happened to him, and he well knew that anything like
great gifts were denied him. But he saw in Samuel such another as himself
and judged that Borlase was born to do his duty in the place to which he
had been called, and would run his course and take his pension without any
of the fierce light of fame.

Of course, Samuel had his likes and dislikes, and he knew which of the
community might be counted to uphold him and which might prove a thorn in
his side. In fact he was acquaint with most everybody, and as happens in
every village, where there's game preserves and such-like, the doubtful
characters were there; and Thorpe-Michael chancing to lie up a creek near
the port of Dartmouth, there was river-rats also--said to do a little in a
mild way at smuggling from the Channel Islands--a business long sunk from
its old fame. Yet the grandsons of vanished 'free-trade' grandfathers were
thought to carry on a bit when chance offered.

It was a subject about which there were two opinions, and Billy Forde and
others vowed most certain that the law was far too strong to allow of any
free-trading nowadays; but, just because Billy and his friends were so
sure, the policeman mind of Sam Borlase suspected 'em. He judged it suited
Billy's convenience to declare that no such things happened, the more so
because Mr. Forde's own father was well known to have broke a preventive
officer's arm in his youth and done time for the same.

But a man by the name of Chawner Green it was that caused Samuel the
greatest mistrust. He had nought to do with the creek, but lived in his
own cottage, a mile out of Thorpe-Michael; and the keepers at the big
place by name of Trusham, hard by, declared that Mr. Green was a fearsome
poacher and hated the sight of the little man, though never had they
catched him red-handed, nor been able to fetch up legal proofs against
him.

There was a bit of a complication with Chawner Green, because Inspector
Chowne happened to be related to him by marriage. In fact, Chawner had
married the Inspector's sister five-and-twenty years before, and though
Mrs. Green was long since dead, the Inspector never quarrelled with his
brother-in-law and regarded him as a man who had got a worse name in the
parish than he deserved. So there it was: the keepers at Trusham always
felt that Chowne stood against 'em in their valiant endeavours to catch
out Chawner; while the officer took his stand on the letter of the law and
said that he