“Married? Oh, yes, he’s married.
Has been some time, I believe, though they’ve
no kids. I had lunch at his place one time I was
down Tidborough way. Now there’s a place
you ought to go to paint one of your pictures—where
he lives—Penny Green. Picturesque,
quaint if ever a place was. It’s about
seven miles from Tidborough; seven miles by road and
about seven centuries in manners and customs and appearance
and all that. Proper old village green, you know,
with a duck pond and cricket pitch and houses all
round it. No two alike. Just like one of
Kate Greenaway’s pictures, I always think.
It just sits and sleeps. You wouldn’t think
there was a town within a hundred miles of it, let
alone a bustling great place like Tidborough.
Go down. You really ought to. Yes, and by
Jove you’ll have to hurry up if you want to catch
the old-world look of the place. It’s ‘developing’
...
’being developed.’... Eh?...
Yes; God help it; I agree. After all these centuries
sleeping there it’s suddenly been ‘discovered.’
People are coming out from Tidborough and Alton and
Chovensbury to get away from their work and live there.
Making a sort of garden suburb business of it.
They’ve got a new church already. Stupendous
affair, considering the size of the place—but
that’s looking forward to this development movement,
the new vicar chap says. He’s doing the
developing like blazes. Regular tiger he is for
shoving things, particularly himself. Chap called
Bagshaw—Boom Bagshaw. Character if
ever there was one. But they’re all characters
down there from what I’ve seen of it....
“Yes, you go down there and have a look, with
your sketch-book. Old Sabre’ll love to
see you.... His wife?... Oh, very nice, distinctly
nice. Pretty woman, very. Somehow I didn’t
think quite the sort of woman for old Puzzlehead.
Didn’t appear to have the remotest interest in
any of the things he was keen about; and he seemed
a bit fed with her sort of talk. Hers was all
gossip—all about the people there and what
a rum crowd they were. Devilish funny, I thought,
some of her stories. But old Sabre—well,
I suppose he’d heard ’em before. Still,
there was something—something about the
two of them. You know that sort of—sort
of—what the devil is it?—sort
of stiffish feeling you sometimes feel in the air
with two people who don’t quite click. Well,
that was it. Probably only my fancy. As
to that, you can pretty well cut the welkin with a
knife at my place sometimes when me and my missus get
our tails up; and we’re fearful pals. Daresay
I just took ’em on an off day. But that
was my impression though—that she wasn’t
just the sort of woman for old Sabre. But after
all, what the dickens sort of woman would be?
Fiddling chap for a husband, old Puzzlehead. Can
imagine him riling any wife with wrinkling up his
nut over some plain as a pikestaff thing and saying,
‘Well, I don’t quite see that.’
Ha! Rum chap. Nice chap. Have a drink?”
CHAPTER II
Copyrights
If Winter Comes from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
