discovered--a curious fact in a small and lonely village. The times,
however, were disturbed, and a wandering Cavalier or Roundhead soldier
may have 'cracked the crib.' Not many weeks later, Harrison's servant,
Perry, was heard crying for help in the garden. He showed a
'sheep-pick,' with a hacked handle, and declared that he had been set
upon by two men in white, with naked swords, and had defended himself
with his rustic tool. It is curious that Mr. John Paget, a writer of
great acuteness, and for many years police magistrate at Hammersmith,
says nothing of the robbery of 1659, and of Perry's crazy conduct in
the garden.[6] Perry's behaviour there, and his hysterical invention
of the two armed men in white, give the key to his character. The two
men in white were never traced of course, but, later, we meet three
men not less flagitious, and even more mysterious. They appear to have
been three 'men in buckram.'

[Footnote 6: See his _Paradoxes and Puzzles_, pp. 337-370, and, for
good reading, see the book _passim_.]

At all events, in quiet Campden, adventures obviously occurred to the
unadventurous. They culminated in the following year, on August 16,
1660. Harrison left his house in the morning (?) and walked the two
miles to Charringworth to collect his lady's rents. The autumn day
closed in, and between eight and nine o'clock old Mrs. Harrison sent
the servant, John Perry, to meet his master on the way home. Lights
were also left burning in Harrison's window. That night neither master
nor man returned, and it is odd that the younger Harrison, Edward, did
not seek for his father till very early next morning: he had the
convenience, for nocturnal search, of a moon which rose late. In the
morning, Edward went out and met Perry, returning alone: he had not
found his master. The pair walked to Ebrington, a village half way