And they begin to be
wonderfully patient and impartial, in the hope of staving off the evil
day, and finding some excuse for doing nothing after all. "Hear 'mun
out!" ... "Vair and zoft, let ev'ry man ha' his zay!" ... "There's
vary gude rason in it!" ... "I didn't think of that avore;"--and so
forth; till in a quarter of an hour the whole question has to be
discussed over again, through the fog of a dozen fresh fallacies, and
the miserable earnest man finds himself considerably worse off than
when he began. Happy for him if some chance word is not let drop,
which will afford the whole assembly an excuse for falling on him
open-mouthed, as the cause of all their woes!
That chance word came. Mr. Penruddock gave a spiteful hit, being, as
he said, of a cantankerous turn, to Mr. Treluddra, principal "jowder,"
_i.e._ fish salesman, of Aberalva. Whereon Treluddra, whose conscience
told him that there was at present in his back-yard a cartload and
more of fish in every stage of putrefaction, which he had kept rotting
there rather than lower the market-price, rose in wrath.
"An' if any committee puts its noz into my back-yard, if it doant get
the biggest cod's innards as I can collar hold on, about its ears, my
name is not Treluddra! A man's house is his castle, says I, and them
as takes up with any o' this open-day burglary, for it's nothing less,
has to do wi' me, that's all, and them as knows their interest, knows
me!"
Terrible were these words; for old Treluddra, like most jowders,
combined the profession of money-lender with that of salesman; and
there were dozens in the place who were in debt to him for money
advanced to buy boats and nets, after wreck and loss.
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