Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/109



The two men upon whose conversation Wedgwood chanced were apparently of the farmer class; they sat in a corner near the hearth, smoking and drinking, obviously enjoying half an hour's ease before going homeward. A newspaper lay on the table in front of them, and one was pointing the stem of his pipe to a passage in it as Wedgwood passed to a chair close by.

"Never said anything in these paper accounts, so far—at least, as far as I've seen—about this John Wraypoole being a native of our parts," said this man. "I've expected that, but there's been nothing about it up to now. Come out later very like. But of course he was—he was an Ashlowe man, and though him and his brother Thomas—I mind 'em well when we were all lads together—went away when they were youngsters, John was down here and stopping in this very house not so long ago. I had speech with him."

"You had, eh?" said the other.

"I had so! He came over to Ashlowe once