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which she derives from the neglect of her offspring, and, incidentally, from the destruction of that of her neighbors. It is probably devoted to the more intelligent contemplation of nature, the more refined care of her plumage, the improvement of her voice, and the power of visiting at seasons when so many other birds are kept at home.

Arthur sticks close to the keeper by day and often by night, wondering at the variety of life in the world. Sometimes, in their wanderings through the woods, they come upon huge gibbets whereon the withered bodies of weasels, stoats, rats, hawks, and what not that prey upon the game, swing high and dry in the wind as an awful warning to their kind. And ever at intervals, from distant clumps in the prospect, comes the sharp crack of the gun as some new offender falls.

All day long the under-keepers are on the watch to keep these marauders off the rearing-grounds. And one night Arthur goes out with two of the men to look for poachers. It is a ghostly round. No one speaks as they stalk through the awesome woods in Indian file. No one carries a lethal weapon; the law forbids: the gun is for the day alone. But a stout sapling of oak or blackthorn is still arguable as a walking-stick, and with that they have to be content. "Poachers 'll use their guns soon as look at ye," says a keeper, bitterly, "but us may n't. That 's English law for ye!"

For miles they wander through the dewy grass, with no incident but an occasional snare set by the poacher's jackal in the daytime and as yet unvisited by his employer. The jackal is the vague man, the most familiar figure of the country-side. You may see him every day taking mild refreshment in a corner of the Knuckle of Veal, while his female mate squats outside on the sack which contains all their belongings. Nothing is known of the vague man but that he is one who "won't do a day's work when there is mushrooms about." It is insufficient as a characterization. Mushrooms do not grow all the year round, and the vague man seems to be out of work at all seasons. He looms particularly large now that the game is coming to maturity. He is untroubled by self-respect, and therefore by rancors. When the keepers warn him off their fields, he climbs the fence

without a word, and seems to dissolve over its remoter side. But he has left his snare, perhaps, for all that, and the poachers know where to look for it on the moonless nights.

Suddenly, as the three walk, one of them stumbles over something in the grass, and a shape rises, only, however, to be instantly pinned to the ground again. A timely oath serves to establish its identity with humankind. Three others come to the rescue in a twinkling from behind trees, and the poachers stand confessed. Arthur grasps his cudgel and advances to the assistance of the struggling keeper, but the other holds him back.

"Ware stones, sir! Tim's all right. He's got a look at un, an' that 's all he want. We'll know where to find un to-morrer mornin'."

The words are hardly out of his mouth when some heavy missile makes a close shave of Mr. Gooding's ear, and rebounds, with a thud, from a tree to the ground.

"Get behind the tree, sir! They'll smash your face in. They got their pockets full o' that ammynition, you lay your life."

The next thing is a volley of oaths and stones together; and under cover of it the gang makes off.

"Who was they, lad?"

"Jinkins's lot."

"Wust lot in all this county, sir, bar none. Nearly did for yours truly last year in a public where I was havin' a glass to myself in the tap-room. A put-up job, but they was at the bottom of it. Three fellers, perfect strangers to me, comes in, all of a sudden locks the door, turns out the light, an' then makes tracks for me in the dark. I caught it, I do assure you, sir; but I slipped under the table, an' that kep' off the wust of the shower. When they thought they 'd settled me, they let theirselves out, leavin' me to guess the riddle of a broken rib. The table suffered wust-two legs kicked to splinters."

"You hunted 'em down?"

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were admitted to the ducal presence, and these, again, vouchsafed personal notice to hardly as many more. The agent who had just had the honor of audience passed through the antechamber without deigning a glance to right or left. It was impressive, no doubt; and so, Augusta thought, was that court of the first king of the Medes, where all were forbidden to laugh.

"So is sport," said Mr. Gooding-"trust of the highest officers of the household versus trust." And as he made his way home in the dawn he mused on a passage from one of the historians which he had been expected to turn into Latin prose as part of the examination for his degree: What a fearful price is paid by the English people in order that this splendid aristocracy, with their parks, castles, and shootings and fishings and fox-huntings, their stately and unlimited hospitality, their lettered ease and learned leisure," etc. He made a mess of the Latin, but the attempt served to fix the English in his memory, and that was the main point.

