The following day my uncle was near himself again, and we left the Flask¹ inn and took lodging² with the widow Puddephatt. The Playstow was a little green, about half-way down the village, where the villagers reared their may-pole on May-day, and built their fires on Midsummer’s Eve, and caroused³ in September on the harvest-largesse won from passers-by. Round about, in a little square, were cottages, detached and exclusive, the élite of Dunberry; and to one side was the church—but now in process of completion—in whose porch the daring would seat themselves on St. Mark’s eve to see, at midnight, the wraiths⁴ of the year’s pre-doomed come and knock at the door. Mr. Sant had, however, limited that custom, as well as some others less reputable; and the fact that he was able to do so spoke⁵ volumes for his persuasiveness⁶. At the present time the villagers, under his stimulus⁷, were transferring, stone by stone, to the long unfinished fabric⁸ and its adjoining school-house, the less sacred parts of the ruined foundation on the hill.

 

Mrs. Puddephatt, though Dunberry-born, was a comparative acquisition to the village, to which she had been summoned, and to her natural succession in No. 3, the Playstow, through the death of an only sister without encumbrances⁹. She had, in fact, gone very young, a great many years ago, into service in London, and had never set foot again in her native place until this inheritance, now two years old, had called her. She brought with her an ironic¹⁰ atmosphere of the great world, and a disdainful

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