Another father of a family came to live in the old house; and a son of his took something of more value than an apple, and went off to America. After many years the son came back, and he was wanted by the police. They thought that he was hiding in his father’s house, and they got a warrant to search it. There is only one policeman here, and another one was sent for to assist, lest the man should slip out at the back, while our policeman came in at the front. Like all other things in little country places, the whole scheme was known to everybody here--even the train by which the other policeman would arrive; and a little crowd came round to see the sport, as if it were a bit of rabbitting. Strange to say, the man was not at home. It was said that he was hiding in the cave in Loxter copse, and that food was carried up to him at night; but I do not know the truth of that. The copse is on the hill behind this house, and the cave is a hollow in a cleave of elvan rocks, low and narrow at the entrance, but more commodious inside, and branching into passages with practicable exits. It suits foxes very well, but would hardly suit a man who was not being hunted; though possibly I might get a tenant for it, if I gave the letting to a firm that let an urban house near here as ‘a romantic semi-detached villa,’ and another as ‘The Retreat,’ though it looked out on a garage and a stable, front and back. Some eighty years ago a man put an explosive in a log in his woodhouse, and the log exploded on a neighbour’s hearth. The woodhouse was inviolate after that, but the neighbour’s injuries were serious; and my grandfather doubted if it was fair game. Taking things for personal use is not the same as taking things for pawn or sale; and I have known it done by men who otherwise were straight--except in horse-dealing and flower-shows and other such matters as have ethics of their own. A man told me with righteous indignation that his neighbour had removed his landmarks in the night, and annexed a strip of his allotment, nearly three feet wide. I saw the neighbour afterwards, rubbing his hands with glee. He told me, “I’ve a-watched’n a-eggin’ they postes on, inch by inch and night by night, and now I’ve set’n back right where they was afore.” And a measurement proved that they were now in their right places. Another man came to me about potato-ground or something of the sort; and on going away he said he would have come in earlier, only he had been sitting longer than he meant with a neighbour who was ill. It was a case of scarlet fever; and I said something about infection. But he said he did not hold with that. “What I want to know, be this:--The very first person as ever had the scarlet fever, who did he catch it from?”