"What Am I To Do, Then?" I
Demanded Of The Landlord.
"Beyond this village I cannot go
to-night - do you want me to go out and sleep under a hedge?"
He called his spouse, and after some conversation they said
the village baker might be able to put me up, as he had a
spare bedroom in his house.
So to the baker's I went, and
found it a queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back
from the village street in a garden and green plot with a few
fruit trees growing on it. To my knock the baker himself came
out - a mild-looking, flabby-faced man, with his mouth full, in
a very loose suit of pyjama-like garments of a bluish floury
colour. I told him my story, and he listened, swallowing his
mouthful, then cast his eyes down and rubbed his chin, which
had a small tuft of hairs growing on it, and finally said, "I
don't know. I must ask my wife. But come in and have a cup
of tea - we're just having a cup ourselves, and perhaps you'd
like one."
I could have told him that I should like a dozen cups and a
great many slices of bread-and-butter, if there was nothing
else more substantial to be had. However, I only said, "Thank
you," and followed him in to where his wife, a nice-looking
woman, with black hair and olive face, was seated behind the
teapot. Imagine my surprise when I found that besides tea
there was a big hot repast on the table - a ham, a roast fowl,
potatoes and cabbage, a rice pudding, a dish of stewed fruit,
bread-and-butter, and other things.
"You call this a cup of tea!" I exclaimed delightedly. The
woman laughed, and he explained in an apologetic way that he
had formerly suffered grievously from indigestion, so that for
many years his life was a burden to him, until he discovered
that if he took one big meal a day, after the work was over,
he could keep perfectly well.
I was never hungrier than on this evening, and never, I think,
ate a bigger or more enjoyable meal; nor have I ever ceased to
remember those two with gratitude, and if I were to tell here
what they told me - the history of their two lives - I think it
would be a more interesting story than the one I am about to
relate. I stayed a whole week in their hospitable house; a
week which passed only too quickly, for never had I been in a
sweeter haunt of peace than this village in a quiet, green
country remote from towns and stations. It was a small rustic
place, a few old houses and thatched cottages, and the ancient
church with square Norman tower hard to see amid the immense
old oaks and elms that grew all about it. At the end of the
village were the park gates, and the park, a solitary, green
place with noble trees, was my favourite haunt; for there was
no one to forbid me, the squire being dead, the old red
Elizabethan house empty, with only a caretaker in the
gardener's lodge to mind it, and the estate for sale.
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