Harold tried with all his might to listen, though I saw his chest heave with many a suppressed yawn, and his hand under his beard, tweaking it hard; but substance could be sifted out of what Lord Erymanth said, for he had real experience, and his own parish was in admirable order.

Where there was no power of expulsion, as he said, there would always be some degraded beings whose sole amusement was intoxication; but good dwelling-houses capable of being made cheerful, gardens, innocent recreations, and instruction had, he could testify from experience, no small effect in preventing such habits from being formed in the younger population, backed, as he was sure (good old man) that he need not tell his young friends, by an active and efficient clergyman, who would place the motives for good conduct on the truest and highest footing, without which all reformation would only be surface work.  I was glad Harold should hear this from the lips of a layman, but I am afraid he shirked it as a bit of prosing, and went back to the cottages.

“They are in a shameful state,” he said.

“They are to be improved,” exclaimed Eustace, eagerly.  “As I told Bullock, I am quite determined that mine shall be a model parish.  I am ready to make any sacrifices to do my duty as a landlord, though Bullock says that no outlay on cottages ever pays, and that the test of their being habitable is their being let, and that the people are so ungrateful that they do not deserve to have anything done for them.”

“You are not led away by such selfish arguments?” said Lord Erymanth.

“No, assuredly not,” said Eustace, decidedly; “though I do wish Harold would not disagree so much with Bullock.  He is a very civil man, and much in earnest in promoting my interests.”

“That’s not all,” put in Harold.

“And I can’t bear Bullock,” I said. “‘Our interest’ has been always his cry, whenever the least thing has been proposed for the cottage people; and I know how much worse he let things get than we ever supposed.”

On which Lord Erymanth spoke out his distinct advice to get rid of Bullock, telling us how he had been a servant’s orphan whom my father had intended to apprentice, but, being placed with our old bailiff for a time, had made himself necessary, and ingratiated himself with my father so as to succeed to the situation; and it had been the universal belief, ever since my mother’s widowhood, that he had taken advantage of her seclusion and want of knowledge of business to deal harshly by the tenants, especially the poor, and to feather his own nest.

It was only what Harold had already found out for himself, but it disposed of his scruples about old adherents, and it was well for Eustace to hear it from such oracular lips as might neutralise the effect of Bullock’s flattery, for it had become quite plain to my opened eyes that he was trying to gain the squire’s ear, and was very jealous of Harold,