Yet he preferred his neighbour's enmity to their goodwill, and went about to make it more bitter by getting himself posted for magistrate, and giving out that he would put down the contraband thereabouts.

For no one round Moonfleet was for the Excise; but farmers loved a glass of Schnapps that had never been gauged, and their wives a piece of fine lace from France.

And then came the affair between the _Elector_ and the ketch, with David Block's death; and after that they said it was not safe for Maskew to walk at large, and that he would be found some day dead on the down; but he gave no heed to it, and went on as if he had been a paid exciseman rather than a magistrate.
When I was a little boy the Manor woods were my delight, and many a sunny afternoon have I sat on the terrace edge looking down over the village, and munching red quarantines from the ruined fruit gardens.

And though this was now forbidden, yet the Manor had still a sweeter attraction to me than apples or bird-batting, and that was Grace Maskew.

She was an only child, and about my own age, or little better, at the time of which I am speaking.