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 would 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?