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He was a Pole, Michaelowyzcki, or some such name. At least, so he said; but he suspected the man to be really a Russian spy." Grace knew that it was Tom: but she went back to her work again, and in due time went home to England. Home, but not to Aberalva. She presented herself one day at Mark Armsworth's house in Whitbury, and humbly begged him to obtain her a place as servant to old Dr. Thurnall.
He is Valencia's husband now, and rector, not curate, of Aberalva town; and Valencia makes him a noble rector's wife.
"Coffins sail fastest in a calm." "You'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.
Little Scoutbush comes down often to Aberalva now, and oftener to his Irish estates. He is going to marry the Manchester lady after all, and to settle down; and try to be a good landlord; and use for the benefit of his tenants the sharp experience of human hearts, human sorrows, and human duty, which he gained in the Crimea two years ago. And Major Campbell? Look on Cathcart's Hill.
"Hardly fair, Major Campbell!" quoth Tom; "you forget that in the old times, if the Lord of Aberalva was responsible for his people, he had also by law the power of making them obey him." "The long and the short of it is, then," said Scoutbush a little tartly, "that I can do nothing." "You can put to rights the cottages which are still in your hands, my lord.
But Elsley, alas for him, had neglected Lucia himself, and therefore dreaded comparison with any other man; and the suspicions which had taken root in him at Aberalva grew into ugly shape and strength. However he was silent, and contented himself with coldness and all but rudeness. There were excuses for him.
Frank Headley backed up Tom in his sanitary crusade, the coastguard lieutenant proved an unexpected ally, and Grace Harvey promised that she would do all she could. Tom wrote up to London and detailed the condition of the place to the General Board of Health, and the Board returned, for answer, that, as soon as cholera broke out in Aberalva, they would send down an inspector.
III. The Cholera Tom Thurnall had made up his mind in June 1854, that the cholera ought to visit Aberalva in the course of the summer, and, of course, tried his best to persuade people to get ready for their ugly visitor; but in vain. The collective ignorance, pride, laziness, and superstition of the little town showed a terrible front to the newcomer.
Just of Penalva did grant privileges hard to spell, and harder to understand, on the condition of receiving, whensoever he should land at the quay head, three brass farthings from the "free fishermen of Aberalva." Scoutbush shakes hands with curate, Lieutenant, Tardrew, churchwardens; and then come forward the three farthings, in an ancient leather purse.
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.
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