hildren cleaner than you have ever
kept them before, and you must use the disinfectant I sent you. Keep
away from the huts, and open your windows. If you don't open them,
I shall come and do it for you. Bad air is infection itself. Do you
understand?"

"Yes, my lord. Thank your lordship."

"Go in and open your windows now, and tell your neighbours to do the
same. If anyone is ill let me know at once. The vicar and I will do our
best for everyone."

By that time curiosity had overcome fear, and other cottage doors had
opened. Mount Dunstan passed down the row and said a few words to each
woman or man who looked out. Questions were asked anxiously and he
answered them. That he was personally unafraid was comfortingly plain,
and the mere sight of him was, on the whole, an unexplainable support.

"We heard said your lordship was going away," put in a stout mother
with a heavy child on her arm, a slight testiness scarcely concealed
by respectful good-manners. She was a matron with a temper, and that a
Mount Dunstan should avoid responsibilities seemed highly credible.

"I shall stay where I am," Mount Dunstan answered. "My place is here."

They believed him, Mount Dunstan though he was. It could not be said
that they were fond of him, but gradually it had been borne in upon them
that his word was to be relied on, though his manner was unalluring and
they knew he was too poor to do his duty by them or his estate. As
he walked away with the vicar, windows were opened, and in one or two
untidy cottages a sudden flourishing of mops and brooms began.

There was dark trouble in Mount Dunstan's face. In the huts they had
left two men stiff on their straw, and two women and a child in a state
of collapse. Added to these were others stricken helpless. A number of
workers in the hop gardens, on realising the danger threatening them,
had gathered together bundles and children, and, leaving the harvest
behind, had gone on the tramp again. Those who remained were the weaker
or less cautious, or were held by some tie to those who were already
ill of the fever. The village doctor was an old man who had spent his
blameless life in bringing little cottagers into the world, attending
their measles and whooping coughs, and their father's and grandfather's
rheumatics. He had never faced a village crisis in the course of his
seventy-five years, and was aghast and flurried with fright. His methods
remained those of his youth, and were mark