But all was fair in love and war: he
kept saying this over to himself, and then lit another pipe to think it
out.
Well, he couldn't; and so, after a third pipe, he pulled an old French
cloak out of his knapsack and wrapped himself in it and huddled himself
to sleep there on the slope of the hillside.
When he woke up the sun was shining and the smoke coming up towards him
from the chimneys, and all about him the larks a-singing just as they'd
carried on every fine morning since he'd left Ardevora. And somehow,
though he had dropped asleep in a puzzle of mind, he woke up with not a
doubt to trouble him. He hunted out a crust from his knapsack and made
his breakfast, and then he lit his pipe again and turned towards
Penzance. He was going to play fair.
On he went in this frame of mind, feeling like a man almost too virtuous
to go to church, until by-and-by he came in sight of Nancledrea and the
inn he'd left in such a hurry over night. And who should be sitting in
the porchway, and looking into the bottom of a pint pot, but Abe
Cummins!
"Why, however on earth did you come here?" asked Billy.
"Cap'en landed us between four and five this morning," said Abe.
"Well," said Billy, "I'm right glad to meet you, anyway, for--tell 'ee
the truth--you're the very man I was looking for."
"Really?" says Abe, like one interested.
"You and no other.
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