“Are you a native of these parts?” he enquired.
“I am more or less a stranger,” was the somewhat reserved reply. “I, like you, have come down for a little quiet.”
“Can’t say as your manner of living quiet would altogether suit me,” the grocer remarked cheerily. “The young gentleman’s a naturalist, sir,” he explained, turning to the principal guest of the afternoon. “He goes moth hunting with a net, round the mere side and across to Cranley Swamp at night. That’s not a job as would suit every one.”
Mr. Johnson was politely interested. The young man smiled in expostulatory fashion.
“I am only an amateur,” he confessed, “and I only go out odd nights during the week. I miss my sleep too much.”
“You’ll not be finding much company in these parts, I’m afraid,” the innkeeper observed, making polite conversation with the stranger. “There’s not so many of the gentry living round as there used to be.”
Mr. Johnson showed signs of interest.
“Well,” he said, “I’m a great reader and I’m fond of the country, so I must make the best of it. Tell me something about my neighbours. Who lives in the long, low house across the way from my garden gate?”
“That’s what we do call the Little House, sir,” the innkeeper replied. “It belongs to a poor invalid lady, who don’t seem to get any stronger. De Fourgenet, her name is—or something like that—she having married a foreigner. But most of the folk round here just call her ‘Madame.’ She’s an English lady but she have lived abroad a great deal. According to her letters she do be some sort of a titled lady, but she don’t seem to hold to it herself.”
“An invalid, eh?” Mr. Johnson enquired sympathetically.