with a wage of seven shillings a week.

The burning of hayricks on the Abbey Farm at the time of Egremont's
visit showed that the torch of the incendiary had been introduced and
that a beacon had been kindled in the agitated neighbourhood. For misery
lurked in the wretched tenements of the town of Marney, and fever was
rife. The miserable hovels of the people had neither windows nor doors,
and were unpaved, and looked as if they could scarcely hold together.
There were few districts in the kingdom where the rate of wages was more
depressed.

"What do you think of this fire?" said Egremont to a labourer at the
Abbey Farm.

"I think 'tis hard times for the poor, sir," was the reply, given with a
shake of the head.

_II.--The Old Tradition_

"Why was England not the same land as in the days of his light-hearted
youth?" Charles Egremont mused, as he wandered among the ruins of the
ancient abbey. "Why were these hard times for the poor?" Brooding over
these questions, he observed two men hard by in the old cloister garden,
one of lofty stature, nearer forty than fifty years of age, the other
younger and shorter, with a pale face redeemed from ugliness by its
intellectual brow. Egremont joined the strangers, and talked.

"Our queen reigns over two nations, between whom there is no intercourse
and no sympathy--the rich and the poor," said the younger stranger.

As he spoke, from the lady chapel rose the evening hymn to the Virgin in
tones of almost supernatural tenderness.

The melody ceased; and Egremont beheld a female form, a countenance
youthful, and of a beauty as rare as it was choice.

The two men joined the beautiful maiden; and the three quitted the abbey
grounds together without another word, and pursued their way to the
railway station.

"I have seen the tomb of the last abbot of Marney, and I marked your
name on the stone, my father," said the maiden. "You must regain our
lands for us, Stephen," she added to the younger man.

"I can't understand why you lost sight of those papers, Walter," said
Stephen Morley.

"You see, friend, they were never in my possession; they were not mine
when I saw them. They were my father's. He was a small yeoman,
well-to-do in the world, but always hankering after the old tradition
that the lands were ours. This Hatton got hold of him; he did his work
well, I have heard. It is twenty-five years since my father brought his
writ of right, and though baffled, he was no