Their hostess knew nothing of the young baronet being in the
neighbourhood, and was by no means gratified by the intelligence.

"Lack-a-day! Miss Harriet, you don't mean that the family is coming down
here! I don't want none of them. 'Tis bad times for the farmer when
any of that sort is nigh. They make nothing of galloping their horses a
hunting right through the crops, ay, and horsewhipping the farmer if he
do but say a word for the sweat of his brow."

"O Mrs. Jewel!" cried Aurelia, in whose ear lingered the courteous
accents of her partner, "they would never behave themselves so."

"Bless you, Miss Orreely, I'll tell you what I've seen with my own eyes.
My own good man, the master here, with the horsewhip laid about his
shoulders at that very thornbush, by one of the fine gentlefolks,
just because he had mended the gap in the hedge they was used to ride
through, and my Lady sitting by in her laced scarlet habit on her fine
horse, smiling like a painted picture, and saying, 'Thank you, sir,
the rascals need to learn not to interfere with our sport,' all in that
gentle sounding low voice of hers, enough to drive one mad."

"I thought Sir Jovian had been a kind master," said Harriet.

"This was not Sir Jovian. Poor gentleman, he was not often out
a-hunting. This was one of the fine young rakish fellows from Lunnun
as were always swarming about my Lady, like bees over that maybush. Sir
Thomas Donne, I think they called him. They said he got killed by a wild
boar, hunting in foreign parts, afterwards, and serve him right! But
there! They would all do her bidding, whether for bad or good, so maybe
it was less his fault than hers. She is a bitter one, is my Lady, for
all she looks so sweet. And this her young barrowknight will be his own
mother's son, and I don't want none of 'em down here. 'Tis a good job we
have your good papa, the Major, to stand between her and us; I only wish
he had his own, for a rare good landlord he would be."

The Dame's vain wishes were cut short by shrieks from the poultry-yard,
where Eugene was discovered up to his ankles in the black ooze of the
horse-pond, waving a little stick in defiance of an angry gander, who
with white outspread wings, snake-like neck, bent and protruded, and
frightful screams and hisses, was no bad representation of his namesake
the dragon, especially to a child not much exceeding him in height.

The monster was put to rout, the champion dragged out of the pond,
b