previous day. In front of him and on higher ground, half-hidden among the trees, was a white house. It looked of some importance. On the right of the green was the post-office, and next to it a general provision shop.

Peter went into the post-office, where he asked for a penny stamp.

The woman who kept the place was a buxom dame, rosy-cheeked and brown-eyed. Peter thought she might be possessed of conversational [Pg 39]powers. He was right. A small remark of his received a voluble response. He ventured another. It also was received in good part and the dame’s tongue proved nimble.

[Pg 39]

For full half an hour Peter leant upon the counter, speaking but a word or two at intervals, but finding that they quite sufficed to direct the voluble flow of speech into the channels he desired. The sound of the bell above the shop door alone brought the discourse to a conclusion, as a woman, with a baby in her arms and two children dragging at her skirts, entered. She looked at Peter curiously, then, pulling a shabby purse from her pocket, requested the postmistress to provide her with a penny stamp. She was, so she stated, about to write to her son in South Africa.

Peter came out into the sunlight with vastly more information than he had possessed half an hour previously.

He turned into the provision shop, where he achieved a few purchases, and then made his way again in the direction of the desolate cottage. In his mind he was running through and sorting the information he had received.

First and foremost it was perfectly obvious that, [Pg 40]provided he had the temerity to remain in the cottage in which he had passed the previous night, no one would say him nay. It was held in ill-repute. No one would dream of entering the copse at any time, and after nightfall even the road past it was to be avoided. The reason for this, as far as Peter could gather, was as follows.

[Pg 40]

Some fifty or sixty years ago a woman had lived in that cottage with her daughter, the reputed beauty of the village. The cottage had been built on a bit of unclaimed land by the woman’s husband, who had died soon after building it. It appeared that the girl was a coquette, trifling with the solid affection of the village swains. That at least was the version of the postmistress. One day some young gentleman had come to stay at the inn. What brought him if it was not Satan himself no one knew. At 

 Prev. P 21/156 next