"Be that you, Squire?" said the young man.

"Yes, it is I," said Cousin Henry, as he lay trembling on the grass.

"I didn't know you was here, sir. I didn't know you ever com'd here.
Good morning, sir." Then the young man passed on, not caring to have
any further conversation with a landlord so little to his taste.

After this he returned home almost cowed. But on the following
morning he determined to make a still further effort, so that he
might, if possible, return to the ways of the world, which were
already becoming strange to him from the desolation of the life which
he had been leading. He went out, and, taking the road by the church,
up the creek, he came at about a distance of two miles from his own
house to Coed, the farmstead of John Griffith, the farmer who held
the largest number of acres on the property. At the garden gate
he found his tenant, whom he was inclined to think somewhat more
civil,--a little, perhaps, more courteous,--than others who had met
him.

"Yes, sir," said John Griffith, "it's a fine day, and the crops are
doing well enough. Would you like to come in and see the missus?
She'll take it civil."

Cousin Henry entered the house and said a few words to the farmer's
wife, who was not, however, specially gracious in her demeanour. He
had not the gift of saying much to such persons, and was himself
aware of his own deficiency. But still he had done something,--had
shown that he was not afraid to enter a tenant's house. As he was
leaving, the farmer followed him to the gate, and began to offer him
some advice, apparently in kindness.

"You ought to be doing something, sir, with those paddocks between
the shrubberies and the road."

"I suppose so, Mr Griffith; but I am no farmer."

"Then let them, sir. William Griffith will be glad enough to have
them and pay you rent. The old Squire didn't like that the land he
had held himself should go into other hands. But he never did much
good with them lately, and it's different now."

"Yes, it's different now. I don't think I shall live here, Mr
Griffith."

"Not live at Llanfeare?"

"I think not. I'm not quite fitted to the place. It isn't my doing,
but among you all, I fear, you don't like me." As he said this he
tried to carry it off with a laugh.

"You'd live down that, Squire, if you did your duty, and was good
to the people;--and took no more than was your own. But perhaps you
don't like a country life."

"I don't like being where