The crowd ashore, too,
was laughing and shouting itself hoarse. I'm sorry to say a few of
them jeered at the _Nonpareil_ as she crawled home: but, on the
whole, the men of Saltash took their beating handsome.
This don't include Sal's husband, though. Landlord Oke was one of
the first to shake her by the hand as she landed, and the Mayor
turned over the stakes to her there and then with a neat little
speech. But Tailor Hancock went back home with all kinds of ugliness
and uncharitableness working in his little heart. He cursed Regatta
Day for an interruption to trade, and Saltash for a town given up to
idleness and folly. A man's business in this world was to toil for
his living in the sweat of his brow; and so, half an hour later, he
told his wife.
The crowd had brought her along to her house door: and there she
left 'em with a word or two of thanks, and went in very quiet.
Her victory had uplifted her, of course; but she knew that her man
would be sore in his feelings, and she meant to let him down gently.
She'd have done it, too, if he'd met her in the ordinary way: but
when, after searching the house, she looked into the little back
workshop and spied him seated on the bench there, cross-legged and
solemn as an idol, stitching away at a waistcoat, she couldn't hold
back a grin.
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