Innocent Birds by T. F. Powys

come to.’
    This last remark of Mr. Bugby’s was made to confirm the truth of the advertisement that had brought Lily Parsons, whom Miss Pettifer had turned off without a character, to the Unicorn Inn.
    And now, at Madder, kind fate had shown Mr. Bugby, Maud Chick, who was plimmed and proper too….
    As so interesting a person, who enjoyed so much local fame as the proud possessor of a mystery that frightened the women, stood talking to her, Mrs. Chick smiled pleasantly. She hoped that Mr. Bugby would hire the inn, but at the same time she was forced to tell the history of the house, even though it might send him away again, for she did not know how much he knew of it already.
    ‘’Twere a good house once,’ said Mrs. Chick amiably, because Mr. Bugby now looked at her instead of at the doorway, where Maud had gone in. ‘Folk did come by riding on horses, and did drop in those days, and motors did stop by twos and by threes—but all same, ’twas they wives that did suffer.’
    Mr. Bugby lowered his eyes a little.
    Mrs. Chick blushed.
    Although she wasn’t the kind of lady that his modest fancy liked the best, yet Mr. Bugby saw her as helping in a kind and motherly way—likethe ‘One who set the sun a-burning’—to get him what he wanted. He let her talk, knowing that she wished to. ‘There was poor Mrs. Poole that were took first,’ continued Mrs. Chick, ‘she that did use to carry a big red prayer book to church. Mr. Pink did come to Madder after t’ other were gone, wi’ a maid ’e did call ’is wife, an’ she did wear a ring to prove what ’e did say were right. ’Twas woon of they colds that did carry she off. Mr. Told came next, brother to ’e that do live at Norbury. ’E did take inn for the sound of drink a-running. ’Twas a man that liked thik sound, were Mr. Told. ’E would set all they barrels a-dripping into quart cups, and would lie down in passage to hear they drops a-singing. ’Twas for to amuse ’isself that ’e did come to Madder. Mrs. Told were the woon for open-works. An’ Chick did say to I at bedtime, “’Tain’t I that be the woon to look at what they ladies do show; ’tis to drink beer that I do climb stile in hedge—’tain’t to admire.” But for all ’e did say, ’e know’d they stockings well enough. ’Twas well bucket that did rick she to grave. ’Twere a pity to bury she in they very stockings that Chick did admire.’
    Mr. Bugby smiled. He was glad to hear that there was a well in the garden.
    Mrs. Chick looked across the fields at Madder churchyard. She sighed. She felt sorry that Mrs. Told was dead, because she missed verymuch the merry tales that Mr. Chick used to bring to her from the inn.
    The autumn wind, that had now partly cleared the air of mist, began more than ever to tease the sign of ‘The Silent Woman’ with spiteful gusts, blowing the board first one way and then the other, until it creaked loudly. As Maud didn’t appear again, Mr. Bugby turned from Mrs. Chick, with a look as though he said, ‘You’re only another of them‚’ and, going to the inn door, he unlocked and opened it.
    Inside the house there were signs that the last departure from those doors hadn’t exactly been a merry one, but a silent, as rightly became the name of the inn.
    The wearer of those open-worked stockings being carried away, her husband, Mr. Told, did not wish to return to his music again, and went off to his brother at Norbury to help with the hay crop.
    Mr. Told had tried, the day before the funeral, to catch a new note from a barrel by making drop by drop fall into a pudding basin, but feeling that the beer had lost its harmony, he went upstairs and looked at his wife’s face instead.
    Mr. Bugby sniffed; there was something in the smell of the room that pleased him— something that informed him that death had been there.
    Besides the mugs, and the spiders, and the usual inn furniture, Mr. Bugby noticed, with thenatural interest of the new tenant, that