his groom. That was in the old Squire's time.
Ah! things were very different then to what
they are now. No flint-skinning; no selling of
skim-milk, and cabbages, and fruit—Shorten
the right hand bridle! You've drawn the
snaffle right out of her mouth on 'tother side!
—No hounding of beggars; no stopping up of
footpaths across the park; lots of horses in
the stable; and some sort of jollification always
going on in the house.—You'll do no good
unless you sink your heels!"

"The present proprietor is not very liberal,
then?" I said.

"Liberal ?" Mr. Hockle looked up at me
quick and savage, as if I were the miser
he had in his mind. "Liberal! I should say
not. A cold-blooded, close-fisted, stingy
tyke, with only one horse in his stable,—a
mangy gelding, as lank as a hound, only not
half so well-fed.—Turn in your knees more,
and keep your elbows closer to your
side!"

"But what about the tree?" We were
now ambling under the deep shadows of Arch
Lane.

"Well, I'll tell you." Mr. Hockle looked
very serious.

"It's more than a few years ago now.
There was a good deal of distress about at
that time. Oats was sixty shillings a quarter:
work was scarce, and too many to do what
little there was; so there was rioting and
rick-burning; though not half so much as
the Government and the Government spies
made out. The gentry were dead frightened
of being burned in their beds—Sit more
over your legs!—Yet the good jolly old squire
went on just the same. Although the common
people grumbled at the extravagance of the
rich, never thinking how good it was for
trade, he did not bate a single hunt- breakfast,
or dinner, or jollification of any sort; and
when his second son (he had two, George and
Calder) was going to be married, there never
had been such goings on. I heard tell, at the
time, that that wedding cost the old man
more than a thousand pound. Everybody,
high and low, rich and poor, was invited;
the dingle  was half-covered with tents for
stabling, to accommodate the visitors' cattle;
and there was a marquee on the lawn,
because the wedding breakfast had to be set
out in the regular ball-room: one man from
London was had down to cook, and another to
let off fireworks: all the labourers in the
parish had a day's pay; and they and their
wives and young-uns had as much beef and
beer as they could eat and drink. If the rioters
themselves had come that way, I do believe
the old Squire would have found feed and
liquor for every one of 'em.—Don't hang on
her bit so; give and take!"

"But you are a long time getting up that
tree," I remarked, as a diversion.

"All in good time. You see the bride was
an heiress, and there was a queer story about
her and my master. The old Squire had, once, set
his heart upon Master George having her; he
being the heir to Crookston. And Master
George jilted her—he was wrong, I own; but
he was my gov'ner, and a better master never
sat in pig-skin. You should have seen how he
sat a horse!" As Mr. Hockle emphasised this
expression, he darted a glance at me out of
the corner of his eye that had, I thought, a
dash of contempt in it. "Well," he
continued, "it was a settled thing, though I
never thought it would come to anything;
for it was a precious lazy pace we went
at whenever we were bound for Stonard
Abbey (it lies behind us; about two miles);
and, when we got there, Mr. George never
kept me long a leading the horses about;
but back he came very soon, and sprang into
the saddle smiling, because the visit was over,
and always bucketed off back, at a hand gallop.
I am sure courting at the Abbey must have
been a cold job for him; for nobody—not even
Miss Stonard that I saw—ever came to the
door, to wave him a good-bye as he mounted.
Sometimes we met Mr.Calder on his iron-grey,
going to where we had come from:
that was when we came home over the moor
a mile or two round, through the village.
There, I always had a long waiting job; for
Mr. George never called on Mrs. Levine
without having a long spell of talk with her
and her daughter.—Give her her head more.
Don't bore at her so!—Mrs Levine was
the widow of the last Crookston-Withers
rector, and lived in a cottage at one corner
of the churchyard: Corner Cottage they
call it."

"Was this Miss Stonard of the Abbey handsome?"
I asked.

"She wasn't bad-looking," Mr. Hockle
replied. "She had good clean limbs; and
her short petticoats (no offence meant) showed
'em. She was tall—seventeen hands I should
say—and wore her hair cropped all round: for
docking was quite the go for manes as well as
tails at that time. She had good points in
her face, too. Bright black eyes, white skin,
a straight nose, broad nostrils, and wide
jowls."

"Jowls, Mr. Hockle?"

"Well, jaws, then—all good points whether
in a horse or a woman, mind you. But I
didn't like her countenance. Her eyes were
too clear and cold for my money. She could
look at you as hard as nails, and petrify you
a'most.—That's better! only close your fingers
tighter upon the reins, and make a good fist
of 'em!—Mr. George and his father never got
on well together. The old Squire was high
Tory, and his son was all for the rights of
the people, and would wear a white hat (regular
Radical, you know), and would make
speeches at torch-light meetings, that his
brother Calder, and his father, and Sir Bayle
Stonard called treasonable. But how the
poor loved him for it!  Well, one day he had
been letting out furiously at a great meeting
at Wallsend, about the rascally goings