“To the vicar!” exclaimed Miss Phillis Tapps; “and pray, Miss Puttle, allow me to ask whether you ever heard of the peacock nestling with the crow?”
“Or of the eagle taking up its abode in an ivy-bush?” vociferated Miss Ryland.
Conjectures were vain, and the party determined to resolve itself into a committee of inquiry. In the first place, it was judged expedient to see and question Ralph Spindle, whom Dr. Doseall employed on the arrival of a stranger, as certain insects are said to use their ‘feelers’ to discover the approach of any prey that may serve them as food.
The stranger was soon discovered to be a Major Snapwell, a rich and eccentric old bachelor, who had served in various campaigns in different parts of the globe, and received a competent number of wounds, in the defence of his king and country. His income was reported to be large, and it was said, that he had not any near relative to enjoy the reversion, since his nephew had perished about two years before by shipwreck. The circumstances that led to this disastrous event were believed to have so affected the veteran, as to have occasioned a very serious illness, and a consequent state of despondency, for which his physicians advised a constant change of scene; so that he had been rambling about the Continent during the last year and a half, accompanied only by his faithful servant, Jacob Watson, who was as much attached to the Major, as was ever a Newfoundland dog to his master.
Such was the information derived from Annette, the vicar’s housekeeper: what proportion of fiction was mingled with its truth, the reader will probably soon be able to discover.
“Well, Jacob,” said the Major, as his trusty but asthmatic valet was leisurely buttoning on the long gaiters of his master the morning after his arrival, “what do you hear about this village of Overton? Are there any sociable neighbours? I like the country; it is beautiful, Jacob, and the air appears mild: it promises to be the very place to kindle the sparks of my expiring constitution; and should you, at the same time, get your broken-winded bellows mended, my vital flame might, perhaps, burn a little brighter. But tell me, what do you hear of it, Jacob?”
“Why, and please you, Major, I just now met an old crony of mine, Mrs. Annette Brown, at the Devil and the Bag of Nails----”
“And pray, Jacob,” exclaimed the Major, “who taught you to speak thus irreverently of the village blacksmith?”
“The village blacksmith! Lord love you, it is the sign of the village alehouse!”
“Then it is a very odd one; but go on with your story.”