some landed proprietor. I'd
never have come home if it hadn't been for the old people. They thought
chauffering for Mr. Jervaise would be a chance for me! Anyhow my father
did. He's got the feeling of being dependent. It's in his bones like it is
with, all of 'em--on the estate. It's a tradition. Lord, the old man would
be horrified, if he knew! The Jervaises are a sort of superior creation to
him. We've been their tenants for God knows how many hundred years. And
serfs before that, I suppose. I get the feeling myself, sometimes. It's
infectious. When you see every one kow-towing to old Jervaise as if he
were the angel Gabriel, you begin to feel as if there must be something in
it."

The full day had come, and the cold draught of air that had preceded the
sunrise came now from behind me as if the spirits of the air had
discovered that their panic-stricken flight had been a mistake and were
tentatively returning to inquire into the new conditions. The birds were
fully awake now, and there was a tremendous gossiping and chattering going
on, that made me think of massed school-children in a railway station,
twittering with the excitement of their coming excursion. In the
North-East the gray wall of mist was losing the hardness of its edge, and
behind the cloud the sky was bleaching to an ever paler blue.

"And yet," I said, as my companion paused, "the Jervaises aren't anything
particular as a family. They haven't done anything, even in the usual way,
to earn ennoblement or fame."

"They've squatted," Banks said, "that's what they've done. Set themselves
down here in the reign of Henry II., and sat tight ever since--grabbing
commons and so on, now and again, in the usual way, of course. The village
is called after them, Thorp-Jervaise, and the woods and the hills, and
half the labourers in the neighbourhood have got names like Jarvey and
Jarvis. What I mean is that the Jervaises mayn't be of any account in
London, or even in the county, alongside of families like Lord
Garthorne's; but just round here they're the owners and always have been
since there have been any private owners. Their word's law. If you don't
like it, you can get out, and that's all there is about it." He gazed
thoughtfully in front of him and thrust out his lower lip. "I've got to
get out," he added, "unless..."

I hesitated to prompt him, fearing the possibly inquisitive sound of the
most indirect question, and after what I felt was a very pregnant