XXI

THE duke and his wife-the "family," as Slocum always called them on these occasions-arrived in a few days.

Augusta's sense of responsibility for her second and decisive county season was deepened by a keener sense of her husband's importance. In London he was still, in a sense, one of the crowd. At Allonby he commanded homage as well as respect. The very porter that opened the door of his railway-carriage hurried through the operation as though in sign of a duke's exemption from the toll of tips. Seen in his proper setting as noble, as lord lieutenant of his county, and as only Burke and the recording angel knew what besides, he was manifestly a magnate of the first rank. You would have found his territorial mark of occupancy on maps of the planet in which they think nothing of crowding a settlement of five millions into a dot. His grandeur seemed to be heightened by the quietism which, on his return, he had resumed as a sort of second nature, and which was in impressive contrast to the strenuousness of Augusta's spirit. He seemed to belong to some fabled race that moved without friction of the nerves, and prevailed only by the irresistible compulsion of silent and hidden forces.

The bustle of stately business that ensued on their arrival was still something of a new experience for the duchess. She was, of course, not wholly ignorant of the peculiarity which makes our older societies, seen from above, but a descending scale in parasitism, and, from below, a Jacob's ladder leaning on the stars. But here was the system in full view. Only one or two

The duke seemed to find a certain comfort in it. He was at least among his own people. Everybody knew him at Allonby, though he was not always able to return the compliment. In London he was still as obscure, in most part, as the calif in a midnight ramble. Lordship is sometimes too impersonal in these days. He had once been much amused, when taking the number of an impudent driver, to find his own cipher and coronet on the door of the cab. As figurehead of a hackney-carriage company, he owned this insignificant person, and could have crushed him with a word. He did not speak the word, because his good nature shrank from the thought of its devastating effects. But the offense was grave. He might have extended his drive by at least thirty yards for the shilling which he had tendered in payment of his fare. Yet, as he alighted at the door of his club, he was followed by the scornful cry, "There yer go, to enj'y yerself at my expense!'

Augusta turned with still fuller relief to the more human associations of the village. The Herions were naturally first in her thoughts. She had more than once determined to hear the other side of the story of their exodus. As it stood in the casual notice of Mary Liddicot's postscript, it was an act of rebellion. George had been "disrespectful to the agent,". as though a midge had wantonly arraigned the splendor of the sun,-and he had rashly thrown up a profitable calling for the fatuous dream of a "fortune in London." So had Mr. Raif reported, and so, without giving a second thought to it, had Mary written. What was the truth?

Augusta soon found her way to the cottage in which the two mothers had clubbed their fortunes to make a home for Rose and George. They received her with the profoundest respect, yet at first, characteristically, without a single word on the subject which was nearest to their hearts. They were too much afraid of her for that. After

all, she was still one of the "betters" who had dealt the blow.

It do seem a powerful long time sence your Grace went away, sure-ly." "Yes, and what changes!" "Aye-at the war, loike ?"

And she added gently: "But why did they ever go away?

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Because they was druv," cried the old woman, simply, and with a touch of revolt in her tone.

'Oh, no, I assure you," said Augusta, in

"No, at Slocum; the village seems hardly her haste to console; "I know all the facts." the same."

"Oh, that parish council! They'll niver get beyand the well-water. Your Grace need n't be afraid."

Tabby Edmer, as she was called, had held the parable hitherto; but now old Phoebe Herion broke in with vehemence : "I wish they was at the bottom of the well! They bin the curse o' the place."

"Hush!" said her mate, reprovingly, and then burst into tears.

"Tell me all about it," said the duchess, taking a chair.

"Oh, your Grace," cried Tabby, "they 're gone, they 're gone-out of all sight and knowledge-lost i' London! Look 'ee here." She drew from her pocket a returned letter, marked officially, “Gone away."

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'What, your children? That's nothing -only a change of lodging. They'll soon write again."

"It's bad luck, your Grace. I know my gell. She's 'shamed of some trouble; that's her sperrit."

"Shame for you!" said Phoebe, turning like some vexed animal on her mate. "Shame for you, to think your own flesh an' blood would n't have no feelin' for your trouble, too."

