"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. Three
years it had been in that condition, but nobody seemed to want
it; occasionally some important person came rushing down in a
motor-car, but after running over the house he would come out
and, remarking that it was a "rummy old place," remount his
car and vanish in a cloud of dust to be seen no more.
The dead owner, I found, was much in the village mind; and no
wonder, since Norton had never been without a squire until he
passed away, leaving no one to succeed him. It was as if some
ancient landmark, or an immemorial oak tree on the green in
whose shade the villagers had been accustomed to sit for many
generations, had been removed. There was a sense of something
wanting something gone out of their lives. Moreover, he had
been a man of a remarkable character, and though they never
loved him they yet reverenced his memory.
So much was he in their minds that I could not be in the
village and not hear the story of his life - the story which, I
said, interested me less than that of the good baker and his
wife. On his father's death at a very advanced age he came, a
comparative stranger, to Norton, the first half of his life
having been spent abroad. He was then a middle-aged man,
unmarried, and a bachelor he remained to the end. He was of a
reticent disposition and was said to be proud; formal, almost
cold, in manner; furthermore, he did not share his neighbours'
love of sport of any description, nor did he care for society,
and because of all this he was regarded as peculiar, not to
say eccentric. But he was deeply interested in agriculture,
especially in cattle and their improvement, and that object
grew to be his master passion. It was a period of great
depression, and as his farms fell vacant he took them into his
own hands, increased his stock and built model cowhouses, and
came at last to be known throughout his own country, and
eventually everywhere, as one of the biggest cattle-breeders
in England. But he was famous in a peculiar way. Wise
breeders and buyers shook their heads and even touched their
foreheads significantly, and predicted that the squire of
Norton would finish by ruining himself. They were right, he
ruined himself; not that he was mentally weaker than those who
watched and cunningly exploited him; he was ruined because his
object was a higher one than theirs. He saw clearly that the
prize system is a vicious one and that better results may be
obtained without it. He proved this at a heavy cost by
breeding better beasts than his rivals, who were all
exhibitors and prizewinners, and who by this means got their
advertisements and secured the highest prices, while he, who
disdained prizes and looked with disgust at the overfed and
polished animals at shows, got no advertisements and was
compelled to sell at unremunerative prices.
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