In Vesper there are genealogists who might tell you such things; old records that might prove them; old families, enjoying wealth and distinction without perceptible cause, with others of the ruling caste who may have some knowledge of these matters.  Such grants were not uncommon in the Duke of York, his Province.  In that good duke’s day, and later, following the pleasant fashion set by that Pope who divided his world equally between Spain and Portugal, valleys and mountains were tossed to supple courtiers by men named Charles, James, William, or George, kings by the grace of God; the goodly land, the common wealth and birth-right of the unborn, was granted in princedom parcels to king’s favorites, king’s minions, to favorites of king’s minions, for services often enough unspecified.

The toilers of Abingdon—­of other Abingdons, perhaps—­know none of these things.  Winter has pushed them hard, summer been all too brief; life has been crowded with a feverish instancy of work.  There is a vague memory of the Sullivan Expedition; once a year the early settlers, as a community enterprise, had brought salt from Syracuse; the forest had been rafted down the river; the rest is silence.

Perhaps this good old English stock, familiar for a thousand years with oppression and gentility, wonted to immemorial fraud, schooled by generations of cheerful teachers to speak no evil of dignities, to see everything for the best in the best of possible worlds, found no injustice in the granting of these broad manors—­or, at least, no novelty worthy of mention to their sons.  There is no whisper of ancient wrong; no hint or rankling of any irrevocable injustice.

Doubtless some of these land grants were made, at a later day, to soldiers of the Revolution.  But the children of the Revolution maintain a not unbecoming unreticence as to all things Revolutionary; from their silence in this regard, as from the name of Manor, we may make safe inference.  Doubtless many of the royalist estates were confiscated at that time.  Doubtless, again, our Government, to encourage settlement, sold land in such large parcels in early days.  Incurious Abingdon cares for none of these things.  Singular Abingdon!  And yet are these folk, indeed, so singular among citizens?  So unseeing a people?  Consider that, within the memory of men living, the wisdom of America has made free gift to the railroads, to encourage their building, of so much land as goes to the making of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; a notable encouragement!