IN LONDON TOWN 202
XIX. THE PEN AND THE PENCIL CLUB 214
XX. THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS 228
XXI. "THAT BOOK" 238
XXII. HOME AGAIN 244
XXIII. A TRAGIC ENDING 254
XXIV. ONE SUNDAY, AND AFTER 259

THE CALL OF THE TOWN

CHAPTER I

"THE PROUD PARENT"

IF you happen to be riding a bicycle you arrive somewhat unexpectedly in
the little Ardenshire village of Hampton Bagot, and are through it in a
flash, before you quite realise its existence. But in the unlikely event
of your having business or pleasure there, you approach the place more
leisurely in the carrier's cart from the little station which absurdly
bears the name of the village, though two miles distant.

The ancient Parish Church, with its curious old chained library and bits
of Saxon masonry, "perfectly unique," as Mr. Godfrey Needham, the vicar,
used to say, and the one wide street of quaint old houses, with their
half-timbered fronts, remain to this day much as they were, no doubt,
when good Queen Bess ruled England. But the thirsty cyclist, whose
throat may happen to be parched at this particular stage of his journey,
is a poor substitute for the old-time stage-coach which made Hampton
Bagot a place of change. Somehow, the village continues to exist, though
its few hundred people scrape their livings in ways that are not obvious
to the casual visitor. The surrounding district is richly pastoral,
plentifully sprinkled with cosy farm-houses, and here, perhaps, we have
the reason why Hampton continues under the sun.

If you wandered along the few hundred yards of street, and noted the
various substitutes for shops, in which oranges and sweets and babies'
clothing mingle familiarly with hams and shoe-laces, you would be struck
by the more pretentious exterior of one which bears in crudely-painted
letters the legend, EDWARD JOHN CHARLES, and underneath, in smaller
characters, the words POST OFFICE. The building, a two-storied one, with
the familiar blackened timbers supporting high-pitched gables, and a
bay-window of lozenged glass, was, at the time of which I write, the
place of next importance in the village to the "Wings and Spur." Behind
this