a chance of a shelter for the night, but there was nothing else to do, so on to Norton I went with heavy steps, and arrived a little after sunset, more tired and hungry than ever, only to be told at the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one spare room had been engaged!  “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;