“—­When I tell you,” Mr Latter pursued, flourishing his auger and rapping it on the flat of his palm, “that one o’ these soldiers—­a Corporal too, and named Sandercock—­was talkin’ in my bar not two hours ago, an’ says he, ’You’ve a man called Nanjivell lives here by the bridge.’  ‘Ay,’ says I.  ‘Bit of an eccentric?’ says he.  ‘How?’ says I.  ‘The way he drops his gold about,’ says the Corporal.  ‘Ho?’ says I, prickin’ up my ears, but not choosin’ to be talkative with a stranger.  ‘So folks have been tellin’ you that story already?’ says I. ‘Tellin me?’ says he.  ’Why, I see’d it with my own eyes!’ ‘Come,’ thinks I to myself, ‘this fellow’s a bra’ bit of a liar, wherever he hails from.’  ‘With my own eyes,’ he repeats.  ’I see’d ’en drop a sovereign in gold, up by that ’taty-patch of his where the Company’s runnin’ a trench:  an’ later on, as I started clearin’ his crop, I came on two more in the soil, just where he’d been standin’.  ‘Hullo!’ thinks I, ’this ben’t the same story, but another one altogether.’  I didn’t say that aloud, though.  What I said aloud was, ’You mustn’t take notice of everything you see Nicky-Nan do.  ‘Tis only his tricks.’  ‘Tricks?’ says the Corporal.  ’If a man behaved like that down to Penryn we should call ’en an eccentric.’  That’s the tale, ma’am:  an’ the best part o’ last night, what with puttin’ two an’ two together an’ makin’ neither head nor tail of it, I scarce closed an eye in my head.”

“I saw the man,”—­Mrs Polsue, after a sharp intake of breath, said it slowly in a hushed tone of surmise.  “On Sunday, on my way home from service, I saw him hand the money over.  I wasn’t near enough to catch all that passed in the way of conversation.  But the soldiers were delivering a quantity of potatoes they had dug up in the man’s patch, and I concluded that Government, in its wasteful way, was paying him some sort of compensation over and above saving his crop for him.  I remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to write to the War Office about it. . . .  A man that already takes the taxpayers’ money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or next door to it!”

“I wouldn’t go so far as all that, ma’am,” said Mr Latter.  “In fact, I b’lieve you’re under some mistake about Mrs Penhaligon, who is reckoned as vartuous a woman as any in the parish; while ’tis known that no doctor’d pass Nanjivell for service.  But if you ask me, I’ve a great idea the man has come into a legacy, or else struck a store of gold—­”

The landlord checked his tongue abruptly.  Some phrase about a ’taty-patch floated across his memory.  Had the phrase been his own, or Nicky-Nan’s?  He must give himself time to think this out, for it might well be the clue.  The Corporal had spoken of finding two of the three sovereigns under the soil. . . .  While Mr Latter’s brain worked, he cast a quick glance at Mrs Polsue, in fear that he had gone too far.