verybody had a friendly word. His ruined
son on the moorside thought with wonder and envy of his father's popular
arts, which yet were no arts. For himself he confessed,--aware as he
was, this afternoon, of the presence in his mind of a new and strange
insight with regard to his own life and past, as though he were writing
his own obituary--that the people living in these farms and villages had
meant little more to him than the troublesome conditions on which he
enjoyed the pleasures of the Flood estates, the great income he drew
from them, and the sport for which they were famous. He had his friends
among the farmers of course, though they were few. There were men who
had cringed to him, and whom he had rewarded. And Laura had given away
plentifully in the villages. But his chief agent he knew had been a hard
man and a careless one; and he had always loathed the trouble of looking
after him. Again and again he had been appealed to, as against his
agent; and he had not even answered the letters. He had occasionally
done some public duties; he had allowed himself to be placed on the
County Council, but had hardly ever attended meetings; he had taken the
chair and made a speech occasionally, when it would have cost him more
effort to refuse than to accept; and those portions of the estate which
adjoined the castle were in fairly good repair. But on the remoter
farms, and especially since his financial resources had begun to fail,
he knew very well that there were cottages and farm-houses in a
scandalous state, on which not a farthing had been spent for years.

No, it could not be said he had played a successful part as a landowner.
He had meant no harm to anybody. He had been simply idle and
preoccupied; and that in a business where, under modern conditions,
idleness is immoral. He was quite conscious that there were good men,
frugal men, kind and God-fearing men, landlords like himself, though on
a much smaller scale, in that tract of country under his feet, who felt
bitterly towards him, who judged him severely, who would be thankful to
see the last of him, and to know that the land had passed into other and
better hands. Fifty-two years of life lived in that northern Vale of
Eden; and what was there to show for them?--in honest work done, in
peace of conscience, in friends? Now that the pictures were sold, there
would be just enough to pay everybody, with a very little over. There
was some comfort in that. He would have