IMAGINE some Giant Blunderbore walking in the dead of night into old Chester, and transporting from thence two of the most picturesque houses there, and setting them down by the side of a country road by way of jest, and you have some faint idea of Ocle Street, parish of Lea, in the county of Gloucester.

These two abodes are some three hundred feet apart, joined by an ancient stone wall, which adds to the legend that once Ocle Street boasted a row of such tenements, a belief strengthened by the fact that the roadway there is formed of round cobble stones; the pavement, worn and sunken by much traffic, is concrete.

Each house is double-pointed, and adorned by a flight of steps; a profusion of beautiful carvings beautify the overhanging galles; the windows are diamond-paned and leaded, the upper portions half-timbered.

Learned authorities dispute over points of architecture, some going so far as to say that the style is that of William of Wickham, others that it shows the handiwork of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, while Inigo Jones has no lack of disciples.

The vicar of Lea swears by Bernini, the proprietor by Vanbrugh; but be the work that of Pugin or Palladio, Adam or Gibbs, the houses are both rare and cunning in point of workmanship.

The house nearest Lea has suspended over its porch a bunch of grapes, this being the village hostel—a cozy, dreamy place, with two long rooms down-stairs known as the "Lords and Commons," a distinction calling for no explanation.

Behind is a noble bowling-green, bounded on one side by the celebrated orchards of Mr. Reuben Vivid—of whom more anon—and on the other side by the nursery gardens of Ambrose Niel, an individual we shall hear of presently.

As Mr. Vivid not only owned the Ocle Street property, but also lived in the adjoining house—which he had purchased on retiring from business some seven years before—he had constructed in the square hew hedge a doorway for the convenience of access to the bowling-green, a game to which he was greatly addicted.

The property had not been a profitable investment, though this was a matter of little moment, as the owner was reputed rich—worth at least a plum, as Martin Dale, the landlord of "The Grapes," was wont to declare with pious unction. Indeed, who else would have ventured to dispute with the Squire concerning the veracity of a certain dubious fruit in the Pomona Herefordiensis?

Though Barton Hall was a fine place, the Squire Dangerfield was a poor man, and to a certain extent he and Vivid were rivals. At one time they had been friendly enough, having finally fallen out over an uncertain apple in Knight's Pomona.

"A Lady's Finger," said the amateur.

"A Seek-no-Further," the Squire was equally positive.

As a matter of fact, it was neither, being in reality nothing more or less than a Blenheim Orange of unkindly growth.

The discussion had led to a very pretty quarrel, commencing with a learned dissertation concerning root pruning, and ending with an asseveration on the Squire's part that any gardener who trained his trees upon the espalier system was an idiot; to which Mr. Vivid, nothing daunted, replied that a mind capable of advocating pyramids revealed the first sign of decaying intellect.

There was no question, however, that the Squire's fruit was inferior to that of his antagonist. This was all the more annoying because Vivid was merely a settler—a retired manufacturer and newspaper proprietor, who had learnt everything from books. He fermented his cider, too, and boasted, in vain-glorious moments, that he had revived the old-fashioned "fox whelp"—which, as everybody knows, is absurd, "fox whelp" being rarer than '47 port. Still, there was a certain mixture of "red streak" and "strawberry-norman," very hard to distinguish from the superior vintage.

Nevertheless, the neophyte's canvas presses and iron rollers were a failure; they were not to be compared with the old stone mills—a fact that filled the Squire with pure and undiluted joy.

The amateur had a farm, also cultivated upon the latest scientific principles, whereon he grew amazing crops, which, after allowing for rent and labour, cost something like three pounds per acre to grow. Mr. Mechi could have done no more.

An attempt to cultivate hops upon a highly ingenious plan—nothing less than planting in hedgerows, and round the trunks of fruit and other trees—having failed, the new Agricola lost conceit in his farming, devoting himself latterly to cider alone, his efforts being but poorly appreciated by an ungrateful public.

He stood in his orchard one bright October afternoon, fifteen years since Thornycroft had carried that false message to Isabel Carr, presenting a picture as unlike a thriving agriculturalist as need be. A short, pursy individual, with round, shrewd face and pendulous cheeks, folded by nature like superfluous fleshy envelopes, a suit of rusty black, relieved by extremely glossy linen, and set off by a white cravat of amazing size and stiffness, he seemed more like a village shopkeeper than a country gentleman—the ultima thule of his ambition.

