“’Twill be a shilling more if you’ve got a box,” said Jimmy, and the man up top answered.

“You can charge what you please.”

Then Fox made fast and went up the steps, to find the biggest chap he ever set eyes upon waiting for him.

“You ought to pay double fare yourself,” he said, “and where’s your box?”

Then the big man calmly gripped him by his neck-cloth as if he was a kitten and, while he did so, another chap appeared from behind the post that held the ferry bell.

’Twas Edmund Masters, and he explained the situation to Fox in a few words.

“Being an old blackguard above law and order, Jimmy Fox, you give honest men the trouble to teach you manners and explain that you can’t starve young women, and treat ’em like dogs and think you’re going to have your wicked way with ’em when and how you please.  So now your niece will be took away from you for ever, and as she’s got no particular wish for you to kiss her ‘good-bye,’ you can stop here and think over your cowardly sins and cool your heels a bit—­till morning, I hope.  And this is my best friend, Captain Le Cornu, of The Provider, and the strongest man in the Channel Isles.  So now you’ll know what it feels like to be in mightier hands than your own, you dirty scoundrel.  And if you wasn’t so old, I’d give you a dozen of the best before we go.”

Then he turned to the other.

“Trice him up, skipper.”

In half a shake Jimmy Fox found himself bound hand and foot to the ferry bell post.  The bell-pull was knotted high out of his reach and a handkerchief tied pretty tight round his mouth.

Two minute sufficed for this job, because no men knew better than those how to handle rope.

“’Tis a very good bit of Manila hemp,” said the captain of The Provider.

“And you can use it to hang yourself when you get free again,” added Ted.

Half a minute later they were in the ferry boat and away.

Then it was the turn of Jimmy’s lady.

The big man stopped in the boat, and Christie’s lover, knowing there was no time to lose, bustled into the parlour of the ‘Passage House,’ and asked Mrs. Fox for the girl.

Whereupon Polly told him to be off, or she’d call her husband to him.

“Give her up, or take the consequences,” said Ted, and counting Jimmy would be back every moment, the woman defied him.  Luck was on the sailor’s side, for the house-place happened to be empty and the bar closed for church hour.  So he had it to himself and acted prompt.

“Sorry to touch a woman, though she is a bad old witch that did ought to be drowned,” he said, and with that he popped the creature into a big armchair and tied her there.

“Now we all know where we are, Mrs. Fox,” he said, “and it won’t help you to yowl, because you and your husband are breaking the law and doing a fearful outrage that might send you both to clink for the rest of your evil lives, so you’ll do best to keep quiet and thank me for saving you from the wrath to come.”