George's request for a lonely furnished cottage somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the castle did not, as he had feared, strike the
Belpher house-agent as the demand of a lunatic. Every well-dressed
stranger who comes to Belpher is automatically set down by the
natives as an artist, for the picturesqueness of the place has
caused it to be much infested by the brothers and sisters of the
brush. In asking for a cottage, indeed, George did precisely as
Belpher society expected him to do; and the agent was reaching for
his list almost before the words were out of his mouth. In less
than half an hour George was out in the street again, the owner for
the season of what the agent described as a "gem" and the employer
of a farmer's wife who lived near-by and would, as was her custom
with artists, come in the morning and evening to "do" for him. The
interview would have taken but a few minutes, had it not been
prolonged by the chattiness of the agent on the subject of the
occupants of the castle, to which George listened attentively. He
was not greatly encouraged by what he heard of Lord Marshmoreton.
The earl had made himself notably unpopular in the village recently
by his firm--the house-agent said "pig-headed"--attitude in respect
to a certain dispute about a right-of-way.
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