weather his stout and
opinionated cob bore him gravely along the lanes. The cottagers'
children ceased their play and looked respectfully sheepish as he rode
by; the farm girls dropped their elaborate curtseys, and the labourers
at the roadside made efforts to appear at their ease. These and the
farmers were the only people who saw his daily progress, and they all
held him a good deal in fear. Nothing escaped his steady eye. If
anything displeased him he did not use words, for he had not talents of
the vocal description, but he took very sudden means of making his
displeasure felt. Within his domain he was absolute master. He disliked
the intrusion of even passing strangers, and the harmless bagmen who
sometimes travelled along the coast road found no hostelry on the
estate. It was said that he once met an alien person walking in the
woods, and that this erratic foreigner was smoking a pipe. The most
learned purveyors of myths were never able to detail exactly what
happened, but the incident was always mentioned with awe. The
inhabitants of the district never managed to get up any personal feeling
about the Squire;--they regarded him as an operation of Nature. So he
lived his life in his colourless fashion, rousing no hate, gaining no
love, and fulfilling his duties as though his own epitaph were an
abiding vision to him. He cared for no enjoyments, and did not
particularly like to see other people enjoying themselves. He seemed to
fancy that laughter should be taken like the Sacrament, and, for his own
part, he preferred not being a communicant. When his only son was killed
in a pitiful frontier skirmish, the old man rode out as usual on the day
following the receipt of the ill news. The gamekeeper said that he drew
up his cob alongside the fence of a paddock wherein was kept an aged
pony that the heir had ridden long ago. He watched the stumbling
pensioner cropping the bright grass for a few minutes, breathed heavily,
turned the cob into the road again, and went on with sharp eyes glancing
emotionless. His daughter-in-law died soon after, and he assumed sole
charge of the young Ellington whom we have seen making a forlorn
pilgrimage under the trees. The young man had received a queer sort of
nondescript education. All the Ellingtons for a generation or two back
had gone in due course to Eton and Oxford, but no such conventional
training was vouchsafed to the latest of the family. The hand of the
private tutor had been