“’Normous great rats they be,” he however continued, with evident relish.  “’Normous and fierce as tigers, the rascals, what with feasting on flesh and fatness like so many lords.  So ’mind the ferry for me, will you, Daddy,’ William says, coming round where was I taking my morning pint over at the Inn.  ’You’re a wonderful valorous man of your years’—­and so thank the powers, Miss, I be—­’can handle the old scraw as clever as I can myself,’ William says.  ’There ain’t much about water, salt or fresh, nor whatsoever moves on the face of it, nor down below in the belly of it, any man can teach you.’  Which may seem putting it a bit high yet ain’t no more than truth and justice, Miss, so you needn’t fear to trust yourself across the ferry along of me.”

“I have no fear,” Damaris answered curtly and loftily, holding herself very erect, her face slightly flushed, her eyes war-like.

For he was a repulsive old man, and said repulsive things such as she had never heard put thus plainly into words before.  She felt soiled by even this brief association with him.  She wanted to hear no more of his ugly high-coloured talk, although of his skill as a waterman she entertained no doubt.  Stepping lightly and quickly up on to the square stern of the ferry-boat, she went forward and kept her back resolutely turned upon the old fellow as he scrambled on board after her, shoved off and settled to the oars.  The river was low, and sluggish from the long drought with consequently easy passage to the opposite bank.  It took but a short five minutes to reach the jetty, crawling like some gigantic, damaged, many-legged insect out over the smooth gleaming water.

Instead of the legal twopence, Damaris dropped a couple of shillings into Daddy Proud’s eager hand—­with a queenly little air; and, without waiting for his thanks, swung herself up on to the black planking and turned to go down the sand-strewn wooden steps.

“Pleased to fetch ’e back, Miss, any hour you like to name,” Proud called after her, standing up and fingering the shillings with one hand while with the other he steered the boat’s side away from the slippery weed-grown piles.

“Thank you, I don’t quite know when I shall be back,” she answered over her shoulder.

For her main desire was to get quit of his unpleasant neighbourhood.  She would go for a long walk by the coast-guard path across the sand-hills, right out to Stone Horse Head.  Would stay out till sundown, in the hope that by then Jennifer might have seen fit to exchange the manly joys of ratting for his more prosaic duties at the ferry, and so save her from further association with his displeasing deputy.