A Winters Tale 223, 



Russian rabbits, twenty different kinds of fancy poultry 

 were allowed to spoil the crops, and the dovecot was 

 inhabited by as many varieties of pigeons. In the 

 pigsty he had a tame badger, and there was a litter of 

 foxes in one outhouse and an otter in another. What- 

 ever had life had a deep interest for Willie, as it had 

 had a deep interest for his father before him ; for, as 

 well may be imagined, these tastes were inherited. 

 But he gratified them at the expense of agriculture. 

 Everybody said the croft would pay splendidly to 

 a man who knew how to work it, but the Allans 

 were not likely to make a fortune there or anywhere 

 else. 



It was, therefore, not without reason that Adam 

 was set against his niece taking up with Willie ; he 

 considered it would be throwing herself away. And 

 he thought himself possessed of a powerful instru- 

 ment for enforcing his own view, for he had full 

 command of Kitty's little fortune something like 

 a hundred pounds left her by her father, Adam's 

 elder brother, who had preceded him in the occupation 

 of the Red Lion. Whatever it amounted to, it was 

 all in the big box that stood in Adam's favourite attic 

 room, for he had a deep-rooted suspicion of banks, 

 and, like many other country folk of that time, held 

 that his savings could not be safer than under his own 

 lock and key. 



' If you marry Allan,' he said to Kitty, and she 

 knew that no nice scruples about right and wrong 



