I nodded with a smile that said, " Proceed. I
listen!"

"Thought it might be gout, from your look,
sir. Excuse me, I have a touch of gout at
times myself; but for a sprain there's nothing
like a lump of alum, the size of a pigeon's egg,
mixed into a froth with the white of an egg and
a little salt, on a plate, rubbed into the ankle
night and morning. I've cured scores and scores
with it; had the receipt thirty years come
Christmas, from a famous lady you may have
heard of, although she was rather before your
time, I guess. Madamasell Dodu, the famous
dancer at the Opera, London. She stopped at
my house—it was before these railroad times—to
luncheon, with another stage-playing lady, and
had post-horses on to the Hall. They used to
come to visit Lord Cranberry. Lots of them,
and very good customers they were—light come
light go, you know, sir. Not the present earl.
Lord bless you, he's quite a different kind of a
gent. It was his father's uncle, Black Dick, as
they used to call him; he was a rum 'un—yes, he
was." And here the old boy winked furiously.

"I keep the Cranberry Arms," he continued,
"and have done better than forty years, and my
father before me. Beautiful lady the present
Lady Cranberry; this here's a dog of hers, I'm
taking to the great vet, Mr. S., in Park-lane,
London, to be doctored." And he pulled out of
a capacious pocket a little white, flossy-haired,
weak-eyed brute, labouring under a decided
attack of asthma, from over feeding and want of
exercise. 'Charlton,' says her ladyship to me,
'you'll be sure and travel first class with my
darling Floss.' So of course I obeyed her
ladyship, tho' I fancy in a year or two Lady May
won't care much for dogs. Lord, how things:
are changed from the old lord's times! There's
Waxington, just on the hill there, where the
famous election was in my father's time, between
Lord Halliford and the old Earl Cranberry, each
backing his own man. It lasted a month, and the
voters could have just what they pleased. I've
heard my father say—he was head groom to the
earl—that at the earl's head house in Waxington—
the Duke of Cumberland's Head—and same at
Lord Halliford's—the Old Angel—there was the
lawyers sitting with each a bushel measure of
guineas before 'em, and the voters were called in
and could have just what they liked. Some of
the freemen were so saucy, they'd say, 'I can't
make up my mind, I'd like to go over to the
hall or to the castle for a day or two for fresh
air, and have a bit of shooting or fishing.' And
there were common stockingers and weavers
living on the fat of the land, and smoking and
spilling about at Halliford and at Bilberry. Why
there were voters, the last few days—it was times
when elections lasted a month—that got their
houses for their votes. If you walk through
the back streets of Waxington you'll see houses
with 'Cranberry for ever!' and 'Halliford for
ever!' cut deep in the block-stone over the
doors. I was in one of them election houses
last week, and asked the tenant—he's a cobbler
and works for my nevy the maltster—what he got
for his vote this last time. So he laughs, and
says, 'I don't mind telling you as a friend, I got
from blue and orange too. Blue give me a
sovereign, orange bought my cat for four
sovereigns. There she is, a washing her face on
the window-sill. He only took her to the end of
the street, and let her go, and she was back
again in a jiffy. Hope I'll sell her again next
election; will have something for my vote if it's
only a pint of beer. What's the use,' says he,
'of a vote to a poor man if he can't get summut
for it.'"

Here my communicative friend took breath,
and the train stopped at Skene station. There
was a Stanhope phaeton with a pair of blood
bay ponies waiting for the down express, and I
remarked that it looked like the Earl of
Swansea's turn-out. "So it is," answered Mr.
Charlton, with something of the manner of an
old hound hitting off the scent after a check.
'You have seen him often, I suppose, up in
London. Don't he look vicious behind them
long yellow moustaches of his, sitting bolt
upright, and cussing and swearing at his soldiers
when they don't exactly drill to his mind? I've
known him this many year, before he came to
the title, when he used to come shooting to the
earl's. I was gamekeeper before my father
died. Awful man to go on, is Lord Swansea;
but he isn't half a bad sort to his farmers and
the poor people, although he is a temper and
no mistake. He's not unlike the Black Earl
when his monkey's up; but then Black Dick,
though he kept open house, and flung half-
crowns and guineas about, never thought of
building schools or doing up churches like Lord
Swansea. Yes; he's a capital landlord, and will
do anything his farmers want in building or
draining, and such-like, if they don't contradict
him about game or politics. Did you ever hear
that story about his lordship's bringing the band
of his regiment down to Skene Park?"

Well, no; I had heard many stories about
Swansea's peace and war campaigns, and
adventures with the law and the sword, but not the
band story.

"Why, you see his lordship was going to
have the Duke of Frankfort, or some such name—
a German royal duke—to visit him, and he wanted
to have his regiment's band during the week,
besides battues, and a breakfast meet, and no
end of shines; but he was afraid his tenants'
daughters might get too fond of these fine
fellows in their pink and gold regimentals, for he
was obliged to lodge them in the farm-houses.
My house was full of servants and grooms,
greater swells than their masters. So what does
he do, but sends for all the tenants to the hall,
gives them a feed, and tells what he was going
to have, and offers to pay the expenses for sending
their wives and daughters on a trip for a
week to the sea, or wherever they liked. Well,
of course, the most of them were willing enough,
and away went a whole train of girls with their
mothers from the Skene parish—such a lark!
You see he was determined, if his soldiers made
any sore hearts, it should not be in his parish.