blessing till we have lost it! Now, friends
and neighbours, a little time ago, it seemed as if some ill-will had
crept into the village,--ill-will between you and me, neighbours!--why,
that is not like Hazeldean!"

The audience hung their heads! You never saw people look so thoroughly
ashamed of themselves. The squire proceeded,--

"I don't say it was all your fault; perhaps it was mine."

"Noa, noa, noa," burst forth in a general chorus.

"Nay, friends," continued the squire, humbly, and in one of those
illustrative aphorisms which, if less subtle than Riccabocca's, were
more within reach of the popular comprehension,--"nay, we are all human,
and every man has his hobby; sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and
sometimes the hobby, if it is very hard in the mouth, breaks in him.
One man's hobby has an ill habit of always stopping at the public house!
[Laughter.] Another man's hobby refuses to stir a peg beyond the door
where some buxom lass patted its neck the week before,--a hobby I rode
pretty often when I went courting my good wife here! [Much laughter and
applause.] Others have a lazy hobby that there's no getting on; others,
a runaway hobby that there's no stopping: but to cut the matter short,
my favourite hobby, as you well know, is always trotted out to any place
on my property which seems to want the eye and hand of the master. I
hate," cried the squire, warming, "to see things neglected and decayed,
and going to the dogs! This land we live in is a good mother to us, and
we can't do too much for her. It is very true, neighbours, that I owe
her a good many acres, and ought to speak well of her; but what then? I
live amongst you, and what I take from the rent with one hand, I divide
amongst you with the other. [Low but assenting murmurs.] Now the more I
improve my property, the more mouths it feeds. My great-grandfather kept
a Field-book in which were entered not only the names of all the farmers
and the quantity of land they held, but the average number of the
labourers each employed. My grandfather and father followed his example:
I have done the same. I find, neighbours, that our rents have doubled
since my great-grandfather began to make the book. Ay,--but there are
more than four times the number of labourers employed on the estate, and
at much better wages too! Well, my men, that says a great deal in favour
of improving property, and not letting it go to the dogs. [Applause.]
And therefore, neighbours, yo