The first night they camped out in a field, and when they had lighted a fire Diggory opened the sack that, with the farmer's permission, he had taken from the granary, in order that his wife might make them some lentil soup for supper. But lo and behold! instead of lentils the sack contained fruit--fruit that Diggory Carp, as a west countryman, born and bred near the Elfin Marches, recognised at the first glance to be of a kind that he would not dream of touching himself or of allowing his wife and children to touch ... the sack, in fact, contained fairy fruit. So they buried it in the field, for, as Diggory said, "Though the stuff be poison for men, they do say as how it's a mighty fine manure for the crops." For a week or so they tramped the country, living from hand to mouth. Sometimes Diggory would earn a little by doing odd jobs for the farmers, or by playing the fiddle at village weddings, for Diggory, it would seem, was a noted fiddler. But with the coming of winter they began to feel the pinch of poverty, and his wife bethought her of the trade of basket-making she had learned in her youth; and, as they were camping at the time at the place where grew the best osiers for the purpose, she determined to see if her fingers had retained their old cunning. As the sap of these particular osiers was a deadly poison, she would not allow the children to help her to gather them. So she set to and make wicker urns in which the farmers' wives could keep their grain in winter, and baskets of fancy shapes for lads to give to their sweethearts to hold their ribbands and fal-lals. The children peddled them about the countryside, and thus they managed to keep the pot boiling. The following summer, shortly before harvest, Diggory's eldest girl went to try and sell some baskets in the village of Swan. There she met the defendant, whom she asked to look at her wares, relying on not being recognised as a daughter of Diggory's, through having been in service at another farm when her father was working at the Gibbertys'. The defendant seemed pleased with the baskets, bought two or three, and got into talk with the girl about the basket-making industry, in the course of which she learned that the best osiers for the purpose were very poisonous. Finally she asked the girl to bring her a bundle of the osiers in question, as making baskets, she said, would make a pleasant variety, of an evening, from the eternal spinning; and in the course of a few days the girl brought her, as requested, a bundle of the osiers, and was well paid for them.