ery modern convenience and comfort in
the midst of the most rural scenery--let at a high price to good
tenants. There was an income from what had previously been profitless.
Under this shrewd management the estate was fast recovering.

At the same time the whole parish groaned in spirit. The farmers
grumbled at the moral pressure which forced them to progress in spite of
themselves. They grumbled at the strange people who took up their
residence in their midst and suddenly claimed all the loyalty which was
the due of the old family. These people hunted over their fields, jumped
over the hedges, glanced at them superciliously, and seemed astonished
if every hat was not raised when they came in sight. The farmers felt
that they were regarded as ignorant barbarians, and resented the
town-bred insolence of people who aped the country gentleman.

They grumbled about the over-preservation of game, and they grumbled
about the rabbits. The hunt had its grumble too because some of the
finest coverts were closed to the hounds, and because they wanted to
know what became of the foxes that formerly lived in those coverts. Here
was a beautiful place--a place that one might dream life away in--filled
with all manner of discontent.

Everything was done with the best intention. But the keystone was
wanting--the landlord, the master, who had grown up in the traditions of
the spot, and between whom and the people there would have been, even
despite of grievances, a certain amount of sympathy. So true is it that
in England, under the existing system of land tenure, an estate cannot
be worked like the machinery of a factory.

At first, when the pheasant-preserving began to reach such a height,
there was a great deal of poaching by the resident labourers. The
temptation was thrust so closely before their faces they could not
resist it. When pheasants came wandering into the cottage gardens, and
could even be enticed into the sheds and so secured by simply shutting
the door, men who would not have gone out of their way to poach were led
to commit themselves.

There followed a succession of prosecutions and fines, till the place
began to get a reputation for that sort of thing. It was at last
intimated to the steward by certain gentlemen that this course of
prosecution was extremely injudicious. For it is a fact--a fact
carefully ignored sometimes--that resident gentlemen object to
prosecutions, and, so far from being anxious to fine or