AN ENGLISH SQUIRE 53 



the place farmers and cottagers ; servants, from the 

 bailiff, the forester, and the chief butler, down to the 

 smallest helper in the stable-yard ; horses and dogs, 

 pigeons and ornamental water-fowl are all devoted 

 to the master ; so if his lot is not an enviable one, 

 we should like to know a lot that is. 



But after all, and without so many worldly advant- 

 ages, there are others of our country acquaintances who 

 are at least as happy as either the squire or the laird. 

 The rector, for instance, who holds the lucrative little 

 family living, and ministers to the spiritual and temporal 

 wants of a small and scattered population, who have 

 known him and whom he has known from his childhood. 

 He discourses to them out of the pulpit with an inti- 

 mate personal knowledge of their necessities. In time 

 of health, as in seasons of sickness, he has always a warm 

 greeting everywhere. If there is a bit of a tift in 

 a family, or a difference between master and servants, 

 it is the parson who, of course, is called in to settle 

 matters ; and if all the parishes were ministered to like 

 his, the lawyers might starve for lack of litigation. Off 

 go the hats in the length of the village street when the 

 broad-brimmed, black wideawake and the pepper-and- 

 salt suit are seen coming down the causeway. The 

 women are bobbing and ducking in their doors, in- 

 wardly hoping that the rector may turn aside to them ; 

 and the children are for ever getting in his way, looking 

 out for a kindly word or a caress. The young men 

 regard him with mingled love and veneration, for there 

 is not a bat among them that can hold its own against 



