“There’s the parson, Mr. Morven--his lady is dead. She wur a Parrett, and handsome. He’s a good man, but terrible bookish, and just awful for readin’ and writin’. There’s Captain and the Honourable Mrs. Ramsay, as live nearly opposite in the house covered with ivy, and three rows of long windows, inside the little brick wall. _They_ are not much use; she sells plants and cuttings, and little Pom puppies now and then, and keeps what she calls a ‘Dogs’ Hotel or Boarding-House’; did ye ever!” and Mrs. Hogben laughed. “Ay, and she advertises it too! She’s so terrible busy with dogs, and takes them walking out, and has all sorts o’ food for them, and young Bob Watkins as their servant. Her father was a lord they make out, and her husband, the Captain, he got some sort of stroke in the Indies and is queer--some say from drink, some say from a stroke, some say from both. He never goes into no company, but walks the roads and lanes of an evening a-talkin’ to himself right out loud. Then he slopes up to the Drum, and though he was an army officer, he sits cheek by jowl with common men, drinkin’ his glass, and smokin’ his pipe. However, he is quiet enough--quiet as the dead--and Mrs. Ramsay is good pay.” “That’s something,” remarked her listener, and his tone was dry. “There’s a rare bit o’ money in Ottinge, though ye mightn’t think it,” continued Mrs. Hogben, delighted to have a listener after her own heart; “folks being well left, and mostly having a snug house, and nothing going out but quit rent.” “But who lives round the village? Are there any big places?” “There’s a good few within ten miles. The Wardes of Braske, the Cranmers of Wells Castle, the Woolcocks of Westmere Park--it was the Davenants’ for hundreds of years, and Woolcocks’ father he was an iron-monger!” “An ironmaster,” corrected her son, with a touch of impatience. “Well, ’tis all the same. The Davenants were real great folk, and the Hogbens served them for many a day; indeed, the late Sir Henry Davenant shot Hogben’s father himself.” She folded her arms as she made the announcement, and looked at her lodger as much as to say, “What do you think of _that_?” “Shot! What do you mean--on purpose?” “No, ’twas a pheasant he was mistook for--but he killed Tom Hogben stone dead in the top cover, and then sent a carriage to fetch him home. Of course the shooting was given accidental, and the family had a pension; and I will say this, the Davenants were always free and never a mite afraid of spending money, till every stiver was gone.” “What you call open-handed.”