ed only by night.

The furnishing of this simple establishment consisted of a feather bed,
which rested on slabs of slate supported by stones,--whence obtained was
never known, but undoubtedly stolen. The coverlet was three sheepskins
sewn together, the pillow also a sheepskin, coiled round a cylinder of
elastic twigs. The table was a deal box, once the property of Messrs.
Tate, the famous refiners of sugar. The chair was a duplicate of the
table. The implements were all of flint, neatly bound in their handles
with strips of hide. There was the axe for slaughter, a dagger for
cutting meat, a hammer for breaking bones, a saw and scrapers of various
size--the plunder of some barrow on Clun Downs. Under the slates of the
bed lay a collection of slings.

In this place Toller lived undiscovered for several months, issuing
thence as occasion required in quest of food. This he obtained by night
forays upon distant farms, bringing back mutton or beef, lamb or sucking
pig, a turkey, a goose, a couple of chickens, according to the changes
of his appetite or the seasonableness of the dish. Fruit, vegetables,
and potatoes were obtained in the same manner. In addition, all the game
of the hills was at his mercy, and he had fish from the stream. It was
characteristic of Toller's cunning that his plunder was all obtained
from afar, and seldom twice from the same place. He would go ten miles
to the north to steal a lamb; next time, as far to the south to steal a
goose. The plundered area lay along the circumference of great circles,
with radii of ten, fifteen, twenty miles, of which his abode was the
centre. This put pursuers off the track, and caused them to look for him
everywhere but where he was. The police were convinced, for example,
that he was hiding in Clun Downs. The steer he had slaughtered on his
first return had been discovered, as Toller intended it to be; and, in
order to keep up the fiction of his presence in that neighbourhood, he
repeated his exploit a month later, and slaughtered a second steer in
the very pasture where he had killed the first.

Nor was his favourite amusement denied him. He knew the movements of
every shepherd on the uplands, and, by choosing his routes, could wander
for miles, slinging stones as he went, without risk of discovery.
Whether during these months he saw any human beings is unknown;
certainly no human being recognised him. His power of self-concealment
amounted to genius.

Such was t