It is certainly a strange coincidence that you should stumble across that sombre place, because, after what you told me the other day about your family connection with this part of the country, I have no doubt whatever that the unhappy tenants¹ of Pertwood Farm (as it is called even now) were nearly related to yourself. Their tragical² story is well known to me,25 although its principal events happened more than sixty years ago, when I was a boy. The house had been built and enclosed, and the trees planted, by a morose³ old man who wished to shut himself off from the world, yet was by no means averse⁴ to a good deal of creature comfort. He lived in it for some years, attended only by one hard-featured man, who did apparently⁵ men and women’s work equally well—lived there until local rumour⁶ had grown tired of inventing fables⁸ about him, and left him to the oblivion he desired. Then one day the news began to circulate that Pertwood had changed hands, that old Cusack was gone, and that a middle-aged⁹ man with a beautiful young wife had taken up his abode¹⁰ there, without any one in the vicinity knowing aught of the change until it had been made. Then the village tongues wagged loosely for awhile, especially when it was found that the new-comers were almost as reserved as old Cusack had been. But as time went on Mr. Delambre, whose Huguenot name stamped him as most probably a native of these parts (you have noticed how very frequent such names are hereabout), leased several good-sized fields lower down the hill towards Chicklade, and began to do a little farming. This, of course, necessitated

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