Since crossing the heath we had been travelling nearer to one of the main
roads, that leading out of the east gate to the town, and now we got our
first glimpse of it lying like a broad, brown ribbon half-way down the
slope of a very steep hill. In the upper half, this hill was pretty well
wooded and the road cut clean through the wood, but between us and the
wood there lay the level crest of the hill, cut by hedges into several
fields, and crossed by a rough cart-track leading past a roomy,
one-storied cottage, grey-walled and brown-thatched, and on through the
wood into the main road. The cottage, with its outbuildings, made a
little farmstead, and here lived Dick Doley and his wife Sal, who did a
little farming, but mainly lived by huckstering. Today was market-day at
Stafford, and unless they had broken the routine of half a lifetime, they
would now be packing their little cart with marketables and soon be off
for the town. They had neither chick nor child, lad-servant nor lassie,
and they would leave the cottage empty and at our disposal. At this time
of the day I could, of course, have trusted both, but they were very human
bodies of a sort to rejoice the business side of the heart of Joe Braggs,
and it was best not to give them the chance of blabbing later in the day
when, for a moral certainty, they would both be market fresh. Besides, it
was unfair to thrust myself on the kindness of anyone. I had more than
once wondered what had happened to poor little Marry-me-quick.

I scrambled through the hedge and peeped down the road. I was right. Dick
and his wife were busy loading up. So we waited behind the hedge till they
had cleared off, and indeed did not move till I saw them and their cart
pass along the road at the foot of the hill.

Time has not blurred the memory of a single detail of our stay in this
welcome house of refuge, but the telling of what was moving and charming