All the old cottages in Symford were his, and so were the farms
dotted about the hills. Any one, therefore, seeking a cottage would
have to address himself to the Shuttleworth agent, Mr. Dawson, who too
lived in a house so picturesque that merely to see it made you long
either to poison or to marry Mr. Dawson--preferably, I think, to
poison him.
These facts, stripped of the redundances with which I have
garnished them, were told Fritzing on the day after his arrival
at Baker's Farm by Mrs. Pearce the younger, old Mr. Pearce's
daughter-in-law, a dreary woman with a rent in her apron, who
brought in the bacon for Fritzing's solitary breakfast and the chop
for his solitary luncheon. She also brought in a junket so liquid
that the innocent Fritzing told her politely that he always drank
his milk out of a glass when he did drink milk, but that, as he
never did drink milk, she need not trouble to bring him any.
"Sir," said Mrs. Pearce in her slow sad voice, after a glance at his
face in search of sarcasm, "'tisn't milk. 'Tis a junket that hasn't
junked.
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