Old Jones’s usual mode of proceeding was to compel all the labouring
class to go to church every Sunday (in case of non-attendance these
guardians of the law might also fine or imprison.) The justice would be
first to leave the church, and would remain in the churchyard (where
those who feared him were collected to learn his pleasure) until he had
intimated what work he wished to have done, and by whom, during the
week. When he wanted any extra hands during the week, as was often the
case in harvest, furze-carrying, and other times of work requiring
quick despatch, he would hoist a flag on a flag-staff which used to be
placed in a large holed stone, which was perforated for that purpose,
and built into the top of the angle formed by the green court and
garden walls. It was a common saying that not to give anyone sufficient
wages was like old Jones’s payment, of a kick in the rear, which many,
who neglected their own harvest work to save the old justice’s corn,
richly deserved. But he was not long allowed to domineer over the poor
folks of the west. Many of the old families belonging to the parish,
among whom the Vingoes, of Treville, were the most prominent, did all
they could to check his proceedings. This ancient Norman family, who
had held Treville ever since the Conquest, and had been the
wine-tasters to unknown Norman chiefs for equally unknown ages,
regarded old Jones, for all his riches, as nothing but an upstart
stranger in the west; yet they did not succeed in bringing the justice
to act in a reasonable way until a smuggling crew came to their aid.
Most of the young men of the west country (many of them farmers’ sons)
belonged to this band, as well as two young men of Morvah—a Daniel and
Ustick, who were related to the Vingoes, and might be styled gentlemen.
Their head-quarters were at Priest’s Cove and Pendeen, as best suited
their convenience. One fine day in the harvest, when old Jones had
summoned folks from all over the parish to save his corn, the
smugglers, taking the law into their own hands, marched down to Penrose
well-armed, took the old justice and his man (as big a rogue as
himself) from the house, hung them head downwards to a tree in the
town-place, and gave them the bastinado until they were within an inch
of giving up the ghost; then made the old sinner give them money to
treat the men, and sent them off to pass a jovial day, “One and All,”
at the First and Last. Before the smugglers left, they told the justice
that, if he ever attempted to practice any of his old tricks again,
they would come some fine morning when he least expected, and take him
off to his cousin Davy Jones’s locker, and from this time he had such a
wholesome fear of the smugglers that he seldom left his den, nor any
more interfered in the neighbourhood.