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‘What is more, it was plain enough in a minute that the Jew didn’t recognise my grandfather; for, catching sight of him aloft there on the slope, first of all he gave a start, next he walked forward a few steps undecided-like, and last he pulled up, set down his bundle like a man tired, and looked behind him down the road. The road was empty, so he turned his attention to my grandfather, and after looking at him very curiously for half a minute, “Good-morning,” says he.

‘By this time my grandfather had guessed what was passing in the man’s mind, and it came into his own to have a little fun.

‘”Good-morning, stranger,” said he, through his nose, mimicking so well as he could the American manner of speaking.

‘”How long have you been at work there, my man?” asks the Jew, still glancing up and down the road.

‘”A long time,” answers my grandfather, putting on a scared look, and halting in his words. “This piece of ground belongs to me”–which was true enough, but didn’t sound likely; for he was always a careless man in his dress (the only matter over which he and my grandmother had words now and then), and to-day, feeling he had the whip-hand of her, he had taken advantage to wear an old piece of sacking in place of a coat.

‘”Oh, indeed,” says the Jew, more than dubious, and thinking, no doubt, of the three guineas that was the regular reward for taking an escaped prisoner.

‘”It’s the tarnal truth,” says my grandfather, and fell to whistling, like a man facing it out. But the tune he chose was “Yankee Doodle!” This, of course, made the Jew dead sure of his man. But he was a lean little wisp of a man, and my grandfather too strongly built to be tackled. So the pair stood eyeing one another until, glancing up, my grandfather saw three soldiers come round the corner of the road from Plymouth, and with that he dropped his biddick and turned like a desperate man.

‘The Jew saw them too, and almost upon the same instant. “Help, help!” he yelled, and leaving his bag where he had dropped it, tore down the road to meet the soldiers, waving both arms and still shouting, “Help! A prisoner! A prisoner!”

‘My grandfather always said afterwards that, when he heard this, he fairly groaned. He wasn’t by any means humorous as a rule, and, so far as he was concerned, the joke had gone far enough; and he used to add as a warning that a man may go so far in a joke he can’t help but go farther–’tis like hysterics with women. At any rate, he saw the soldiers coming for him at the double, spreading themselves to head him off, and as they came he broke and ran straight up the slope towards the head of the tor.

‘This violent exercise didn’t suit him at all, and glad enough he was, after two minutes of it, to note that the soldiers were shortening the distance hand over fist. For a moment he had a mind to drop, as though worn out with hunger and exhaustion, but his face and shape wouldn’t lend themselves to that deceit. So he held on and did his best, until the foremost soldier drew within thirty yards and shouted out, threatening to fire. Turning and seeing that he had his musket almost at the “present,” my grandfather dropped his arms, stood still, and allowed them to take him like a lamb.

‘”But,” said he, sulky-like, “if ’tis to the prison you mean to carry me, then carry me you shall. Back to the road I’ll go with you, but not a step farther on my own legs, and on that you may bet your last dollar.”

‘The soldiers–they were three raw youngsters of the Somerset Militia–threatened at first to prick him along the road with their bayonets. But by this time the little Jew had come up panting and yet almost capering with excitement.