"

In fact, the farmer never found any fault with Jemmy, for the simple
reason that he was his best worker on dark nights, and as handy a sailor
as could be found.

Jemmy knew it, felt that he was licensed, and laughed to himself as he
followed his own bent, and spent a good deal of time every day in what
he called seeing the crops grow.

When there were no crops growing, he went to see how the grass was
getting on, and to do this properly, he put a piece of hard black
tobacco in his cheek, and went and lay down on one of the hill-slopes.

He was seeing how the grass got on that particular morning with his eyes
shut, when, happening to open them, he caught sight of Celia going
along, a mile away, with her basket and dog.

He knew her by the dog, though even at that distance, as she moved
almost imperceptibly over the short turf of the treeless expanse along
by the sea, he would have been sure that it was Sir Risdon's child.

"What's the good of telling on her?" he growled to himself, as he lay
back with his hands under his head; and in that attitude he rested for
nearly three hours. Then, moved by the cogitations in which he had been
indulging, he slowly and deliberately rose, something after the fashion
of a cow, and began to go slowly in the direction taken by Celia hours
before.

Jemmy Dadd seemed to be going nowhere, and as he slouched along, lifting
up one heavy sea boot and putting it down before the other, he never
turned his head in either direction. So stiff was he in his movements,
that any one who watched him would have concluded that he was looking
straight forward, and that was all.

A great mistake; for Jemmy, by long practice, had made his eyes work
like a lobster's, and, as he went on, they were rolling slowly round and
round, taking in everything, keeping a look-out to sea, and watching the
revenue cutter, sweeping the offing, running over the fields and downs
and hollows, missing nothing, in short, as he steadily trudged along,
not even the few mushrooms that the pleasant showers had brought up, and
placing them in his hat.

Slow as his pace was, the distance between the prints of the big boots
was great, and the mushroom hunting took him, before very long, up the
cliff beyond the entrance to the old quarry, then down below it, and
then close up alongside, where he stooped over, and then went down a few
steps out of sight.

He did not turn his head, for his lobster eyes had convinced him