There’d been a wedding a bit back along and Chawner’s daughter had married a respectable shopkeeper at a neighbouring town; and Samuel Borlase reflected rather gloomily that the small shopkeeper was a fish and poultry merchant—­also a seller of game.  To his policeman’s mind there was a lot more in that than met the eye; and no doubt the born policeman do see a lot more in everything than what us everyday people may remark.  Then, on a lonely beat, one autumn day to the north side of Trusham, there came, like a bolt from the blue, the great event of Sammy’s life, not only from a professional standpoint, but also an affair that led to far higher things in the shape of a female.

There was a bit of rough, open land there that gave from the covert edge, with scattered brake-fern and a stream in the midst and a lot of blackthorn scrub round about.  A noted place for a woodcock, also a snipe, and a spot from which trespassers were warned very careful.  So Samuel took a look over to see that all was quiet, and there, in the midst, he marked a big girl struggling with a sloe-bush!  But, quick though he was, she’d seen him first, and before he could call out and order her back to the road and take her name, she cried out to him: 

“Will ’e lend me a hand, Mister Policeman, if you please?  I be catched in thicky sloan tree.”

So Borlase went to her aid and he found a basket half full of amazing sloes and a maiden the like of which he never had found afore.  A tall piece with flaxen hair and a face so lovely as a picture.  Her eyes were bluer than Samuel’s and twice so large, and she had a nose a bit tip-tilted and a wonderful mouth, red as a rose and drawn down to the corners in a very fascinating manner.  She was sturdy and well rounded, and looked to be a tidy strong girl, and her voice struck the policeman as about the most beautiful sound as he’d heard out of human lips.  He saw in half a shake as she weren’t in no trouble really, but had just challenged to take the wind out of his sails; and when she’d got free of the thorns, she thanked him with such a lot of gratitude for rescuing of her that ’twas all he could do to keep his face.  A lovely thing sure enough; and such is the power of beauty that Samuel felt a caution might be sufficient.  He was out to fright her, however, and he was terrible interested also, because he’d never seen the maid before and felt a good bit thunderstruck by such a wonder.  She disarmed his curiosity without much trouble, and the truth decided him to do no more; because he found she had a way to her that made him powerless as a goose-chick.

“Didn’t you see the board?” he asked; and she assured him that she had not.

“I’m a stranger in these parts as yet,” she said, “and I was by here yesterday and marked these wonderful sloan, so I came to-day with a basket, because my father’s very fond of sloe gin, you understand, and I’m going to make him some, if you’ll be so kind as to let me keep the berries.  I much hope you’ll do so, please young man, and I give you my word solemn and faithful never to come here no more.”