ay of going about, and it used to make me jump when
I happened to look round, and saw him standing quietly behind me when
I thought I was quite alone. However, as soon as I became accustomed to
him, I got over all that, and now I would not lose him for anything; he
seems to know instinctively what I want. He is excellent as a waiter and
valet; I should feel almost lost without him now; and the clumping about
of an English man servant would annoy me as much as his noiseless way of
going about did at first. He has come to speak English very fairly. Of
course, my brother always talked to him in his own tongue; still, he had
picked up enough English for me to get on with; now he speaks it quite
fluently. When I have nothing whatever for him to do he devotes himself
to my little ward. She is very fond of him, and it is quite pretty to
see them together in the garden. Altogether, I would not part with him
for anything."

For some years life passed uneventfully at Crowswood. It was seldom
indeed that the Squire's authority was needed to set matters right in
the village. The substitution of good farmers for shiftless ones in
some of the farms, and the better cultivation generally, had given
more employment; and as John Thorndyke preferred keeping two or three
cottages shut up rather than have them occupied by men for whom no work
could be found, it was rare indeed that there were any complaints
of scarcity of work, except, indeed, on the part of the Rector, who
declared that, what with the healthiness of the village and the absence
of want, his occupation, save for the Sunday duty, was a sinecure. Mr.
Bastow was more happy and much brighter than he had been for many years.
The occupation of teaching suited him, and he was able to make the work
pleasant to his pupil as well as to himself; indeed, it occupied but a
small portion of the day, the amount of learning considered necessary
at the time not being extensive. A knowledge of Greek was thought
quite superfluous for a country gentleman. Science was in its infancy,
mathematics a subject only to be taken up by those who wanted to obtain
a college fellowship. Latin, however, was considered an essential, and a
knack of apt quotation from the Latin poets an accomplishment that
every man who was a member of society or aspired to enter Parliament
was expected to possess. Thus Mark Thorndyke's lessons lasted but two or
three hours a day, and the school term was a movable period, accor