But who was this enemy! It was certain that Mr. Drury had his enemies in abundance amongst the labourers; but these men were too regularly engaged in hard work to collect such a quantity of dock seed, and to sow it so completely. There was a touch of ingenuity in it, too, which seemed beyond their habitual dulness. The suspicion turned in another direction. In the autumn, on proceeding to get his potatoes, it was discovered by the men that the rows had been extensively plundered, by the potatoes being extracted from the sides of the rows, the tops being left standing, and the earth at the sides carefully put back and trampled hard. There was ingenuity there, too. Mr. Drury not only set a man to watch at night, but he watched with him, and they soon captured, in the fact, a sort of half-witted, wandering vagabond fellow of Castleborough, named Ned King. This Ned King, a thin shangling fellow, dirty and ragged, and seldom without a pipe in his mouth, was reckoned only half-witted, but, at the same time, he had a cunning about him of no ordinary calibre. He was accustomed to ramble the streets, and early in the morning turn over with his feet or his hands, as carefully as a hen scratching in the chaff at a barn-door, the dust and scraps of paper swept out of the shops. It was said that he had occasionally recovered thus one-pound and even five-pound notes. It was certain that one day, in a main street, he was seen to stoop down and pick up a half-guinea in gold. A person close behind said, “That is mine!” “Oh!” said Ned, keeping the piece in his closed hand, “is yours a straight or a crooked one?” The man immediately imagined that it must be a crooked one, or so stupid a fellow would not have thought of it. “A crooked one, to-be sure,” said the man. “Then it is not yours,” added King, opening his hand, “for this is straight;” and the claimant disappeared amid the jeers of the people.