the long sitting in 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 traditi