f the Squire's character
by heart, had taken Time by the forelock. For fourteen years before
Robert entered the parish he had been king of it. Mr. Preston, Robert's
predecessor, had never given him a moment's trouble. The agent had
developed a habit of drinking, had favored his friends and spited his
enemies, and he allowed certain distant portions of the estate to go
finely to ruin, quite undisturbed by any sentimental meddling of the
priestly sort. Then the old Rector had been gathered to the majority,
and this long-legged busybody had taken his place, a man, according to
the agent, as full of communistical notions as an egg is full of meat,
and always ready to poke his nose into other people's business. And as
all men like mastery, but especially Scotchmen, and as during even
the first few months of the new Rector's tenure of office it became
tolerably evident to Henslowe that young Elsmere would soon become the
ruling force of the neighborhood unless measures were taken to prevent
it, the agent, over his nocturnal drams, had taken sharp and cunning
counsel with himself concerning the young man.

The state of Mile End had been originally the result of indolence and
caprice on his part rather than of any set purpose of neglect. As soon,
however, as it was brought to his notice by Elsmere, who did it to begin
with, in the friendliest way, it became a point of honor with the agent
to let the place go to the devil, nay, to hurry it there. For some
time notwithstanding, he avoided an open breach with the Rector. He met
Elsmere's remonstrances by a more or less civil show of argument, belied
every now and then by the sarcasm of his coarse blue eye, and so far the
two men had kept outwardly on terms. Elsmere had reason to know that on
one or two occasions of difficulty in the parish Henslowe had tried to
do him a mischief. The attempts, however, had not greatly succeeded,
and their ill-success had probably excited in Elsmere a confidence of
ultimate victory which had tended to keep him cool in the presence of
Henslowe's hostility. But Henslowe had been all along merely waiting for
the Squire. He had served the owner of the Murewell estate for fourteen
years, and if he did not know that owner's peculiarities by this time,
might he obtain certain warm corners in the next life to which he was
fond of consigning other people! It was not easy to cheat the Squire
out of money, but it was quite easy to play upon him ignorance of th