in fustian, expressed in doggrel or in Idylls,
Mr. Fullafield's wrong would have commanded
all our sympathy, but for the manner in which
he took it. There is a pathos, a dignity, in the
tranquil sufferer, which is wholly wanting in the
man who runs a muck.

III.

MR. TAFFEY, on presenting himself, next
morning, at the hall, was shown into the study.
The squire had been walking up and down for
some minutes. Now and then, he would
pause to scowl upward at one or other of the
Vere-Vavasours that adorned the wall, whose
self-complacent but rather vacant faces
returned the look with delightful indifference.
There was another picture, a gay gallant
wooing, or affecting to woo, a peasant girl, and
this appeared to be a favourite of Mr. Hurbandine's;
for, as he gazed, the hard expression
faded from his countenance, and gave way to
an approving smile.

"Ten-tree Meadow is yours, from Lady-day,"
he called out, the moment Mr. Taffey s nose
was visible within the door. "That's settled.
Now come and look at this."

Mr. Taffey looked, and expressed his decided
opinion that the young lady was a nice, modest-
mannered young woman, sure enough, while the
gentleman showed a good fall in the back, and
blood (he thought) about the pasterns.

"Right, Taffey, said the squire. "He had
blood, and, booby as he looks, was a gentleman,
which is more," he muttered, "than I
would say of all his kin. He lost, to Miss
Sukey Bubbs, the cotter's daughter, his heart,
which was supposed to be about the size of a
marrow-fat pea. But it proved bigger; for he
married her."

"Good luck to 'em!" cried the honest smith
as cordially as if the pair had been just starting
on their wedding tour. "They was happy,
I hope, sir?"

"Merry as grasshoppers, their live-long
days," said the squire. "They've been dead
these fifty years; but all the fun of the family
died out of it with Sukey Bubbs, that is, Lady
Vavasour, the cotter's daughter. They've been
a dull lot since, proud as peacocks, and as
worthless," he added, sinking his voice as
before. "Our blood is too good, Taffey; there's
the secret of it."

"Well, I don't think but that perpetiwal
breeding in-and-in an't no good, in the end,"
remarked the smith. "A cross that do give
substance——"

"That's a nice-browed lassie of yours, Taffey."
said the squire, suddenly changing his topic.

"So I've heerd 'm say," returned the smith,
trying to look as if he hadn't quite made up
his own mind on the subject.

"Blue eyes and cherry lips are rather abundant
in our neighbourhood, I think," continued
Mr. Hurbandine. "My wife used to tell me
the Llbwyddcoed girls were as good and
modest as they were pretty."

"They 'as good mothers," said Mr. Taffey,
significantly. "That's how I reads it."

"Right. They cannot be too careful.
Danger's everywhere," remarked the squire.
"These young fellows, boy-guardsmen and the
like, who do me the honour to come down, with
my sons, to recruit their exhausted frames with
wholesome food and twelve o'clock bed, won't
disdain to chuck a country chin."

"It's werry kind of 'em, I'm sure, squire!"
said Mr. Taffey, his eyes glistening with his
own warm speech.

"Kind!"

"Seeing 'tis a game we don't play at, in
these parts," explained the smith, "and guardsmen's
heads an't quite so hard as our fistes, if
they come to disagree."

"You speak warmly. Have you anything to
— to complain of, in that way?" demanded the
squire.

"Yes, sir, I have," was the frank reply. But
then he hesitated.

"Out with it, man!" said Mr. Hurbandine,
his face assuming the expression recognised in
the family, as indicative of an approaching
"squall."

While Mr. Taffey still stood, silently debating
whether he would speak what was in his mind,
or no, the squire pointed suddenly to a
writing-table:

"Look at those scrawls. Do you know the
hand. No," he continued, hastily; and, striding
across the room, he crumpled up the letters,
and flung them in a heap on the fire. "Look
you, Taffey, sundry nameless individuals, whose
pothooks it has cost me an hour's labour to
decipher, accuse me of sanctioning (I presume, by
my non-interference) acts of impertinence and
intrusion on the part of my London guests— my
sons, I take it, included— which, if persisted in,
may lead to painful consequences, and, at the
least, engender feelings the very reverse of those
which have hitherto happily subsisted between
the tenantry and the hall. This, in plain
English, and with a certain regard to grammar and
significance, is the purport of the letters I have
destroyed. Tell me all about it."

"'Tan't such as I can tell, squire," replied
Mr. Taffey. "Howsoever, what I doos know
I'll say. First place, I can't make out who's
been and written them letters. There's not
many of us as doos much in that way, 'cept my
wissiney."

"Your what?"

"My neighbour," translated Mr. Taffey—
"David Apreece. It wan't him. He an't the
man for to write anything he 'oodn't put his
name to; and in very big letters, too, specially
his capital A's. It's a great thing, squire, is
hedication."

Mr. Hurbandine admitted that it had its
advantageous side; but, at present, willed Mr.
Taffey to keep to the point. Had he, or not,
reason to believe that the villagers had taken
offence at some indiscretion on the part of the
visitors at the hall? And what did he, Taffey,
mean, by saying that he himself had cause to
complain?

Thus urged, the smith blurted out the truth.

It so happened that the valley and hamlet of