with. Deep Moat certainly
became, as it were, a self-contained factory for spinning the money
which is the god of this world. Ah, it was a peaceful and a happy
time. Within and without, everything went like clockwork. I began to
be respected, too--at a certain distance from home, that is. For I had
taken care to engage the simplest and honestest soul in the world for
my grieve or bailiff, and when Jeremy and I were not out on our more
immediate business, Simon Ball and I frequented markets and bought all
that was necessary for the home farm. To be exact, he bought and I
paid.

"But the beginning of evil days was at hand. I have always noticed it.
Man cannot long be left in peace, even among the most favoured
surroundings. Now I was doing no harm to any soul or body in all the
surrounding parishes. Instead I did what good I could--spoke fairly
and civilly, contributed freely to charities, helped more than one of
my impoverished neighbours. But I will not conceal it from my
successor (who alone is to read this manuscript) that all my good will
was in vain, so far as gaining the affection and respect of the
countryside was concerned. Yet for this, personally, I can conceive no
reason. Those whom Jeremy took charge of were invariably
strangers--men of loud, brawling character, generally semi-drunkards,
trampling all laws of a quiet and respectable demeanour under their
feet.

"While I myself, giving shelter to these poor creatures, the sisters
Orrin--who without me would have been hunted from city to city--I,
Howard Stennis, whose only dissipation or distraction was to weave the
thronging fancies of flower and fruit into my napery--was no better
respected than an outlaw dog. They called me the Golden Farmer, but it
was with a sneer. None would willingly linger a moment to speak with
me, not so much as one of Bailiff Ball's tow-headed urchins. If one of
them met me in a lonesome path, as like as not he would set up a howl
and dodge between my legs, running, tumbling, and making the welkin
ring, as if I had been some black evil bogie!

"Yet, I am a man who all his life has loved children, and (with a few
exceptions) carefully observed the courtesies as between man and man.
When I consider how I have been served by friends and neighbours, many
of whom I have repeatedly obliged, I am filled with surprise that I
have kept the sphere of my operations so remote from my insulters. But
then I have always, save pe