When Mark
found himself in danger of being beaten in argument, he took to his
fists, at which method of settling a dispute Cass Dale proved equally
his match; and the end of it was that Mark found himself upside down in
a furze bush with nothing to console him but an unalterable conviction
that he was right and, although tears of pain and mortification were
streaming down his cheeks, a fixed resolve to renew the argument as soon
as he was the right way up again, and if necessary the struggle as well.
Luckily for the friendship between Mark and Cass, a friendship that was
awarded a mystical significance by their two surnames, Lidderdale and
Dale, Parson Trehawke, soon after the burial episode, came forward as
the champion of the Nancepean Fishing Company in a quarrel with those
pirates from Lanyon, the next village down the coast. Inasmuch as a
pilchard catch worth L800 was in dispute, feeling ran high between the
Nancepean Daws and the Lanyon Gulls. All the inhabitants of the Rhos
parishes were called after various birds or animals that were supposed
to indicate their character; and when Parson Trehawke's championship of
his own won the day, his parishioners came to church in a body on the
following Sunday and put one pound five shillings and tenpence halfpenny
in the plate.
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