me of it during the life of the old
Squire. He was always a welcome guest at the house; Mr. Thorndyke had
been ever ready to put his hand into his pocket for any repairs needed
for the church, and bore on his shoulders almost the entire expense of
the village school. In the latter respect there had been no falling off,
he having given explicit instructions to his solicitors to pay his usual
annual subscriptions to the school until his son's return from India.
But with the death of the Squire the Rector had gradually lost all
authority in the village.

For a time force of habit had had its effect, but as this wore out and
the people recognized that he had no real authority things went from bad
to worse. Drunken men would shout jeeringly as they passed the Rectory
on their way home from the alehouse; women no longer feared reproof for
the untidiness of their houses and children; the school was half emptied
and the church almost wholly so.

For seven or eight years Mr. Bastow had a hard time of it. It was, then,
both with pleasure as an old friend, and with renewed hopefulness for
the village, that he visited John Thorndyke on his return. The change
in the state of affairs was almost instantaneous. As soon as it became
known that the Rector was backed, heart and soul, by the Squire's
authority, and that a complaint from him was followed the next day by a
notice to quit at the end of a week, his own authority was established
as firmly as it had been in the old Squire's time, and in a couple of
years Crowswood became quite a model village. Every garden blossomed
with flowers; roses and eglantine clustered over the cottages, neatness
and order prevailed everywhere.

The children were tidily dressed and respectful in manner, the women
bright and cheerful, and the solitary alehouse remaining had but few
customers, and those few were never allowed to transgress the bounds of
moderation. The Squire had a talk with the landlord a fortnight after
his arrival.

"I am not going to turn you out, Peters," he said. "I hear that you make
some efforts to keep your house decently; the other two I shall send
packing directly their terms are up. Whether you remain permanently must
depend upon yourself. I will do up your house for you, and build a bar
parlor alongside, where quiet men can sit and smoke their pipes and talk
and take their beer in comfort, and have liberty to enjoy themselves as
long as their enjoyment does not cause annoya