beyond the bounds even of that immense property. The example
communicates itself to others, and half the county responds to that
pleasant impulse. It is a responsible position to hold; something,
perhaps, a little like that of the Medici at Florence in the olden times.
But here there is no gonfalon, no golden chain of office, no velvet
doublet, cloak, and rapier, no guards with arquebuss or polished crossbow.
An entire absence of state and ceremony marks this almost unseen but
powerful sway. The cycle of the seasons brings round times of trial here
as over the entire world, but the conditions under which the trial is
sustained could scarcely in our day, and under our complicated social and
political system, be much more favourable.

CHAPTER XII

THE SQUIRE'S 'ROUND ROBIN

A cock pheasant flies in frantic haste across the road, beating the air
with wide-stretched wings, and fast as he goes, puts on yet a faster spurt
as the shot comes rattling up through the boughs of the oak beneath him.
The ground is, however, unfavourable to the sportsman, and the bird
escapes. The fir copse from which the pheasant rose covers a rather sharp
descent on one side of the highway. On the level above are the ploughed
fields, but the slope itself is too abrupt for agricultural operations,
and the soil perhaps thin and worthless. It is therefore occupied by a
small plantation. On the opposite side of the road there grows a fine row
of oaks in a hedge, under whose shade the dust takes long to dry when once
damped by a shower. The sportsman who fired stands in the road; the
beaters are above, for they desire the game to fly in a certain direction;
and what with the narrow space between the firs and the oaks, the
spreading boughs, and the uncertainty of the spot where the pheasant would
break cover, it is not surprising that he missed.

The shot, after tearing through the boughs, rises to some height in the
air, and, making a curve, falls of its own weight only, like pattering
hail--and as harmless--upon an aged woman, just then trudging slowly
round the corner. She is a cottager, and has been to fetch the weekly dole
of parish bread that helps to support herself and infirm husband. She
wears a long cloak that nearly sweeps the ground on account of her
much-bowed back, and carries a flag basket full of bread in one hand, and
a bulging umbrella, which answers as a walking stick, in the other. The
poor old body, much startled, b