was a long joke after all--the bailiff always had a queer way with him.
Or, if indeed the man meant robbery, loudly to threaten him, that all
might hear, to bring the house about his ears, and force justice, if he
could not fawn it. But both these conflicting expedients were vetoed.
Jonathan Floyd, who took in Acton's meek message of "humbly craved leave
to speak with Master Jennings," came back with the inexplicable mandate,
"Warn Roger Acton from the premises." So, he must needs bide till
to-morrow morning, when, come what might, he resolved to see his honour,
and set some truths before him.

Acton was not the only man on the estate who knew that he had a
landlord, generous, not to say prodigal--a warm-hearted,
well-intentioned master, whose mere youth a career of sensuality had not
yet hardened, nor a course of dissipation been prolonged enough to
distort his feelings from the right. And Acton, moreover, was not the
only man who wondered how, with such a landlord (ay, and the guardians
before him were always well-spoken gentle-folks, kindly in their
manners, and liberal in their looks), wages could be kept so low, and
rents so high, and indulgences so few, and penalties so many. There
were fines for every thing, and no allowances of hedgebote, or
housebote, or any other time-honoured right; the very peat on the common
must be paid for, and if a child picked a bit of fagot the father was
mulcted in a shilling. Mr. Jennings did all this, and always pleaded his
employers' orders; nay, if any grumbled, as men would now and then, he
would affect to think it strange that the gentlemen guardians, with the
landlord at their head, could be so hard upon the poor: he would not be
so, credit him, if he had been born a gentleman; but the bailiff, men,
must obey orders, like the rest of you; these are hard times for
Hurstley, he would say, and we must all rub over them as best we can.
According to Simon, it was as much as his own place was worth to remit
one single penny of a fine, or make the least indulgence for calamity;
while, as to lowering a cotter's rent, or raising a ditcher's wages, he
dared not do it for his life; folks must not blame him, but look to the
landlord.

Now, all this, in the long absence of any definite resident master at
the Hall, sounded reasonable, if true; and Mr. Jennings punctually paid,
however bad the terms; so the poor men bode their time, and looked for
better days. And the days long-looked-for n