ke you popular."

"Lance Mordaunt hinted something like that, but I don't see why people
should grumble," Jim replied. "The marsh is mine."

"Your title's good," Bernard agreed. "Since the ground is not
enclosed, Joseph didn't bother about sporting rights and your neighbors
took it for granted they could shoot a few ducks and snipe when they
liked. The sport's rough for men who shoot hand-reared pheasants, but
there's some satisfaction in killing birds that are really wild."

"There is some satisfaction. The game I've shot was certainly wild; in
fact, I sometimes took steep chances when I missed. When you get after
a bull moose or a cinnamon bear it's prudent to hold straight. Well,
I'd sooner my neighbors liked me, but don't mean to keep my land waste
for them to play on."

Bernard nodded. "You are not afraid of unpopularity? However, I think
I'd have got rid of Shanks, instead of sending him to Bank-end. The
fellow's cunning and there's some ground for believing him revengeful."

"It doesn't look as if he could injure me."

"It might pay to watch him," Bernard rejoined. "Some time since,
Jones, my gamekeeper, caught Tom Shanks and another netting partridges.
It was obvious that old Shanks had helped, but there was some
difficulty about the evidence." Bernard paused, and smiled as he
resumed: "I imagine my friends on the Bench used their best efforts to
convict, but folk seemed to think it prudent not to tell all they knew,
and while Tom Shanks went to jail his father got off. Afterwards Jones
had a remarkable run of bad luck. The young pheasants died about the
coops, his own ferret killed his hens, and he lost a fine setter he was
training. Then he had an adventure one night in a shooting-punt that
ought not to have leaked."

"I'll watch out," said Jim, as he started his car.

He did not think about Shanks as he drove up the avenue, where the
leaves were falling, and down a long hill. In the distance he saw the
Whitelees lights and now and then, farther off, the faint shining of
the sea. Mist that melted and gathered again drifted about the low
ground. Jim's thoughts sometimes dwelt on Evelyn and sometimes on the
marsh. Evelyn was friendly and he had undertaken a big job that he
liked. He was carrying out a duty, honoring a claim his inheritance
made on him; he wanted to leave Langrigg better than he found it. Jim
sprang from a land-owning stock, and felt that since he had got the
estate f