There was a smile upon his face—the smile of a victor in argument; he had been instructing his housekeeper, successfully, in the art of curing bacon. From the shoeing of a horse to the building of a barn, Mr. Reuben Vivid was a walking fund of information of the most original and startling kind. To interfere in other people's business, to chide Mrs. Giles upon the colour of her butter, or Hodge upon his erratic ploughing, was at once grateful and necessary to his existence.

And had he been asked to show a better way to do these things, he would have had no hesitation in attempting either to churn a mass or plough a furrow.

On a long platform before him lay a gleaming heap of cider fruit, yard upon yard of yellow, waxen globes, streaked and dappled in the mellow sunlight.

There was no sound to break upon his rapt meditation save the click of bowls beyond the thick hew hedge, accompanied by a subdued hum of conversation.

As one voice seemed to strike him more particularly, he turned away from the blushing fruit, and, crossing the orchard, where the dew lay under the russet shade, took out a latchkey, and passed through the little door to the level green beyond.

It was a mild and grateful afternoon; a stagnant, purple mist floated over the distant woodland, where the sycamores and ashes were ablaze; a warm moistness in the air, and a glowing sun hanging westward. Round the smooth sward were fantastic seats and arbours, cut out of thick box and yew, pillars and turrets, and impossible birds—here a peacock, there a chanticleer proclaiming the morn—oaken settles shining with age and wear. In the full sunshine, at a table formed by a fallen elm, three men were seated, watching the game, which the new-comer regarded with approval, tempered by mature criticism. He was not much of a player himself, but had he been seated in that congenial spot, discussing Homer with Parson Adams over a pot of ale, he would have contradicted the pedant in less than five minutes, though he knew no more of Greek than of the integral calculus.

The trio seated there were past the prime of life, heavy in step, and slow of speech, dressed somewhat superior to the workmen of the fields—the one with the silver hair and old clerical waistcoat being the parish clerk and shoemaker, which professions, be it remarked, invariably go together, though cobblers are not usually accounted a pious race. The second man, tall and spare, with broad, thoughtful forehead and steadfast, blue eyes, was Ambrose Niel, the florist and market gardener; and the third, a fat, jolly-looking individual, of rubicund aspect, was, as any disciple of Lavater would have speedily discerned, Martin Dale, the landlord.

Each man had before him an oaken stoop, silver rimmed and handled, rare and curious drinking cups, filled with apple juice. Martin Dale would have nothing common in his house, to disgrace a century of inn-keeping "Dale's of 'The Grapes.'"

There was on the rustic table a jar of tobacco, and in every mouth a long clay pipe.

"It ent all on us as kips it in the proper condition," remarked Prout, the clerk, looking lovingly into his cup. "Three year old, do you say? Ay, and sound as the church bells. And the kernels is there likewise. I ent tasted such cider since young Squire were christened."

"It ent made," Martin Dale replied, with a solemn headshake; "it's watered, and mixed, and iron rolled, and what not. As for me, gi' me a good stone mill, as brings out the flaviour. Always mek your own millin', as my feather and gran'feather did afore ma."

"And then place it in a sour cask to spoil," observed Mr. Vivid, approaching these bibulous Solons unheard. "Cider, indeed! Bah!" He took up one of the quaint cups without ceremony, and, placing it to his lips, drank a little with a wry face. "I thought as much. There is your fruit ripe and ready, and what do you do with it? Leave it lying on the grass till it is half rotten? Do you keep the different sorts apart? Oh, no; they are mixed all up together—anyhow. Is it allowed to ferment properly, and make a wine? Nothing of the kind. Is it full flavoured without sweetness, and lively without acidity? Nothing of the kind again, being hard enough to blacken the purest silver."

He checked off these questions and answers as if he had been repeating a lesson from some invisible volume of "Magnall's Questions" or "Doctor Brenor's Guide to Knowledge," whose awful wisdom so sweetens childhood's happy hours, sternly regarding his class meanwhile, Prout, humble in the presence of so great a parishioner, muttered servile approval of these proper sentiments. Martin Dale, his mind reverting to the ignominious failure of the iron rollers, laughed—a fat, oily, comfortable chuckle.

