Sudden thunderstorms may be classed among the misfortunes—if misfortune it be—that bring us strange companions. The room in which I found myself, for the outer door opened directly upon it, was apparently the only public apartment which the inn possessed, and as the inn was in turn the only one for miles around, the storm had indiscriminately swept into the limit of a few square yards a chance company which under more ordinary conditions would have been striking in its diversity.
On a bench which extended along one side of the room sat three aged rustics, all wearing the stout and fancifully embroidered smockfrock of the old-time peasant. In his left hand each held a staff upon which he leaned forward: a quart mug of cider occupied each right hand. Their names, I soon learned, were Richard, John and Jasper, but they called one another Urchid, Jan, and Jaffer. The only other occupant of the bench was a youth of studious, melancholy expression and neglected attire. In a city he might have passed at sight as an unsuccessful poet or an out-of-work valet grown slovenly in despair. Actually, he proved to be a harmless enough creature—the village idiot in fact.
I must also anticipate to describe the other occupants of the room. At a point farthest from the door sat an escaped convict, between two warders who had recaptured him on the moor half an hour previously. From a chair near the window an itinerant photographer regarded the weather gloomily. The inn-keeper, standing behind his bar, regarded the weather cheerfully; while two sportsmen who carried the accessories of a fishing expedition completed the tale. The face of one struck me from the first glance with elusive familiarity, but it was not until I heard him addressed by the other that I recognised the well-known democratic peer, Lord Twaddlemuch. His companion, who rode his chair at
