uire in the county whose elder son would
never find himself so well placed as would his own younger son. Now
there was a string of narrow woods called Plumstead Coppices which
ran from a point near the church right across the parish, dividing
the archdeacon's land from the Ullathorne estate, and these coppices,
or belts of woodland, belonged to the archdeacon. On the morning of
which we are speaking, the archdeacon, mounted on his cob, still
thinking of his son's iniquity and of his own fixed resolve to punish
him as he had said that he would punish him, opened with his whip a
woodland gate, from which a green muddy lane led through the trees up
to the house of his gamekeeper. The man's wife was ill, and in his
ordinary way of business the archdeacon was about to call and ask
after her health. At the door of the cottage he found the man, who
was woodman as well as gamekeeper, and was responsible for fences and
fagots, as well as for foxes and pheasants' eggs.

"How's Martha, Flurry?" said the archdeacon.

"Thanking your reverence, she be a deal improved since the mistress
was here,--last Tuesday it was, I think."

"I'm glad of that. It was only rheumatism, I suppose?"

"Just a tich of fever with it, your reverence, the doctor said,"

"Tell her I was asking after it. I won't mind getting down to-day, as
I am rather busy. She has had what she wanted from the house?"

"The mistress has been very good in that way. She always is, God
bless her!"

"Good-day to you, Flurry. I'll ask Mr. Sims to come and read to her a
bit this afternoon, or to-morrow morning." The archdeacon kept two
curates, and Mr. Sims was one of them.

"She'll take it very kindly, your reverence. But while you are here,
sir, there's just a word I'd like to say. I didn't happen to catch Mr
Henry when he was here the other day."

"Never mind Mr. Henry; what is it you have to say?"

[Illustration: "Never mind Mr. Henry."]

"I do think, I do indeed, sir, that Mr. Thorne's man ain't dealing
fairly along of the foxes. I wouldn't say a word about it, only that
Mr. Henry is so particular."

"What about the foxes? What is he doing with the foxes?"

"Well, sir, he's a trapping on 'em. He is, indeed, your reverence. I
wouldn't speak if I warn't well nigh mortal sure."

Now the archdeacon had never been a hunting man, though in his
early days many a clergyman had been in the habit of hunting without
losing his clerical character by doing so; but he had