onished to hear a shabby old ogre break out at them in
profane language because of their intrusion upon his domains, and they
would be still more astonished when making complaints about the conduct
of this disreputable person, to find that it was the Duke himself.

At that time the use of a traction-engine in agriculture was somewhat of
a novelty, and because it was different from the appliances generally
used by farmers, was a recommendation to the Duke.

It was nine o'clock one night when he said to his haymakers: "Take the
carts home and bring another load with the engine."

"Excuse me, your Grace," said one, "If the engine is made of steel and
iron I'm not. I'm tired out."

"Well, perhaps you are, go home then," came the order, which is
testimony to the consideration he had for his employees when he was
addressed in a manly, straightforward way.

There was a grotesque procession one day at a farm on the Welbeck
estate. It was a rainy summer, and the farmers were at their wits'-ends
to know how they were to secure their hay in anything like good
condition.

The Duke was not a man to be beaten by the weather; he defied it; he was
determined to have his grass in the rickyard, wet or dry. So the order
went forth that his traction-engine and waggons were to be ready for
carrying it on a certain day.

There was to be no shirking, for the Duke's intention was to be with his
men to see that the work was done. So he went to the farm in his long
brown cape and high silk hat and an umbrella which might have done duty
for Hans William Bentinck in the swamps of Holland.

The harvesters filled the waggons in a downpour of rain and the
cavalcade started for the homestead. There were three or four waggons
behind the engine, and in the last, lo and behold, sat his Grace, grim,
silent and self-satisfied that the elements had no terrors for him.

What a life his was to lead; he was a veritable prisoner, having himself
for a warder.

The special apartment used by him in the daytime was fitted with a
trap-door in the floor, by which he could descend to the regions below,
and thus roam about his underground tunnels without the servants knowing
whether he was in the house or had left it. By means of this trap-door,
after walking to some distant part of his estate and astonishing his
workmen there, he could re-appear in the Abbey as mysteriously as he had
left it.

The apartment with the trap-door had another door opening into