The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol — Read

It was with a feeling of great relief that I watched the fellow out of sight; nevertheless his very presence seemed to have left a blight upon all things, for he, viewing matters with the material eye of Common-sense, had, thereby, contaminated them -- even the air seemed less pure and sweet than it had been heretofore, so that, glancing over my shoulder, I was glad to see that Charmian had re-entered the cottage.

"Here," said I to myself, "here is Common-sense in the shape of a half-witted peddling fellow, blundering into Arcadia, in the shape of a haunted cottage, a woman, and a man. Straightway our Pedler, being Common-sense, misjudges us -- as, indeed, would every other common-sense individual the world over; for Arcadia, being of itself abstract and immaterial, is opposed to, and incapable of being understood by concrete common-sense, and always will be -- and there's the rub! And yet," said I, "thanks to the Wanderer of the Roads, who built this cottage and hanged himself here, and thanks to a Highland Scot who performed wonderfully on the bagpipes, there is little chance of any common-sense vagrant venturing near Arcadia again -- at least until the woman is gone, or the man is gone, or -- "