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 held the balance of justice as became him, but weren’t going to believe no tales nor set the law in motion against Mr. Green until the proofs stood before him.

It chanced that the under-keeper at Trusham was but three year older than Samuel Borlase himself and a lifelong friend, so Samuel got influenced and came to view Chawner Green very unfavourable.  He found himself in rather a delicate position then, but his simple rule was to do what he thought his duty.  To look at, Samuel was a big, hard man, rather on the lean side, with a blue chin and a blue eye, which don’t often go together.  His brow was a bit low and his brain didn’t move far out of his appointed task; but a country policeman has a lot of time on his hands, and upon his long country beats, while his eyes surveyed the scene, Sam’s intellects would turn over affairs and, no doubt, arrive at conclusions about ’em.  And his conclusion about Chawner Green was that he must be a devious bird, else he wouldn’t be so idle.  For Samuel held that a chap of five-and-fifty, and hard as a nut, which Chawner Green was known to be, did ought to do honest work—­an occupation never connected in the public mind with Mr. Green.