ce I was away?"

"Just about as usual, Squire. Bob is not such a good judge of
horses and cattle as George was, but in other respects I think he
knows more. George did not care for reading, and Bob is always at
the papers and getting up the last things these scientific chaps
have found out; so matters are pretty well squared. Altogether, I
have no call to grumble, and I ain't likely, Squire, to have to ask
for time on rent day. We were worried sorely about George as long
as that matter hung over him; but since that was cleared up, and we
heard of his having saved your life, we have been happy again. We
got a big shock yesterday, however, when we heard what had happened
out there."

"Well, that is all past and over long ago, and we have none of us
any cause to regret it. It has done George a great deal of good,
and as for me, I might not be here now talking to you if it had not
taken place, for it was the memory of that which led George to the
desperate action which saved my life. Besides, you see, it has
gained for me an attached and faithful friend, for it is as a
friend rather than as a servant that I regard your son."

"He will always be that, I am sure, Squire. He told us that you had
offered to set him up on a farm, but he is quite right to say no. I
don't say that if it had been with somebody else, his mother and I
might not have felt rather sore that our eldest boy should have
taken to service; but, of course, it is different with you, Squire.
It is only natural that a Lechmere should serve a Mallett, seeing
that our fathers have been your fathers' tenants for hundreds of
years, so that even if all this had not happened we should not have
minded. As it is, we are proud that he is with you; and it seems
natural that, after wandering about the world and fighting with
those black villains out there, he should never be content to go on
as he was before, or to settle down to farming."

"It is like man like master, in this case," Mallett laughed. "After
I have once been over the estate, and seen all the tenants, and
learned that everyone is satisfied and everything going on well, I
shall very soon begin to feel restless, and shall be running off
somewhere. You see, I have never been broken in to a country life.
I have no idea of becoming an absentee; but I think a month or two
together will be as much as I can stand, at any rate as long as I
am a bachelor."

"That is just what I was saying, Squire," the farmer's