We still kept up our tremendous games of hide-and-seek, stalking each other across great stretches of country, and even taking refuge on the sea. My father had a power of disguise which was baffling in its completeness, and in hunting him I would frequently ask news of him from some wayside beggar or passing carter to find afterwards that I had been speaking to my father himself. But I soon found a way of penetrating his disguises, because the scar of the burn and the knife across his left hand betrayed him to me, and I learnt to suspect anyone who hid his left hand or wore gloves. And this betraying mark was disconcerting to him; not so much, I think, because it discovered him to me, as because he was afraid that it might be a witness against him when he needed concealment. He tried every means to cover the traces of the tell-tale burn. The gash of the knife wasn't so serious as it lay across the palm, and could be hidden by holding the hand half-shut. But the scar of the burn spread over the back of his hand and up three fingers. He devised stains and dyes and paints, and at last did manage to cover the blemish from all but very curious eyes, but naturally the treatment wasn't permanent, nor could it be applied in a hurry. Generally he wore gloves. I don't know to this day the route of our wanderings. My sense of direction was usually good enough to tell me whether we were travelling north or south, but actually where we were at any particular time I seldom knew. Except when we returned to the Dolphin Inn. I knew that through much acquaintance; for however far afield we strayed we were sure to return to it sooner or later. It was a tumble-down, neglected hostelry that seemed to have known better days. I think its prosperity waned with the suppression of the smugglers. For it lay so remote and in so wild a country that I can't conceive how the patronage of the road alone could have ever maintained it. Indeed, you had to be lost before you could find it. A straggling path led up to it from a rocky shore through a dense patch of woodland, and the only dwellings for miles were a few miserable fishermen's huts and a forest shack or two. But I was always glad to be back there, for the country was an ideal playground for a boy trained as I had been. There was the wonderful flitting life of the woods, secret and passionate, which stirred something deep within me to a yearning sympathy. And then there was the sea with its rocky wall where the great waves raced and burst, sucking back down the green and clinging weeds to gather strength for a fresh spring. I haunted the wild coast till I thought I knew every bay and reach and pool, and where one could venture at low water, and where the cliffs could be scaled. And my father was pleased beyond measure and encouraged me in my explorations, greeting me as I scrambled back for a late supper with, "Well, Tommy, what have you found to-day?"