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Then I can promise you that half an hour will see the men routed and straggling down the beach to their boats, arching their backs and ducking their heads, may be, under the parting volley. "But, as I say, I did not know Polreen and its ways.
"I did not know that this assemblage in the tap-room was unusual and clean contrary to the men's habits, and therefore may be excused for not guessing its significance. Nor was I familiar enough with Polreen to note an even more frequent change in the atmosphere and routine of its daily life.
An hour passed, or a little more, and then Old Tom Udy asked when I thought of returning. "'Why, bless the man, said I, 'we've not had a bite yet! "He glanced at me furtively while he lit a pipe. 'I reckoned, maybe, you might have business ashore, so to speak. "'What earthly business should I have in Polreen at this hour? "'Aw, well . . . you know best . . . no affair o' mine.
"'Well, I'm glad o' that, because, since you ask me, as a professing Christian, I cudn' say any less. But you musn' think we bear any gridge. "'I'm sure I wonder you don't. And the police still have no clue? "'The police? You mean Sammy Crego, the constable? Why, I've knawed en from a boy pretty thing if any person in Polreen listened to he!
"I know now that the excitement in the Cove was intense; that for weeks afterwards the women carried their silver teaspoons and chinaware to bed with them; and I should explain that the housewives of Polreen are inordinately proud of their teaspoons and chinaware heirlooms which mark the only degrees of social importance recognised among the inhabitants of that happy Cove.
My case was pretty similar, only my Cornish hosts did not ask, but took it for granted. "In the first week of August to be precise, on the 4th I reached Polreen Cove, and found lodging at the small inn. The spot and the people so pleased me that I engaged my rooms for a week. At the week's end I had decided to stay for a month. I stayed for almost two months.
I suppose some liquor was required to start this conversation and keep it going, just as seamen use a bucketful of water to start a ship's pump; but I must admit that during my whole stay at Polreen I never saw an inhabitant who could be described as the worse for drink.
Not a soul in Polreen had set eyes on him, and as he entered the village by night so he departed.
"Well, as luck would have it, I had not been in Polreen three nights before there happened the first burglary within the memory of its oldest inhabitant if burglary it was. I incline to think that Mrs.
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