"Then she 's ill or dead," returned the other, quickly. "There, now; you 've said it yersel'!"

An' my boy, too, then," faltered Phoebe, yielding to the pitiless logic of the case. Whereat the two bereaved Rachels lifted up their voices together in a lamentation that filled their little four-square world with

woe.

"There may be some mistake," said the duchess.

"No mistake, your Grace," wailed Tabby. "Read the prenting, 'O.H.M.S.''On Her Majesty's Sarvice'; it's from the Queen. The first letter in all my loife I 've iver 'ad thrown back at me in that way. I know she was hidin' somethin' all along. But that's her sperrit-never give in. Oh, they 're lost! they 're lost!"

And then she stopped and bit her lip with
the mortifying reflection that she did not
know a single one of them for which she
could vouch.
of grop-

"You see," she went on, by way
ing toward the light, "George was dissatis-
fied with his life here, though I thought
he was doing so well."

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'Dissatisfied! Your Grace, he was makin' his fortune. Saved eighteen bright sovereigns 'n less 'an half a year."

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'God forgi'e me! but some un 's bin tellin' lies," said Tabby.

"I want the whole story from the beginning," said Augusta, sternly. "Right here." Still they could not tell it; they were too much in awe of their visitor. These acquired habits of deference often cut clean athwart nature's rights. It is sometimes easier with this class to die than to offend a superior with a too intrusive claim.

So Augusta had to proceed by crossexamination.

"Was he not disrespectful to the agent?" "Never spoke a word to the agent, or about un, all the days of his loife."

Augusta was still stern. "Please do me the favor to treat me as a fellow-creature, if we are to get on."

Plain speaking being now the line of least resistance, Phoebe said: "Then you'd better have the truth about it-duchess as y' are. He wur clean hunted out of the place for raisin' 's voice at the 'lection. Gentlefolks won't stand that in their 'earts, though they make believe not to mind. You can't understand-how should ye? You're a woman from over the sea. George wur a fool, an' spoke up, an' they 've ruined 'im. Now turn me out on the roadside, if you like, 's well 's 'im. I doan' much care."

Augusta jumped up, and, kissing them. both where they stood in dutiful pose before her, drew them to her side on the old dimity-covered sofa. And there, duchess no longer, but just woman to woman, she

"We 'll find them again," said Augusta. heard the whole dismal story-Kisbye's

"mark" on George because of his little outburst on the night of the visit of the van; the agent's "mark" for the crime of leavening the parish council with a Radical candidate. The pair had well-nigh all the talking to themselves; their visitor hardly spoke a word, except to ask for a name or a date. And she was still as sparing of speech when the tale was done. She merely hurried back to the castle, and went straight to her husband's room.

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And why not every day after it, too?" he said gallantly. It was inevitable, with his feeling for her and his breeding combined. His brief training as a husband, however, had not left him free from misgivings of a kind. A blue diamond is a vain thing, my Augusta, but still—”

"A blue diamond?" "You've been reading that nonsense in this morning's paper."

"No; only listening to two old women." "Much the same thing, I should say. It's an heirloom; and how do we know it is in the market?"

"True enough," she said, by way of taking him in his humor. "But something else may do."

"Well, let me know the worst."

"A little act of justice-of reparation," she said; "a poor insignificant thingsmaller than the diamond, I dare say. You see, I want to let you down as gently as I can."

"Perhaps I'm going to wish it was the diamond, after all. Reparation for what?"

"You remember the Herions, Rose and George? You know I told you about them -the village wedding?

"I remember everything you tell me, of course; only sometimes I 'm a little dense about names. Anybody wanting a place?"

"That's just it. Oh, you do guess things so beautifully! They 've been driven out

of their place in Slocum, and I want to bring them back."

"My dear Augusta, my finite intelligence can hardly take note of the fall of a sparrow. 'Driven out'! I thought they were here still-if I thought anything about it, I am obliged to say. What is it-want of house-room or anything of that sort? We can soon set that right, if it will please you."

"Henry, they have managed to offend the agent, from no fault of theirs, and they are ruined."

His face darkened slightly. "That 's rather a different matter. I don't like to interfere."

