"
He didn't judge as Samuel would ever rise to the top of the tree, any more
than what he'd done himself; for Chowne was one who had long lost
illusions as to a leading place. He'd made a woeful mess of the only
murder case that ever happened to him, and he well knew that anything like
great gifts were denied him. But he saw in Samuel such another as himself
and judged that Borlase was born to do his duty in the place to which he
had been called, and would run his course and take his pension without any
of the fierce light of fame.
Of course, Samuel had his likes and dislikes, and he knew which of the
community might be counted to uphold him and which might prove a thorn in
his side. In fact he was acquaint with most everybody, and as happens in
every village, where there's game preserves and such-like, the doubtful
characters were there; and Thorpe-Michael chancing to lie up a creek near
the port of Dartmouth, there was river-rats also--said to do a little in a
mild way at smuggling from the Channel Islands--a business long sunk from
its old fame. Yet the grandsons of vanished 'free-trade' grandfathers were
thought to carry on a bit when chance offered.
It was a subject about which there were two opinions, and Billy Forde and
others vowed most certain that the law was far too strong to allow of any
free-trading nowadays; but, just because Billy and his friends were so
sure, the policeman mind of Sam Borlase suspected 'em.
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