Every village seems to possess its share of quaint, curious people; but
I cannot help thinking that our little hamlet has a more varied
assortment of oddities than is usually to be met with in so small
a place.

First of all there is the man whom nobody ever sees. Although he has
lived in robust health for the past twenty years in the very centre of
the hamlet, his face is unknown to half the inhabitants. Twice only has
the writer set eyes on him. When a political contest is proceeding, he
becomes comparatively bold; at such times he has even been met with in
the bar of the village "public," where he has been known to sit
discussing the chances of the candidates like any ordinary being. But an
election is absolutely necessary if this strange individual is to be
drawn out of his hiding-place. The only other occasion on which we have
set eyes on him was on a lovely summer's evening, just after sunset: we
observed him peeping at us over a hedge, for all the world like the
"Spectator" when he was staying with Sir Roger de Coverley. He is
supposed to come out at sunset, like the foxes and the bats, and has
been seen in the distance on bright moonlight nights striding over the
Cotswold uplands. If any one approach him, he hurries away in the
opposite direction; yet he is not queer in the head, but strong and in
the prime of life.

Then there is that very common character "the village impostor." After
having been turned away by half a dozen different farmers, because he
never did a stroke of work, he manages to get on the sick-list at the
"great house." Long after his ailment has been cured he will be seen
daily going up to the manor house for his allowance of meat; somehow or
other he "can't get a job nohow." The fact is, he has got the name of