abandoned entirely to Lenny, and additional laborers
were called in for the field-work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part
of the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow camomile. He
had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax; but
against the growth of flax the Squire set his face obstinately. That
most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops, when soil and skill suit, had, it
would appear, been formerly attempted in England much more commonly than
it is now, since you will find few old leases which do not contain a
clause prohibitory of flax, as an impoverishment of the land. And though
Jackeymo learnedly endeavored to prove to the Squire that the flax
itself contained particles which, if returned to the soil, repaid all
that the crop took away, Mr. Hazeldean had his old-fashioned prejudices
on the matter, which were insuperable. "My forefathers," quoth he, "did
not put that clause in their leases without good cause; and as the
Casino lands are entailed on Frank, I have no right to gratify your
foreign whims at his expense."

To make up for the loss of the flax, Jackeymo resolved to convert a very
nice bit of pasture into orchard ground, which he calculated would bring
in L10 net per acre by the time Miss Violante was marriageable. At this,
Squire pished a little; but as it was quite clear the land would be all
the more valuable hereafter for the fruit-trees, he consented to permit
the 'grass land' to be thus partially broken up.

All these changes left poor Lenny Fairfield very much to himself--at a
time when the new and strange devices which the initiation into book
knowledge creates, made it most desirable that he should have the
constant guidance of a superior mind.

One evening after his work, as Lenny was returning to his mother's
cottage very sullen and very moody, he suddenly came in contact with
Sprott the tinker.

CHAPTER V.

The tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away at an old
kettle--with a little fire burning in front of him--and the donkey hard
by, indulging in a placid doze. Mr. Sprott looked up as Lenny
passed--nodded kindly, and said--

"Good evenin', Lenny: glad to hear you be so 'spectably sitivated with
Mounseer."

"Ay," answered Lenny, with a leaven of rancor in his recollections,
"You're not ashamed to speak to me now, that I am not in disgrace. But
it was in disgrace, when it wasn't my fault, that the real gentleman was
most kind to me."

"