OWN AT THE BOTTOM OF the bean field, the meadow lay thirsty and still. For weeks it hadn’t rained and the River Stiffkey, bronze water on a dark bed of mud, rolled slowly towards the sea. The land was of little interest to the men who farmed on either side, too wet for wheat and too rough to plough. But I suspect it would have been just the sort of place that Elijah, the old poacher whose gun
