me to him late at night,
and, with Whipshire stupidity, he had thought that any one coming from
the wilds of British America must be but a savage after all.

"Very well; I wouldn't throw myself out of a place, if I were you."

"Oh, no, sir! Beg pardon, sir, I--"

"Attend to your hounds there, Lugley."

So saying, Gaston nodded Jacques away with him, leaving the huntsman
sick with apprehension.

"You see how it is to be done, Brillon?" said Gaston. Jacques's brown
eyes twinkled.

"You have the grand trick, sir."

"I enjoy the game; and so shall you, if you will. You've begun well. I
don't know much of this life yet; but it seems to me that they are
all part of a machine, not the idea behind the machine. They have no
invention. Their machine is easy to learn. Do not pretend; but for every
bit you learn show something better, something to make them dizzy now
and then."

He paused on a knoll and looked down. The castle, the stables, the
cottages of labourers and villagers lay before them. In a certain
highly-cultivated field, men were working. It was cut off in squares and
patches. It had an air which struck Gaston as unusual; why, he could
not tell. But he had a strange divining instinct, or whatever it may be
called. He made for the field and questioned the workmen.

The field was cut up into allotment gardens. Here, at a nominal rent,
the cottager could grow his vegetables; a little spot of the great
acre of England, which gave the labourer a tiny sense of ownership, of
manhood. Gaston was interested. More, he was determined to carry that
experiment further, if he ever got the chance. There was no socialism
in him. The true barbarian is like the true aristocrat: more a giver
of gifts than a lover of co-operation; conserving ownership by right
of power and superior independence, hereditary or otherwise. Gaston was
both barbarian and aristocrat.

"Brillon," he said, as they walked on, "do you think they would be
happier on the prairies with a hundred acres of land, horses, cows, and
a pen of pigs?"

"Can I be happy here all at once, sir?"

"That's just it. It's too late for them. They couldn't grasp it unless
they went when they were youngsters. They'd long for 'Home and Old
England' and this grub-and-grind life. Gracious heaven, look at
them--crumpled-up creatures! And I'll stake my life, they were as pretty
children as you'd care to see. They are out of place in the landscape,
Brillon; for it is all luxur