He was that most despicable of created beings , a male gossip , and he spent most of his time travelling from house to house in the village , smoking his pipe in neighbourly kitchens and fanning into an active blaze all the smouldering feuds of the place . He had been nicknamed `` The Morning Chronicle '' by a sarcastic schoolteacher who had sojourned a winter at the Corner . The name was an apt one and clung . Telford had heard it . I suppose he is starting out on his rounds now , he thought . Galletly plunged undauntedly into the conversational gap . `` Quite a fall of snow last night . Reckon we 'll have more ` fore long . That was a grand sermon ye gave us last Sunday , Mr. Telford . Reckon it went home to some folks , judgin ' from all I 've heard . It was needed and that 's a fact . ` Live peaceably with all men ' -- that 's what I lay out to do . There ai n't a house in the district but what I can drop into and welcome . ` Tai n't everybody in Rykman 's Corner can say the same . '' Galletly squinted out of the corner of his eye to see if the minister would open on the trail of this hint . Telford 's passive face was discouraging but Galletly was not to be baffled . `` I s ` pose ye have n't heard about the row down at Palmers ' last night ? '' `` No . '' The monosyllable was curt . Telford was vainly seeking to nip Galletly 's gossip in the bud .
The name of Palmer conveyed no especial meaning XXXXX his ear .
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