‘"I’ve been turnin’ it over,” he said, “and there’s no road will help you across the Moor for days to come.  You must bide here till the hue-an’-cry has blown over, and meantime the missus must fit up some disguise for you; but you must bide in bed, for a man can’t step out o’ this house, front or back, without bein’ visible from all the tors around.  So rest where you be, and I’ll just dander down along t’wards Walkhampton, where the Plymouth road runs under Sharpitor, an’ where I’ve been meanin’ to break up a taty-patch this long time past.  There’s alway a plenty goin’ and comin’ ‘pon the road, an’ maybe by keepin’ an eye open I’ll learn what line the chase is takin’.”

’So my grandfather shouldered his biddick and marched off, down and across the valley, marked off his patch pretty high on the slope, and fell to work.  Just there he could keep the whole traffic of the road under his eye, as well as the fields around his house; and for a moment it gave him a shock as he called to mind that in the only field that lay out of sight he’d left a scarecrow standing—­in a patch that, back in the summer, he had cropped with pease for the agent’s table up at the War Prison.  To be sure, ’twasn’t likely to mislead a search-party, and, if it did, why a scarecrow’s a scarecrow; but my grandfather didn’t like the thought of any of these gentry being near the house.  If they came at all they might be minded to search further.  So he determined that when dinner-time came he would go back home and take the scarecrow down.

’The road (as I said) was always pretty full of traffic, coming and going between Plymouth and the War Prison.  There were bakers’ wagons, grocery vans, and vans of meat, besides market carts from Bickleigh and Buckland.  My grandfather watched one and another go by, but made out nothing unusual until—­and after he had been digging for an hour, maybe—­sure enough he spied a mounted soldier coming up the road at a trot, and knew that this must be one of the searchers returning.  In a minute more he recognised the man for an acquaintance of his, a sergeant of the garrison, and by name Grimwold, and hailed him as he came close.

’"Hallo!  Is that you?” says the sergeant, reining up.  “And how long might you have been workin’ there?”

’"Best part of an hour,” says my grandfather.  “What’s up?”

‘"There’s a prisoner escaped, another o’ those damned Yankees,” says the sergeant.  “I’ve been laying the alarm all the way to Plymouth.  You ha’n’t seen any suspicious-lookin’ party pass this way, I suppose?”

’My grandfather said very truthfully that he hadn’t, but promised very truthfully that he would keep an eye lifting.  So the sergeant wished him good-day and rode on towards Two Bridges.

’For the next twenty minutes nothing passed but a tax-cart and a market woman with a donkey; and a while after them a very queer-looking figure hove in sight.