Chapter 7

several friends among the watermen. I had not got far when I met Jim Pulley, looking very disconsolate.

"What is the matter, Jim," I asked.

"We've lost the wherry!" he exclaimed, nearly blubbering. "Two big fellows came down, and, asking what boat she was, told me to step ashore: and when I said I wouldn't for them, or for any one but you, they took me, crop and heels, and trundled me out of her."

"That is only what I feared," I said. "I was coming down to find some one to advise us what to do."

"Then you couldn't ask any better man than Bob Fox, he's been in prison half a score of times for smuggling and such like, so he must know a mighty deal about law," he answered.

We soon found Bob Fox, who was considered an oracle on the Hard, and a number of men gathered round while he expressed his opinion.

"Why, you see, mates, it's just this," he said, extending one of his hands to enforce his remarks; "you must either give in or go to prison when they brings anything agen you, and that, maybe, is the cheapest in the end; or, as there's always a lawyer on t'other side, you must set another lawyer on to fight him, and that's what I'd advise to be done in this here case. Now I knows a chap, one Lawyer Chalk, who's as sharp as a needle, and if any man can help young Peter and his sister to keep what is their own he'll do it. I'm ready to come down with some shiners to pay him, for, you see, these lawyer folk don't argify for nothing, and I'm sure some on you who loves justice will help Jack and Polly Trawl's children; so round goes the hat."

Suiting the action to the word, Bob, taking off his tarpaulin, threw a handful of silver into it, and his example being followed by a number of other men, he grasped me by the hand, and set off forthwith to consult Lawyer Chalk.

We quickly reached his office. Mr Chalk, a quiet-looking little man, with easy familiar manners, which won the confidence of his illiterate constituents, knowing Bob Fox well, received us graciously. His eyes glittered as he heard the money chink in Bob's pocket.

"It's all as clear as a pikestaff," he observed, when he heard what I had got to say. "They must prove first that this fellow who has turned up is Tom Swatridge's nephew; then that he is his heir-at-law, and finally that the house and boat belonged to the deceased. Now possession is nine-tenths of the law; you've got them, and you must hold them till the law turns you out."

"I couldn't, sir, if another has a better right to them than I have," I answered. "I lived on in the house and used the wherry because I was sure that old Tom would have wished me to do so, but then I didn't know that he had any relation to claim them."

"And you don't know that he has any relation now," said Mr Chalk; "that has to be proved, my lad. The law requires proof; that's the beauty of the law. The man may swear till he's black in the face that he is the deceased's nephew, but if he has no proof he'll not gain his cause."

Bob Fox was highly delighted with our visit to the lawyer.

"I told you so, lad; I told you so!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands; "t'other chap will find he has met his match. Bless you! Old Chalk's as keen as a razor."

As I could not use the wherry, I went home feeling in much better spirits than before about our prospects. I was able even to cheer up Mary and Nancy. I told them that, by Lawyer Chalk's advice, we were not to quit the house, and that he would manage everything. No one appeared during the day. The next morning we had breakfast as usual, and as the time went by I was beginning to hope that we should be unmolested, when two rough-looking men came to the door, and, though Nancy sprang up to bar them out, in they walked. One of them then thrust a paper out to her, but she drew back her hand as if it had been a hot iron. The man again attempted to make her take it. "One of you must have it," he growled out.

"No, no! I couldn't make head or tail of it if I did," answered Nancy, still drawing back.

"Let me have it," I said, wishing to know what the men really came for.

"The sum total is, that you and the rest of you are to move away from this, and if you don't go sharp we're to turn you out!" exclaimed the bailiff, losing patience at the time I took to read the document. "It's an order of ejectment, you'll understand."

"Don't you mind what it is, Peter!" exclaimed Nancy; "Mr Chalk said we was to stay here, and stay we will for all the scraps of paper in the world!" And Nancy, seating herself in a chair, folded her arms, and cast defiant looks at the officers of the law.

They were, however, up to the emergency. Before either she or I were aware of what they were about to do, they had secured her arms to the back of the chair, and then, lifting it and her up, carried her out of the house and deposited her in the street, in spite of the incautious attempt I made to effect a rescue. The moment I got outside the house one of the bailiffs, turning round, seized me in a vice-like grasp, and the other then entering, led out Mary, who saw that resistance was hopeless. He next walked back, took the key from the door, and, having locked it, released Nancy and re-entered the house with the chair. Before Nancy could follow him he had shut himself in, while his companion, letting me go with a shove which sent me staggering across the street, walked off, I concluded to tell the lawyer who sent him and his mate that they had got possession of the house.

Nancy was standing, with her fists clenched, too much astonished at the way she had been treated to speak. Mary was in tears, trembling all over.

"Oh, Peter, what are we to do?" she asked.

"I'll go to Lawyer Chalk and hear what he says," I answered. "If the house and boat ought to be ours, he'll get them back; if not, I can't say just now what we must do. Meantime do you and Nancy go to Widow Simmons's, and wait there. She was always a friend of mother's, and will be glad to help you."

Mary agreed, but Nancy, who at length found her tongue, declared that she wasn't going to lose sight of the house, and that she would stay where she was and watch and tell the folks who passed how we had been treated. As nothing I could say would induce her to move, I accompanied Mary to the widow's, where I left her, and hastened on to Mr Chalk's. The lawyer made a long face when I told him how we had been treated.

"I told you that `possession is nine-tenths of the law,' my lad, and now they are in and you are out," he answered. "It's a bad job--but we'll see what can be done. We must obtain at all events your clothes, and any other private property you may possess. Now go, my lad, and call upon me in a week or two; I shall see Bob Fox in the meantime."

Soon after leaving the lawyer's I met Jim Pulley. Having seen Nancy, he was fuming with indignation at our having been turned out of our home, and proposed trying to break into the house to regain possession, but I had sense enough to know that we must abide by the law, whichever way that decided I found Nancy still keeping watch before the door, and vehemently appealing to all who would stop to listen to her. It was with some difficulty that I at length persuaded her to go with me to Mrs Simmons's. The kind widow was willing to give us shelter, and as Mary had fortunately my savings in her pocket, we had sufficient to pay for our food for some days. The next morning Mary went as usual to school; Nancy left the house, saying that she was going to look for work, and I set out, hoping to find employment in a wherry with one of the men who knew me.