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“‘What earthly business should I have in Polreen at this hour?’

“‘Aw, well . . . you know best . . . no affair o’ mine. ‘Tis a dark night, too.’

“‘All the better for conger, eh?’

“‘So ’tis.’ He seemed about to say more, but at that moment I felt a long pull on the line, and for an hour or two the conger kept us busy.

“It must have been a week later, at least (for the moon was drawing to the full), that I pulled up the blind of my sitting-room a little before mid-night, and, ravished by the beauty of the scene (for, I tell you, Polreen can be beautiful by moonlight), determined to stroll down to the beach and smoke my last pipe there before going to bed. The door of the inn was locked, no doubt; but, the house standing on the steep slope of the main street, I could step easily on to the edge of the water-barrel beneath my window and lower myself to the ground.

“I did so. Just as I touched solid earth I heard footsteps. They paused suddenly, and, glancing up the moonlit road, I descried the gigantic figure of Wesley Truscott, the coxswain of the lifeboat. He must have seen me, for the light on the whitewashed front of the inn was almost as brilliant as day. But, whatever his business, he had no wish to meet me, for he dodged aside into the shadow of a porch, and after a few seconds I heard him tip-toeing up the hill again.

“I began to have my doubts about Polreen’s primitive virtues. Certainly the village, as it lay bathed in moonlight, its whitewashed terraces and glimmering roofs embowered in dark clusters of fuchsia and tamarisk, seemed to harbour nothing but peace and sleeping innocence. An ebbing tide lapped the pebbles on the beach, each pebble distinct and glistening as the water left it. Far in the quiet offing the lights of a fishing-fleet twinkled like a line of jewels through the haze.

“Half-way down the beach I turned for a backward look at the village.

“Now the wall by the lifeboat house looks on the Cove. Its front is turned from the village and the village street, and can only be seen from the beach. You may imagine my surprise, then, as I turned and found myself face to face with a dozen tall men, standing there upright and silent.

“‘Good Heavens!’ I cried, ‘what is the matter? What brings you all here at this time of night?’

“If I was surprised, they were obviously embarrassed. They drew together a little, as if to avoid observation. But the moon shone full on the wall, affording them not a scrap of shadow.

“For a moment no one answered. Then I heard mutterings, and, as I stepped up, one of the elder men, Archelaus Warne by name, was pushed forward.

“‘We wasn’ expectin’ of you down here,’ he stammered, after clearing his throat.

“‘No reason why you should,’ said I.

“‘We done our best to keep out o’ your way–never thinkin’ you’d be after the boats,’–he nodded towards the boats drawn up on the beach at our feet.

“‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you in the least.’

“‘Well, you see, ’tis a kind o’ club.’

“‘Indeed?’ said I, not in the least enlightened.

“‘Iss;’ he turned to his companions. ‘I s’pose I’d better tell en?’ They nodded gravely, and he resumed. ‘You see, ’tis this way: ever since that burglary there’s no resting for the women. My poor back is blue all over with the cloam my missus takes to bed. And ha’f a dozen times a night ’tis, ‘Arch’laus, I’m sartin I hear some person movin’– Arch’laus, fit an’ take a light and have a look downstairs, that’s a dear!‘ An’ these fellows’ll tell ‘ee ’tis every bit so bad with they. ‘Tis right enough in the daytime, so long as the women got us ‘ithin hail, but by night there’s no peace nor rest.’

“One or two husbands corroborated.

“‘Well, now–I think ’twas the third night after this affair happened– I crep’ downstairs for the fifth time or so just to ease the old woman’s mind, and opens the door, when what do I see but Billy Polkinghorne here, sittin’ on his own doorstep like a lost dog. ‘Aw,’ says I, ‘so thee’rt feelin’ of it, too!’ ‘Feelin’ of it!’ says he, ‘durned if this isn’ the awnly place I can get a wink o’ sleep!’ ‘Come’st way long to Wall-end and tetch pipe,’ says I. Tha’s how it began. An’ now, ever since Billy thought ‘pon the plan of settin’ someone, turn an’ turn, to watch your window, there’s nothin’ to hurry us. Why, only just as you came along, Billy was saying, ‘Burglary!’ he says, ‘why, I han’t been so happy in mind since the Indian Queen came ashore!”

“‘Watch my window? Why the–‘ And then, as light broke on me, ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘you don’t mean to tell me you’ve been suspecting me of the burglary all this time!’

“‘You musn’ think,’ said Archelaus Warne, ‘that we bear any gridge.'”

“Well,” the Judge concluded, “as I told you, the thief was apprehended a week or two later, and my innocence established. But, oddly enough, some thirty years after I had to try a case at the Assizes here, in which Archelaus Warne (very old and infirm) appeared as a witness, I recognised him at once, and, when I sent for him afterwards and inquired after my friends at Polreen, his first words were, ‘There now–I wasn’ so far wrong, after all! I knawed you must be mixed up with these things, wan way or ‘nother.'”