Many had been the attempts to make him break his boast: some for the joke of the thing and some for the need; but none had ever succeeded.

It was his one claim to distinction and he guarded it.
One evening it struck him that the milk-pail, standing just inside the window, had been tampered with.

Next day he marked with a scratch the inside of the pan and, returning later, found the level of the milk had sunk half an inch.

So he hid himself and waited; and at twilight the next day the window was stealthily pushed open, and two small, terror- haunted eyes peered round the room.

They satisfied themselves that no one was about and a tiny hand clutching a cracked jug was thrust swiftly in and dipped into the pan; and the window softly closed.
He knew the thief, the grandchild of an old bedridden dame who lived some miles away on the edge of the moor.