There was no attempt at argument. The west country mind is slow, if tenacious, and doubt is indicated by paraphrase and head-shakes worthy of Burleigh.

A lazy contentment, born of warm sunshine, and the pleasing sense of ultra-worldliness smoothed away the angles of conflict, besides which, the last speaker had paraded too many points to be grappled in one debate.

The primitive Englishman is always Conservative. The iron rollers had failed, for the present revolution was in check.

"You canna get over nature," Dale observed, with the slow ponderousness which gives to platitude the assimilation of wisdom, "anyway. You can tek fruit or flowers—carnations, for instance. You can't mek 'em grow if they hain't a mind. Same as monthly roses."

"What you lack is system," Mr. Vivid answered—"what you lack is originality. Where should I be at this moment if I had been contented to stand where my father stood, and his father before him? Look at the possibilities before Niel here, and the little he makes of them. Grub up all your flowers and plant strawberries——"

"And mek 'em into cider afterwards," Prout chuckled. "I dunno as you med your fortune mindin' other folkses business, measter."

"Better than some people who can't manage their own," Mr. Vivid replied, tartly. "You are an extremely clever fellow, Prout, but you will never pass for a Sheridan. The worst of you people is that you will learn nothing; you won't be taught."

"I dunno as I wants anything more," said the clerk, stoutly. "I can give out the hymns with one here and there, and there ain't a sprier with the amens in the parish. Not as I wants to boast neither. And as to shoemakin' and general repairs, I yield to no man. Therefore, what more? Enough's as good as a feast in that station of life, et cetera."

Mr. Vivid smiled in a superior manner in acknowledgement of the argument and his own ability to sweep away the dogmatism if occasion might arise.

Like most men who aspire to know everything, he professed a toleration for ignorance of all kinds; indeed, he would have cheerfully sat down with Prout, and demonstrated to him the correct way in which to repair a dilapidated shoe.

Ambrose Niel looked on with honest admiration; Martin Dale, still thinking of the rollers, smiling fatuously.

"I holds with no fandangles and flyin' in the face of Providence," said Niel. "Old fashions and old friends, say I. Fifty-four year, man an' boy, I ha' lived in Lea, goin' to church once a Sunday, and I've prospered, being blessed wi' a good wife, and a niece brought up a lady incognito."

"Some mystery here," Mr. Vivid observed, looking like an amiable Mephistopheles, though the tale was old when he first knew the narrator. "What do you mean by that, Niel?"

"Ten year ago," Niel commenced, solemnly, "I received a communication"—he pronounced the last word with a gravity and seriousness worthy of the occasion, much as if he was about to relate the history of an interview with royalty, at the very least—"a communication from a lawyer gentleman in London. In the epistle aforesaid, I was informed to the effect that a client passin' through the village of Lea had seen my niece—aged nine, as the letter therein stated—and was willin' when the time came to defray the expenses of a continual and general——"

"Continental and general," Vivid corrected.

"Just so, gentlemen," Niel continued, regardless of the interruption given on every occasion on which the story was related. "Such was the offer which me and my good wife, on the advice of our vicar, accepted. At the age of nine she went from uncular control, a child, pretty, but ignorant; she came back a year as was last cherry pickin', still prettier, but learned. The organ, the use of the globes, and the pianoforty was lavished on her like water, as is her very own words. I don't deny its gratifyin' to an uncle's feelings, if embarrassing, consequent of a rooted objection to shirt-sleeves at meals. But Ethel, she never see her bennyfactor in all that time, nothin' but his blessin' and a brand new pianoforty, as I can show you all to prove it."

There was a long silence each meditating upon the mystery which had been repeated, on an average, three times a week for the past ten years. It was the only romance of which Lea could boast, and one not lightly to be laid aside.

The villagers regarded the Niels—especially Ethel Carr, the niece in question—with admiration, not unmixed with awe; the farmer's daughters with a contempt not carefully disguised; while the Squire's family, who could afford to disregard public opinion, made much of Ethel, whose knowledge of French and purity of accent, to quote Mrs. Dangerfield, warranted the acquaintance, a view in which Cyril Dangerfield, the only son and heir, heartily joined.

