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in handcuffs back to the States. The transports ceased to land after dark, and the volume of American luxury goods in circulation went into steep decline for a time. Some time later, as a matter of curiosity, Dick visited the old shed where he had seen the crates unloaded and found it open and empty.
    ‘It has all been a bit of a fright,’ Dick said, and now, suddenly, he was nervous about his involvement in the disposal of the base families’ surplus gear. Dick had learned that such imported items were for personal use only. Somebody had broken a law, but Dick was not sure whose law it was, and who had done the breaking. The visits of the plain-clothes man occasioned further unease. The villagers interviewed would have been crafty enough to keep him out of the kitchens where any piece of machinery of American origin would certainly be on view. Still, one never knew. A man like that was trained to use his eyes. Despondently, Dick decided to play safe and pull out of the business, and then, just as his hopes for Jane’s future began to recede, new prospects for commerce opened up. This time they were above suspicion.
    The complex idea of status had hardly reached Long Crendon at the time of my arrival, and the alterations made by the newcomers to the houses they bought were seen by the natives as unreasoning and eccentric. Why, the villagers argued, should a man enclose his garden with a fence that kept nothing out? Why, instead of spending a hundred or two on renovating a barn, should he have it rebuilt in Norman style at a cost of £2,900?
    Slowly an inkling of what was behind this madness began to seep in, and here and there a villager became infected with it. The problem was how, in their gentle and unassertive manner, were village people to acquire any of this magical property enabling a man to stand out from his fellows? Nothing a man could do to alter his house—by a lick of paint on the outside, by a glass front-door, or a chiming bell—could conceal the stark facts (known to all) of pump-water and outside privy. Almost every employable male worked at the base for a similar salary. Village life was one of total equality; all were at the bottom of the pyramid. Humility had been inherited from the feudal servility of a not too distant past. Now, suddenly, the idea was abroad that a man could be ‘different’—command a little more than average respect. Nothing could be done about the house, but as Dick pointed out, the possession of a good car set a man apart, and by cutting down expenses in other directions, such a prize could come within reach of all.
    American servicemen normally arrived in the country for a three-year tour of duty, and often brought their cars with them. When the time came to move on they were quite ready to part with the vehicle for a reasonable price. Dick had discovered this and acted accordingly. He came to an agreement with the Customs over the matter of excise duty, and after a period of trial and error, was able to cope with the paperwork required. Everyone knew Dick and knew that they would get value for money. Within a few months one in eight of Long Crendon’s cottages had a shining American car parked at its front door.
    After Christmas and Easter the third most important feast celebrated in Long Crendon was the ancient secular one of August bank holiday. At this the Cloates, for all their slow loss of power and influence, appeared together again in public as a clan and, assisted by alcohol, the old defiant spirit flickered strongly for at least several hours on this day.
    On the bank holiday the people of Long Crendon, who usually preferred to stay indoors when there was no work to be done, felt suddenly and briefly the mysterious call of the open, and those who could gathered up their families to go down to the sea-shore, or on picnics amid the few trees remaining where there had once been woods. It was almost a point of honour to escape from confining walls. The local pubs