e affairs turned inside
out for every one to gape at. I wouldn't myself." And with that deeply
felt remark the agent put out his leathery-yellow thumb and finger and
nipped a second bluebottle. . . .

While the agent was thus recounting to his wife the day's doings, the
evicted Tryst sat on the end of his bed in a ground-floor room of Tod's
cottage. He had taken off his heavy boots, and his feet, in their thick,
soiled socks, were thrust into a pair of Tod's carpet slippers. He sat
without moving, precisely as if some one had struck him a blow in the
centre of the forehead, and over and over again he turned the heavy
thought: 'They've turned me out o' there--I done nothing, and they turned
me out o' there! Blast them--they turned me out o' there!' . . .

In the orchard Tod sat with a grave and puzzled face, surrounded by the
three little Trysts. And at the wicket gate Kirsteen, awaiting the
arrival of Derek and Sheila--summoned home by telegram--stood in the
evening glow, her blue-clad figure still as that of any worshipper at the
muezzin-call.

CHAPTER XIX

"A fire, causing the destruction of several ricks and an empty cowshed,
occurred in the early morning of Thursday on the home farm of Sir Gerald
Malloring's estate in Worcestershire. Grave suspicions of arson are
entertained, but up to the present no arrest has been made. The
authorities are in doubt whether the occurrence has any relation with
recent similar outbreaks in the eastern counties."

So Stanley read at breakfast, in his favorite paper; and the little
leader thereon:

"The outbreak of fire on Sir Gerald Malloring's Worcestershire property
may or may not have any significance as a symptom of agrarian unrest. We
shall watch the upshot with some anxiety. Certain it is that unless the
authorities are prepared to deal sharply with arson, or other cases of
deliberate damage to the property of landlords, we may bid good-by to any
hope of ameliorating the lot of the laborer"

--and so on.

If Stanley had risen and paced the room there would have been a good deal
to be said for him; for, though he did not know as much as Felix of the
nature and sentiments of Tod's children, he knew enough to make any but
an Englishman uneasy. The fact that he went on eating ham, and said to
Clara, "Half a cup!" was proof positive of that mysterious quality called
phlegm which had long enabled his country to enjoy the peace of a weedy
duck-pond.

Stanley