d Eden tucked away in a bend of the Maine coast. It gave him
what his heart craved--beauty, fragrance, stillness. A few
weather-beaten old men, digging clams, dragging lobster-pots, or
handling a boat. A few quiet women, busy with household affairs. No
one to have to talk to. No one to ask him questions. There was but
one other visitor in the village, Grandma Baker told him, a young
widow,--"a nice common sort of a woman," who was staying up the
street with Mis' Thatcher.

Mr. Johnston, as the gentleman called himself, hadn't seen the "nice
common sort of a woman" yet, though he had been here a whole week,
and he wasn't in the least curious about her. He didn't know that
when you're a "nice common sort of a woman" to these Maine folk,
you're receiving high praise from sturdy democrats. The phrase, to
him, called up a good, homely creature, amiably innocuous, placidly
cow-like.

Mr. Johnston slept in a four-poster, under a patchwork quilt that
aroused poignant memories. At his own request he ate in a corner of
the big kitchen, near the window opening upon the herb garden.
Already he had struck up a firm friendship with his brisk, strong
old landlady.

"Fit in the war, didn't ye?" asked the old lady, genially.

Mr. Johnston's face took on a look of weariness and obstinacy.
Grandma Baker smiled cheerfully.

"Tell the truth and shame the devil," she chirped. "You fit, but you
needn't be scared I'll ask you any questions about it. I mind Abner,
my husband, comin' back from Virginia after he'd fit the hull
dratted Civil War straight through and helped win it. And he
wouldn't open his trap. Couldn't bear havin' to talk about it. Some
men's like that. Ornery, o' course, but you got to humor 'em. You
put me a hull lot in mind o' my Abner." And she looked with great
kindliness upon the taciturn person known to her as Mr. Johnston.
True to her word, she asked him no questions. She fed him, and let
him alone.

He was so weary, at first, that he didn't want to do anything but
lie under a tree idly for long drowsy hours, as he had lain under
the trees on the edge of the River Swamp years before. This Maine
landscape, so rugged and yet so tender, had a brooding and
introspective calm, as of a serene and strong old man who has lived
a vigorous, simple, and pure life, and to the jangled nerves and
tired mind of Peter Champneys it was like the touch of a healing
hand. With every day he felt his strength of mind and body
returni