ure seemed
doubly beautiful. The sun slanted over the water in the gardens in bars
of green and gold. The bright new leaves were on the trees, and the
morning dew had brought with it the smell of the living earth. We passed
the stream of market wagons lumbering along, pulled by sturdy, patient
farm-horses, driven by smocked countrymen, who touched their caps to the
fine gentlemen of the court end of town; who shook their heads and
exchanged deep tones over the whims of quality, unaccountable as the
weather. But one big-chested fellow arrested his salute, a scowl came
over his face, and he shouted back to the wagoner whose horses were
munching his hay:

"Hi, Jeems, keep down yere hands. Mr. Fox is noo friend of we."

This brought a hard smile on Mr. Fox's face.

"I believe, Richard," he said, "I have become more detested than any man
in Parliament."

"And justly," I replied; "for you have fought all that is good in you."

"I was mobbed once, in Parliament Street. I thought they would kill me.
Have you ever been mobbed, Richard?" he asked indifferently.

"Never, I thank Heaven," I answered fervently.

"I think I would rather be mobbed than indulge in any amusement I know
of," he continued. "Than confound Wedderburn, or drive a measure against
Burke,--which is no bad sport, my word on't. I would rather be mobbed
than have my horse win at Newmarket. There is a keen pleasure you wot
not of, my lad, in listening to Billingsgate and Spitalfields howl
maledictions upon you. And no sensation I know of is equal to that of
the moment when the mud and sticks and oranges are coming through the
windows of your coach, when the dirty weavers are clutching at your
ruffles and shaking their filthy fists under your nose."

"It is, at any rate, strictly an aristocratic pleasure," I assented,
laughing.

So we came to Holland House. Its wide fields of sprouting corn, its
woods and pastures and orchards in blossom, were smiling that morning, as
though Leviathan, the town, were not rolling onward to swallow them.
Lord Holland had bought the place from the Warwicks, with all its
associations and memories. The capped towers and quaint facades and
projecting windows were plain to be seen from where we halted in the
shaded park, and to the south was that Kensington Road we had left, over
which all the glory and royalty of England at one time or another had
rolled. Under these majestic oaks and cedars Cromwell and Ireton had
stood while