stributed, among them rewards to the best ploughman in 'the juke's
country,' and to those labourers who have remained longest in the service
of one master. For the graceful duty of presentation a marchioness has
been selected, who, with other visitors of high social rank, has come over
from that famous hunting mansion. To meet that brilliant party the whole
agricultural interest has assembled. The room is crowded with tenant
farmers, the entire hunting field is present. Every clergyman in the
district is here, together with the gentry, and many visitors for the
hunting season. Among them, shoulder to shoulder, are numbers of
agricultural labourers, their wives, and daughters, dressed in their best
for the occasion. After some speeches, a name is called, and an aged
labourer steps forward.

His grandchildren are behind him; two of his sons, quite elderly
themselves, attend him almost to the front, so that he may have to make
but a few steps unsupported. The old man is frosted with age, and moves
stiffly, like a piece of mechanism rather than a living creature, nor is
there any expression--neither smile nor interest--upon his absolutely
immobile features. He wears breeches and gaiters, and a blue coat cut in
the style of two generations since. There is a small clear space in the
midst of the well-dressed throng. There he stands, and for the moment the
hum is hushed.

For sixty years that old man laboured upon one farm; sixty years of
ploughing and sowing, sixty harvests. What excitement, what discoveries
and inventions--with what giant strides the world has progressed while he
quietly followed the plough! An acknowledgment has been publicly awarded
to him for that long and faithful service. He puts forth his arm; his dry,
horny fingers are crooked, and he can neither straighten nor bend them.
Not the least sign appears upon his countenance that he is even conscious
of what is passing. There is a quick flash of jewelled rings ungloved to
the light, and the reward is placed in that claw-like grasp by the white
hand of the marchioness.

Not all the gallant cavalry of the land fearlessly charging hedge and
brook can, however, repel the invasion of a foe mightier than their chief.
Frost sometimes comes and checks their gaiety. Snow falls, and levels
every furrow, and then Hodge going to his work in the morning can clearly
trace the track of one of his most powerful masters, Squire Reynard, who
has been abroad in the night, a