To begin with, let me describe myself. I am an ordinary quiet-living
obscure person, neither exalted nor lowly, who, having tired of town,
took a little place in the country and there settled down to a life of
placidity, varied by such inroads upon ease as all back-to-the-landers
know: now a raid on the chickens by a fox, whose humour it is not to
devour but merely to decapitate; now the disappearance of the gardener
at Lord Derby's coat-tails; now a flood; and now and continually a
desire on the part of the cook to give a month's notice, if you please,
and the consequent resumption of correspondence with the registry
office. There you have the main lines of the existence not only of
myself, but of thousands of other English rural recluses. But for such
little difficulties I have been happy--a Cincinnatus ungrumbling.
The new fly entered the ointment about three weeks ago, when a parcel
was brought to me by a footman from the Priory, some three miles away,
with a message to the effect that it had been delivered there and opened
in error. They were of course very sorry.