" said Tom, "that's a lie."

"Everybody says so."

"Then everybody lies, that's all; and you may say I said so, and take
care you don't say it again yourself. But what ever since that night?"

"Why, I suppose you come over the poor thing somehow, as you seem minded
to do over every one as you can. But she's been running up and down the
town ever since, preaching to 'em about windilation, and drains, and
smells, and cholera, and its being a judgment of the Lo