The day was bright, but a cool wind blew from the north-west, rolling scattered masses of white cloud, like giant icebergs floating in a polar sea. Autumn was closing in. The days were shortening, the fern becoming russet, the heath had lost its bells; only a few sprigs of heather retained their harsh, dry blossoms. The gorse no longer bloomed throughout, though here and there one little gold flower still showed. ’When the furze is out of bloom, then sweet love is out of tune,’ says a Devonshire proverb, which acquires its force from the fact that the gorse is in flower throughout the year. The whortleberry leaves were turned orange and crimson. Out of the peat the coral moss showed its scarlet incrustations. ’To my thinking,’ said the constable, who found silence irksome, ’the worts’ (whortleberries) ’of the wood ain’t to compare with the worts of the moor. The wood worts is the bigger, but the moor worts is the sweeter. Do you like wort-pie with clotted cream on it as thick as the pastry?’ Herring nodded. ’He who don’t like that don’t know what good living is,’ said the constable. This functionary was a stout man, with a florid face and very pale blue eyes. He was silent for a while, and then he began again. ’I suppose I mightn’t stand up and stretch my legs,’ he asked; ’I’m in such a constrained and awkerd position sitting here on my ’aunches so long.’ ’Certainly not,’ said Herring, hastily. ’I entreat you to remain as you are.’ ’There was a little fellow I knowed when I was a boy in Tawton—he’s dead now. He had been to sea, but he warn’t good for much, he were so small in size. He’ve a told me oft and oft the tale how he were tooked by pirates in the Mediterranean, and sold as a slave at Morocco, in one of them American States, I reckon. He said that the Moors couldn’t make much of ’n, he were so small. He were no good to work in the mines, and he were no good to wheel weights. So, as they was determined to have their money’s worth out of he, they made ’n sit day and night in one constrained and unnatteral position—hatching turkey eggs.’ Then he relapsed into silence, but not for long. Presently he spoke again. ’I s’pose I mayn’t light a pipe?’ his faint mild eyes looked pleadingly at Herring. ’Certainly not.’ ’I didn’t s’pose I might. I axed because it be tedious waiting. No offence meant.’ After a further weary pause, he said in an undertone—’You don’t think now, master, that he we be going to take will prove dangerous?’ ’I dare say he will show fight. If he be young Mr. Sampson Tramplara, he probably will.’ ’Oh!’ the rosy apple cheeks looked less cheery. ’Look here, sir; my body be as big as a rhinoceros, but my soul be no bigger than a nit. There seems a deal o’ me, looking at me cursorily, sir; but it ain’t heart, sir, it be bacon.’ ’Hush!’ whispered Herring, ’look out. Here comes some one from the mine.’