"In my opinion," Dale observed, disclosing a vein of astonishing romance under a usually transparent nature, "you ent heerd the last on it, Ambrose. Mark my words, if the incognito don't leave the lass a fortun'! It will be a fortun'," he continued, with fresh enthusiasm, "of not less than ten thousand pound, bestowed upon her on condition of marrying a boy as have been trained up special. Incognito and special young gent will put up here; they'll order for dinner a bottle of port and a roast chicken. I seen it once at Gloucester Theyater."

"In a coach and four," Prout returned, dreamily, the sunshine and cider gently stimulating his imaginative faculties; "with a romantic account of the ceremony in the Chronicle. That's what they do in books."

The clerk, who, in virtue of his office, invariably acted as whipper-in to all general conversations, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and prepared to go homeward. Niel, warned by a certain crispness in the air of the need of attending to his greenhouse fires, rose also.

At this moment there walked, or rather swaggered, towards the group, a new-comer, evidently a stranger, who, raising an extremely battered white hat with a jaunty air, inquired the whereabouts of a certain Weston Hall.

"I am a friend, or perhaps I had better say an acquaintance, of Mr. Maitland," he said. "It is but a mere chance that I heard of his residence in this neighbourhood. Perhaps some of you good people know him?"

"I've heerd on him, and once I set eyes on him," Dale replied, curtly, the class of customer being by no means to his mind. "A gentleman somewhere about fifty, with a pale face and a great black moustache. Parson says he's a recloos, which is perhaps nat'ral for a gent as writes books."

The seedy individual brightened exceedingly as he listened. Under the white hat brim the glowing, drink-sodden features flushed triumphantly; with an air of deep importance he laid a grimy hand upon the breast of an exceedingly greasy frock coat, the gesture accompanied by a benignant bow of thanks. The nether garments, once apparently of a loud check pattern, had faded to a neutral tint, and were held down to battered boots by undisguised straps, showing under portions where the cloth had frayed away, till an arc was described between the ankles. Linen, if he had any, was conspicuous by its absence, though a gaudy but extremely ill-favoured handkerchief obtruded offensively from the breast-coat pocket of the aforesaid greasy coat. The large features, usually clean shaven, were blue with a dark stubbly growth, as if the jaunty stranger's finances of late were not equal to the strain of an indulgence in the luxury of a razor.

"You can't mistake the house," Prout interposed. "Kep to the main road towards Gloucester for a matter o' three mile, till you comes to Lea Bailey. If you ax there, anybody'll point out Weston Hall."

"My best thanks, worthy thane," returned the voluble stranger. "Though I am under a temporary cloud, there are times when the humble individual who now addresses you is properly appreciated by lovers of the legitimate drama. If I were to disclose my name, which pride forbids me to do, I should, I flatter myself, ahem, create a sensation!"

As he spoke, he looked towards Vivid with mingled cunning and audacity. There was a gleam of recognition in his watery eye for a moment. The latter gentleman turned away in serio-comic disgust.

"You have got your information," he said. "And having got it, go."

"Sir," replied the blighted Roscius, "never turn a hard heart to the unfortunate. I am not what I seem, but what I am. When a man's wardrobe is seized by soulless myrmidons for—for rent, it is not to be expected that he should present the same immaculate appearance as a D'Orsay. Sir, I thank you for your courtesy, and retire as only a true actor can."

He swaggered away as he had come, his face, as he reached the solitude of the road, blazing with mingled malice and cunning. His feet were sore and weary, but an inward glow, born of passion and the expectation of gratified spleen, spurred him on.

"What luck," he murmured, sobbing with a fierce delight, "what luck! Mr. Maitland! Ah, ah, Mr. Maitland! Wonder what he will say when I have the honour of presenting him to his dear old pal, Algernon St. Clair."

"Up to no good," said Dale, curtly. "He's no friend of that exclusive novel-writing gent at the Hall, I'll go bail. Though he do keep himself to hisself, they say he's a perfect gentleman."

"An old model, perhaps," Prout suggested. "I read somewhere as they writers allus copies their characters from life."

"Certainly," replied Mr. Vivid oracularly. "How otherwise? I have never seen this Mr. Maitland, much as I admire his books, and much as I should like to make his acquaintance. He has some faults of construction upon which I should be willing to set him right."