The moucher sometimes sleeps on the heaps of disused tan in a tanyard; tanyards are generally on the banks of small rivers.

The tan is said to possess the property of preserving those who sleep on it from chills and cold, though they may lie quite exposed to the weather.
There is generally at least one such a man as this about the outskirts of market towns, and he is an 'original' best defined by negatives.

He is not a tramp, for he never enters the casual wards and never begs--that is, of strangers; though there are certain farmhouses where he calls once now and then and gets a slice of bread and cheese and a pint of ale.

He brings to the farmhouse a duck's egg that has been dropped in the brook by some negligent bird, or carries intelligence of the nest made by some roaming goose in a distant withy-bed.

Or once, perhaps, he found a sheep on its back in a narrow furrow, unable to get up and likely to die if not assisted, and by helping the animal to gain its legs earned a title to the owner's gratitude.
He is not a thief; apples and plums and so on are quite safe, though the turnip-tops are not: there is a subtle casuistry involved here--the distinction between the quasi-wild and the garden product.