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Updated: June 5, 2025
Glennie, a new boat for Ratsey, and a silk gown for Aunt Jane, in spite of her being so hard with me as on this night. And thus I would make myself the greatest man in Moonfleet, richer even than Mr. Maskew, and build a stone house in the sea-meadows with a good prospect of the sea, and marry Grace Maskew and live happily, and fish.
It was not for want of money that Maskew let things remain thus, for men said that he was rich enough, only that his mood was miserly; and perhaps, also, it was the lack of woman's company that made him think so little of neatness and order. For his wife was dead; and though he had a daughter, she was young, and had not yet weight enough to make her father do things that he did not choose.
There were some more bids, and then I knew that Maskew was saying 91, and saw the head of the pin was lower; the hard lump of tallow in Aunt Jane's candle was thawing.
'I thank your worship', said Elzevir, 'for all your goodness; but when I quit this place, I shall not set up my staff again at any inn door. Mr. Bailiff seemed nettled to see his offer made so little of, and left the room with a sniff, 'Then I wish you good day. Maskew had slipped out before him, and the children's noses left the window-pane as the great man walked down the steps.
Maskew had in his left hand a basket, with which he went marketing of mornings, for he made his own purchases, and liked fish, as being cheaper than meat. He had been chaffering with the fishwives this very day, and was bringing back his provend with him when he visited our school. Then he said to Mr.
Yet mine was a selfish sorrow; for I had little thought for Elzevir and the pain that it must be to him to quit, the Why Not?: nor yet was it the grief of leaving Moonfleet that so troubled me, although that was the only place I ever had known, and seemed to me then as now the only spot on earth fit to be lived in; but the real care and canker was that I was going away from Grace Maskew.
Maskew kept his eyes fixed for a long time on the ground, but raised them at last, and looked at me with a vacant yet pity-seeking look. Now, till that moment I had never seen a trace of Grace in his features, nor of him in hers; and yet as he gazed at me then, there was something of her present in his face, even battered as it was, so that it seemed as if she looked at me behind his eyes.
I knew it all now; it was the Posse who had lain in ambush. Elzevir saw it too, and then all shouted at once. 'Yield at the King's command: you are our prisoners! calls the voice of one of those black silhouettes, far up on the cliff-top. 'We are lost, cries Elzevir; 'it is the Posse; but if we die, this traitor shall go before us, and he makes towards Maskew to brain him with the pistol.
I could not see his face, but knew him by his cut, and fear the boy sits there to play the spy and then tells Maskew. 'You're right, said Greening of Ringstave, for I knew his slow drawl; 'and many a time when I have sat in The Wood, and watched the Manor to see Maskew safe at home before we ran a cargo, I have seen this boy too go round about the place with a hangdog look, scanning the house as if his life depended on't.
Why Maskew should so put himself about to help the Revenue I cannot tell, nor did anyone ever certainly find out; but some said 'twas out of sheer wantonness, and a desire to hurt his neighbours; and others, that he saw what an apt place this was for landing cargoes, and wished first to make a brave show of zeal for the Excise, and afterwards to get the whole of the contraband trade into his own hands.
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