than the
generation which now resorted to it, stood boldly and nakedly out by the
roadside.

"Is this the village of Rood?" asked Frank of a stout young man breaking
stones on the road--sad sign that no better labour could be found for
him!

The man sullenly nodded, and continued his work. "And where's the
Hall--Mr. Leslie's?"

The man looked up in stolid surprise, and this time touched his hat.

"Be you going there?"

"Yes, if I can find out where it is."

"I'll show your honour," said the boor, alertly.

Frank reined in the pony, and the man walked by his side. Frank was
much of his father's son, despite the difference of age, and that more
fastidious change of manner which characterizes each succeeding race
in the progress of civilization. Despite all his Eton finery, he was
familiar with peasants, and had the quick eye of one country-born as to
country matters.

"You don't seem very well off in this village, my man?" said he,
knowingly.

"Noa; there be a deal of distress here in the winter time, and summer
too, for that matter; and the parish ben't much help to a single man."

"But surely the farmers want work here as well as elsewhere?"

"'Deed, and there ben't much farming work here,--most o' the parish be
all wild ground loike."

"The poor have a right of common, I suppose," said Frank, surveying a
large assortment of vagabond birds and quadrupeds.

"Yes; neighbour Timmins keeps his geese on the common, and some has
a cow, and them be neighbour Jowlas's pigs. I don't know if there's a
right, loike; but the folks at the Hall does all they can to help us,
and that ben't much: they ben't as rich as some folks; but," added the
peasant, proudly, "they be as good blood as any in the shire."

"I 'm glad to see you like them, at all events."

"Oh, yes, I likes them well eno'; mayhap you are at school with the
young gentleman?"

"Yes," said Frank.

"Ah, I heard the clergyman say as how Master Randal was a mighty clever
lad, and would get rich some day. I 'se sure I wish he would, for a poor
squire makes a poor parish. There's the Hall, sir."

CHAPTER III.

Frank looked right ahead, and saw a square house that, in spite of
modern sash windows, was evidently of remote antiquity. A high conical
roof; a stack of tall quaint chimney-pots of red-baked clay (like
those at Sutton Place in Surrey) dominating over isolated vulgar
smoke-conductors, of the ignoble fashion of present times; a dilapidate