the scientific movement, the cry for science among
the farmers. He founded a scholarship, invited the professors to his
place, lunched them, let them experiment on little pieces of land,
mournful-looking plots. Nothing came of it. He drew a design for a
new cottage himself, a practical plain place. The builders told him
it was far dearer to put up than ornamental but inconvenient
structures. Thardover sunk his money his own way, and very
comfortable cottages they were. Ground-game he had kept down for
years before the Act. Farm-buildings he had improved freely. The
education movement, however, stirred him most. He went into it
enthusiastically. Thardover village was one of the first places to
become efficient under the new legislation. This was a piece of
practical work after his own heart. Generally, legislative measures
were so far off from country people. They affected the condition of
large towns, of the Black Country, of the weavers or miners, distant
folk. To the villages and hamlets of purely agricultural districts
these Acts had no existence. The Education Act was just the reverse.
This was a statute which came right down into the hamlets, which was
nailed up at the cross-roads, and ruled the barn, the plough, and
scythe. Something tangible, that could be carried out and made into
a fact--something he could do. Thardover did it with the
thoroughness of his nature. He found the ground, lent the money, saw
to the building, met the Government inspectors, and organized the
whole. A committee of the tenants were the ostensible authority, the
motive-power was the Squire. He worked at it till it was completely
organized, for he felt as if he were helping to mould the future of
this great country. Broad-minded himself, he understood the immense
value of education, looked at generally; and he thought, too, that
by its aid the farmer and the landowner might be enabled to compete
with the foreigner, who was driving them from the market. No
speeches and no agitation could equal the power concentrated in that
plain school-house; there was nothing from which he hoped so much.

Only one held aloof and showed hostility to the movement, or rather
to the form it took. His youngest and favourite daughter, Mary, the
artist, rebelled against it. Hitherto she had ruled him as she
choose. She had led in every kind act--acts too kind to be called
charity. She had been the life of the place. Perhaps it was the
strong-minded women whom