tenacity with which he held to the consequences. His mind was
chiefly occupied with a small farm acquired out of the sand waste,
hedged about, dressed and cultivated, and increasing annually in
value. In this was his interest and pride; he cared nothing for
the tavern, save as an adjunct to the farm. All his energies were
devoted to the latter, and he allowed his wife to rule supreme in
the inn. Simon Verstage was a well-to-do man. He must have managed
very ill had he not made a farm answer for which he paid no rent,
save an acknowledgment of 6d. an acre to the lord of the manor. He
held the land on a head rent upon the lives of himself, his wife,
and his son. The public-house, well frequented by wayfarers, and
in good repute among the villagers, supplemented the profits made
out of the farm in good years, and made up for deficit in such
years as rain and deficiency in sun made bad agriculturally.

The inn stood at a junction of roads, or rather where two lanes
fell into the main London and Portsmouth road. It sometimes went
in consequence by the name of The Lane End Inn. In situation it
was fairly sheltered, a hillock of sand rock sheltered it on the
east from the bitter winds that swept the waste between Milford
and Thursley, and a growth of huge hollies was its protection
against the equally cold blasts from the north.

So long as Iver was a small boy, his father employed him about
the farm, to assist him in ploughing, to hoe potatoes, and wield
the muck-fork in the cow-house, or, to use the local term, the
cow-stall. He kept the lad hard at work from morning rise till set
of day.

Iver endured this, not entering with interest and pleasure into
the work of the farm. He had no perception of the points of a
bullock, and he had a prejudice in favor of ragged hedges.

Iver's neglect of duties, and forgetfulness of what was told him,
called forth reprimand and provoked chastisement. They were not
due to wilfulness or frivolity, but to preoccupation of the mind.
The boy had no natural taste for the labors of the field. He
disliked them; for everything else he had eyes, save for that
which pertained to the tasks imposed on him.

Throughout early boyhood this lack of interest and inattention had
caused much friction, and this friction became aggravated as he
grew older, and his natural bent became more marked.

It would be hard to find in one family two persons so utterly
dissimilar as Iver and his father. They seem