"Yet if it was all a wretched mistake?" "Of course; but-what the deuce is it all about, I wonder?" he added a little peevishly, and pushing the papers back in real earnest this time.

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Something about the election." "What election? There are so many of them."

"The-the parish council, don't you call it?"

"Scent recovered," he said, with a smile of relief. "My dear, what do I know about that? Yes, I do know something, after all. Was n't your swain the one who had his hand to the plow and looked back in his pride to organize an 'opposition to the castle'?"

"I dare say."

The words meant a good deal, and they both felt it. But she added nothing to them, and he saw that it was his turn next. 'He might have contrived to be civil to the agent."

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'Henry, he never spoke one word to the agent, or about the agent."

"I am obliged to leave these matters to Willocks," he said, looking wearily at his papers again. "One thing I am quite sure of: he acted for what he thought the best in the interests of the estate."

"Do you think I would have troubled you with all this if I had not convinced myself that the mistake was on our side?"

Her tone betrayed a secret and a more searching pang. The sense of injustice was bad enough; but, human nature being what it is, here was something worse. She had expressed a wish, and a man had hesitated to gratify it. She had never before been thwarted in that way. It was a new experience for her, both as bride and as woman.

"It is hard," she said coldly. He could not wholly miss her meaning, though the more intimate part of it escaped him still.

"Pride goeth before a fall,'" she added; "but I thought I had been so careful."

This quickened his apprehension. "Augusta, what is it you want me to do?"

"To stand fair between them and the man who has wronged them in your name.' Her very pride now forbade the slightest allusion to the more delicate point.

"Augusta, you don't quite understand. There is more in it than you think. We must know our own minds."

"We must do justice."

"As much as you like, but the larger justice. What are we here who have England in our charge-ten thousand, or a hundred thousand, I don't care which? A handful. Where should we be, and the country with us, if we could be made to sing small by any bumpkin fresh from his first pamphlet on the right way to govern about a fifth of the human race? That's what it comes to, in the long run, though this one's only beginning with his own parish. We hold on just by mere prestige. I am not now talking about what the penny papers call society. I'm talking of the whole thing, if you will have it so-the fabric of a thousand years. It is still a government for the people instead of by them-with all imaginable respect for the Parish Councils Act."

She was bitterly disappointed. So this was one of the implications of the part to which she had been disposed to take so kindly! This was the romance of the feudal relation on its business side.

"Oh, Henry, we want air here. It can't last."

"It has lasted pretty well," he said. "Yes, too long, I'm afraid. We are still playing at being in the middle ages, and without conviction, too. We're grownup children now: we must change our toys with the times."

"Toys!"

"These heights of worship and honor, those depths of reverence and submission. Do let us help people to feel that they 're alive."

her feudal part? There seemed so much to be said for paternal government when it was of the right sort. The duke's duchess had naturally liked to think so, since it gave her her opportunity (dear to every woman) as earthly Providence. The contrast with what she had left behind was so refreshing. How exquisite to have about one fellow-creatures trained for the petting, instead of a set of wild things of the wood whose only wish was to have you out of the way! So she had come to hold place and power in the Primrose League, to patronize local charities, to be a sort of mother of her people within the domain. I never thought of that," she said, more to herself than to him.

"Another riddle, Augusta?" "Well, that our power to keep meant so much power to hinder and hurt."

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"Well, be as generous as you can."

"I suppose we've got to be everlastingly trying to master people in this weary old life. Still, we might all start fair. It's such a wayward sort of handicap here!"

"Which the same you might rise to explain."

"The inherited deference-the peak of the cap an institution, almost an act of faith! The paltry village education in manhood and womanhood! The social system a sort of worship of ancestors, and mostly other people's ancestors at that! The pettiness of it all-my God, the pettiness! Anything rather than that, even the fierce millions all straining at the leash for they know not what, but at least for the good of muscle and nerve."

He was nettled. "Why not? Authority must be maintained, worse luck for those who are rather tired of their share of the

"You seemed to like the toys, Augusta, work. Is it really different, do you think, when you began the game." anywhere else in the world?"

The reproach stung her, for it was true. Had she not taken a little too readily to

LXVI.-6

She took up the challenge. "Perhaps there are places where they leave both

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