ed.

[Footnote 1: A fact.]

CHAPTER XVII

The dreariest season of the year had now set in, but frost and cold were
very seldom felt severely in Weircombe. The little village lay in a deep
warm hollow, and was thoroughly protected at the back by the hills,
while in the front its shores were washed by the sea, which had a
warming as well as bracing effect on the atmosphere. To invalids
requiring an equable temperature, it would have been a far more ideal
winter resort than any corner of the much-vaunted Riviera, except indeed
for the fact that feeding and gambling dens were not among its
attractions. To "society" people it would have proved insufferably dull,
because society people, lacking intelligence to do anything themselves,
always want everything done for them. Weircombe folk would not have
understood that method of living. To them it seemed proper and
reasonable that men, and women too, should work for what they ate. The
theory that only a few chosen persons, not by any means estimable either
as to their characters or their abilities, should eat what others were
starved for, would not have appealed to them. They were a small and
unimportant community, but their ideas of justice and principles of
conduct were very firmly established. They lived on the lines laid down
by their forefathers, and held that a simple faith in God, coupled with
honest hard labour, was sufficient to make life well worth living. And,
on the whole they were made of that robust human material of which in
the days gone by there was enough to compose and consolidate the
greatness of Britain. They were kindly of heart, but plain in
speech,--and their remarks on current events, persons and things, would
have astonished and perhaps edified many a press man had he been among
them, when on Saturday nights they "dropped in" at the one little
public-house of the village, and argued politics and religion till
closing-time. Angus Reay soon became a favourite with them all, though
at first they had looked upon him with a little distrust as a "gentleman
_tow_-rist"; but when he had mixed with them freely and familiarly,
making no secret of the fact that he was poor, and that he was
endeavouring to earn a livelihood like all the rest of them, only in a
different way, they abandoned all reserve, and treated him as one of
themselves. Moreover, when it was understood that "Mis' Deane," whose
reputation stood very high in the village, considered him