d say,
"Jarvis is quite safe with foxes." He could not bear his covers to be
drawn blank.

Then back to a sparing lunch, or perhaps no lunch at all, that he might
keep fit and hard; and out again at once on horseback or on foot to the
home farm or further, as need might take him, and a long afternoon, with
eyes fixed on the ribs of bullocks, the colour of swedes, the surfaces
of walls or gates or fences.

Then home again to tea and to the Times, which had as yet received
but fleeting glances, with close attention to all those Parliamentary
measures threatening, remotely, the existing state of things, except, of
course, that future tax on wheat so needful to the betterment of Worsted
Skeynes. There were occasions, too, when they brought him tramps to deal
with, to whom his one remark would be, "Hold out your hands, my man,"
which, being found unwarped by honest toil, were promptly sent to gaol.
When found so warped, Mr. Pendyce was at a loss, and would walk up and
down, earnestly trying to discover what his duty was to them. There were
days, too, almost entirely occupied by sessions, when many classes of
offenders came before him, to whom he meted justice according to the
heinousness of the offence, from poaching at the top down and down to
wife-beating at the bottom; for, though a humane man, tradition did
not suffer him to look on this form of sport as really criminal--at any
rate, not in the country.

It was true that all these matters could have been settled in a fraction
of the time by a young and trained intelligence, but this would have
wronged tradition, disturbed the Squire's settled conviction that he
was doing his duty, and given cause for slanderous tongues to hint at
idleness. And though, further, it was true that all this daily labour
was devoted directly or indirectly to interests of his own, what was
that but doing his duty to the country and asserting the prerogative of
every Englishman at all costs to be provincial?

But on this Wednesday the flavour of the dish was gone. To be alone
amongst his acres, quite alone--to have no one to care whether he did
anything at all, no one to whom he might confide that Beldame's hock
was to be fired, that Peacock was asking for more gates, was almost more
than he could bear. He would have wired to the girls to come home, but
he could not bring himself to face their questions. Gerald was at Gib!
George--George was no son of his!--and his pride forbade him to write