and lonely in the lamplight, with the grey moths hovering
round, and the spaniel John asleep upon his foot.

So, taking his candle, he went up to bed. The doors that barred away the
servants' wing were closed. In all that great remaining space of house
his was the only candle, the only sounding footstep. Slowly he mounted
as he had mounted many thousand times, but never once like this, and
behind him, like a shadow, mounted the spaniel John.

And She that knows the hearts of men and dogs, the Mother from whom all
things come, to whom they all go home, was watching, and presently, when
they were laid, the one in his deserted bed, the other on blue linen,
propped against the door, She gathered them to sleep.

But Wednesday came, and with it Wednesday duties. They who have passed
the windows of the Stoics' Club and seen the Stoics sitting there have
haunting visions of the idle landed classes. These visions will not let
them sleep, will not let their tongues to cease from bitterness, for
they so long to lead that "idle" life themselves. But though in a misty
land illusions be our cherished lot, that we may all think falsely of
our neighbours and enjoy ourselves, the word "idle" is not at all the
word.

Many and heavy tasks weighed on the Squire at Worsted Skeynes. There
was the visit to the stables to decide as to firing Beldame's hock, or
selling the new bay horse because he did not draw men fast enough, and
the vexed question of Bruggan's oats or Beal's, talked out with
Benson, in a leather belt and flannel shirt-sleeves, like a corpulent,
white-whiskered boy. Then the long sitting in the study with memorandums
and accounts, all needing care, lest So-and-so should give too little
for too little, or too little for too much; and the smart walk across
to Jarvis, the head keeper, to ask after the health of the new Hungarian
bird, or discuss a scheme whereby in the last drive so many of those
creatures he had nurtured from their youth up might be deterred from
flying over to his friend Lord Quarryman. And this took long, for
Jarvis's feelings forced him to say six times, "Well, Mr. Pendyce, sir,
what I say is we didn't oughter lose s'many birds in that last drive;"
and Mr. Pendyce to answer: "No, Jarvis, certainly not. Well, what do
you suggest?" And that other grievous question--how to get plenty
of pheasants and plenty of foxes to dwell together in perfect
harmony--discussed with endless sympathy, for, as the Squire woul