n pattered in on the rotting bride-bed,
And the walls let in the day;

'"When we lay in the burning fever
On the mud of the cold clay floor,
Till you parted us all for three months, squire,
At the cursed workhouse door.

"'We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders?
What self-respect could we keep,
Worse housed than your hacks and your pointers,
Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep?"'

'And yet he has the impudence to say he don't mean me!' grumbled the
old man. Tregarva winced a good deal--as if he knew what was coming
next; and then looked up relieved when he found Lancelot had omitted
a stanza--which I shall not omit.

'"Our daughters with base-born babies
Have wandered away in their shame;
If your misses had slept, squire, where they did,
Your misses might do the same.

"'Can your lady patch hearts that are breaking
With handfuls of coals and rice,
Or by dealing out flannel and sheeting
A little below cost price?

"'You may tire of the gaol and the workhouse,
And take to allotments and schools,
But you've run up a debt that will never
Be repaid us by penny-club rules.

'"In the season of shame and sadness,
In the dark and dreary day
When scrofula, gout, and madness,
Are eating your race away;

"'When to kennels and liveried varlets
You have cast your daughters' bread;
And worn out with liquor and harlots,
Your heir at your feet lies dead;

"'When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector,
Lets your soul rot asleep to the grave,
You will find in your God the protector
Of the freeman you fancied your slave."

'She looked at the tuft of clover,
And wept till her heart grew light;
And at last, when her passion was over,
Went wandering into the night.

'But the merry brown hares came leaping
Over the uplands still,
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
On the side of the white chalk hill.'

'Surely, sir,' said Lancelot, 'you cannot suppose that this latter
part applies to you. or your family?'

'If it don't, it applies to half the gentlemen in the vale, and
that's just as bad. What right has the fellow to speak evil of
dignities?' continued he, quoting the only text in the Bible which
he was inclined to make a 'rule absolute.' 'What does such an
insolent dog deserve? What don't he deserve, I say?'

'I think,' quoth Lancelot, ambiguously, 'that a man who can write
such ballads is not fit to be your gamekeeper