Greshamsbury, and Lady Arabella did go to London
for some period in each year, and the family expenses were by no
means lessened.

The kennels, however, were now again empty. Two years previous to the
time at which our story begins, the hounds had been carried off to
the seat of some richer sportsman. This was more felt by Mr Gresham
than any other misfortune which he had yet incurred. He had been
master of hounds for ten years, and that work he had at any rate done
well. The popularity among his neighbours which he had lost as a
politician he had regained as a sportsman, and he would fain have
remained autocratic in the hunt, had it been possible. But he so
remained much longer than he should have done, and at last they went
away, not without signs and sounds of visible joy on the part of Lady
Arabella.

But we have kept the Greshamsbury tenantry waiting under the
oak-trees by far too long. Yes; when young Frank came of age there
was still enough left at Greshamsbury, still means enough at the
squire's disposal, to light one bonfire, to roast, whole in its skin,
one bullock. Frank's virility came on him not quite unmarked, as
that of the parson's son might do, or the son of the neighbouring
attorney. It could still be reported in the Barsetshire Conservative
_Standard_ that "The beards wagged all" at Greshamsbury, now as they
had done for many centuries on similar festivals. Yes; it was so
reported. But this, like so many other such reports, had but a shadow
of truth in it. "They poured the liquor in," certainly, those who
were there; but the beards did not wag as they had been wont to wag
in former years. Beards won't wag for the telling. The squire was at
his wits' end for money, and the tenants one and all had so heard.
Rents had been raised on them; timber had fallen fast; the lawyer
on the estate was growing rich; tradesmen in Barchester, nay, in
Greshamsbury itself, were beginning to mutter; and the squire himself
would not be merry. Under such circumstances the throats of a
tenantry will still swallow, but their beards will not wag.

"I minds well," said Farmer Oaklerath to his neighbour, "when the
squoire hisself comed of age. Lord love 'ee! There was fun going that
day. There was more yale drank then than's been brewed at the big
house these two years. T'old squoire was a one'er."

"And I minds when squoire was borned; minds it well," said an old
farmer sitting opposite. "Them was the days! It an't that l