The fact that Lamberts and the Newlyns have lived side-by-side for four centuries does not mean relations between them are congenial; far from it. Whereas best friends may come and go as they please, feuding neighbours must remain neighbours, since the departure of the one, unless demonstrably and undeniably connected with the attainment of an advantage over the other, is bound to be interpreted as a sign of defeat.

The dispute seems to have originally centred on the garden show, a goat belonging to the Lamberts and a bed of hollyhocks tended by the Newlyns.

One morning Mrs Newlyn found all their flowers had lost their heads. The cause was obvious. It had two horns and lived next door. The Lamberts had let loose their beast so that it would wreck the prize assets of their neighbours. The Lamberts had good reason to envy the Newlyns. The Newlyns had won the village ‘Best in Show’ title for fifteen years running. This had at first irked the poor Lamberts and had then come to prey on them like a recurring nightmare. This was not the only area in which the Newlyns were better than the Lamberts. They had a bigger house, and everyone thought their daughter was much more beautiful and their son much handsomer than any of the Lamberts’ children.

The next morning saw the Lamberts goatless. Sometime between then and the previous morning the Newlyns must have seen their decimated plants, remembered that their neighbours kept a goat, put two and two together, and made five, a not altogether surprising error given the level of intelligence in that family. Instead of appealing to reason and visiting the Lamberts to ask if they knew anything about the affair, they had connived around the kitchen table and secretly set their feeble little minds to plotting malicious revenge. Others might retaliate immediately, but the Lamberts were not so impetuous. They would wait and see.