her made a suggestion that the lad,
instead of turning out to the cider-loft, should sleep in the garret
overhead; and my grandfather, after a look at the lad's face, shut
his lips, and would not gainsay her, though--as in bed he couldn't
help reminding her--it would be difficult to pass off a visitor in
the garret, with two blankets, for a housebreaker.

'As it happened, though, they were not disturbed that night. But my
grandfather, for thinking, took a very little sleep, and in the
morning he went up to the garret with the best plan he could devise.

'"I've been turnin' it over," he said, "and there's no road will help
you across the Moor for days to come. You must bide here till the
hue-an'-cry has blown over, and meantime the missus must fit up some
disguise for you; but you must bide in bed, for a man can't step out
o' this house, front or back, without bein' visible from all the tors
around. So rest where you be, and I'll just dander down along
t'wards Walkhampton, where the Plymouth road runs under Sharpitor,
an' where I've been meanin' to break up a taty-patch this long time
past. There's alway a plenty goin' and comin' 'pon the road, an'
maybe by keepin' an eye open I'll learn what line the chase is
takin'."

'So my grandfather shouldered his biddick and marched off, down and
across the valley, marked off his patch pretty high on the slope, and
fell to work. Just there he could keep the whole traffic of the road
under his eye, as well as the fields around his house; and for a
moment it gave him a shock as he called to mind that in the only
field that lay out of sight he'd left a scarecrow standing--in a
patch that, back in the summer, he had cropped with pease for the
agent's table up at the War Prison. To be sure, 'twasn't likely to
mislead a search-party, and, if it did, why a scarecrow's a
scarecrow; but my grandfather didn't like the thought of any of these
gentry being near the house. If they came at all they might be
minded to search further. So he determined that when dinner-time
came he would go back home and take the scarecrow down.

'The road (as I said) was always pretty full of traffic, coming and
going between Plymouth and the War Prison. There were bakers'
wagons, grocery vans, and vans of meat, besides market carts from
Bickleigh and Buckland. My grandfather watched one and another go
by, but made out nothing unusual until--and after he had been digging
for an hour, maybe--sure en