'

'I think not, Holt, I think not. My father, I hope, will be Squire for
many a year.'

'Like enough. And we all hope that, for there aren't nowhere a juster
man nor the Squoire, and he's hale and hearty. But in course of things
his time'll run out. And it be so, Mr. John, that thou be'est going for
ever and allays?'

'I rather think I am.'

'It's wrong, Mr. John. Though maybe I'm making over-free to talk of what
don't concern me. Yet I say it's wrong. Sons should come arter fathers,
specially where there's land. We don't none of us like it;--none of us!
It's worse nor going, any one of ourselves. For what's a lease? But when
a man has a freehold he should stick to it for ever and aye. It's just
as though the old place was a-tumbling about all our ears.' Caldigate
was good-natured with the man, trying to make him understand that
everything was being done for the best. And at last he bade him good-bye
affectionately, shaking hands with him, and going into the farmhouse to
perform the same ceremony with his wife and daughters. But to the last
Ralph Holt was uncomfortable and dismal, foretelling miseries. It was
clear that, to his thinking, the stability of this world was undermined
and destroyed by the very contemplation of such a proceeding as this.

Caldigate pursued his walk, and in the course of it bade farewell to
more than one old friend. None of them were so expressive as Holt, but
he could perceive that he was regarded by all of them as a person who,
by his conduct, was bringing misfortune, not only on himself, but on the
whole parishes of Utterden and Netherden.

At dinner the Squire conversed upon various subjects if not easily to
himself, at least with affected ease. Had he applied himself to subjects
altogether indifferent,--to the state of politics, or the Game Laws, or
the absurdities of a State Church, the unfitness of such matters for the
occasion would have been too apparent. Both he and his son would have
broken down in the attempt. But he could talk about Babington,--abusing
the old family,--and even about himself, and about New South Wales, and
gold, and the coming voyage, without touching points which had been, and
would be, specially painful. Not a word had ever been spoken between
them as to Davis. There had, of course, been letters, very angry
letters; but the usurer's name had never been mentioned. Nor was there
any need that it should be mentioned now. It was John's affair,--not in
any wa