A Good Hater. 17 



towards his undermen, and towards labourers and 

 wood-cutters who transgress his rules. He is apt to 

 use his ground-ash stick rather freely without thought 

 of consequences, and has got into trouble more than 

 once in that way. When he takes a dislike or suspi- 

 cion of a man, nothing will remove it ; he is stubbornly 

 inimical and unforgiving, totally incapable of compre- 

 hending the idea of loving an enemy. He hates cor- 

 dially in the true pagan fashion of old. He is full of 

 prejudices, and has some ideas which almost amount 

 to superstitions ; and, though he fears nothing, has a 

 vague feeling that sometimes there is ' summat ' inex- 

 plicable in the dark and desolate places. Such is this 

 modern man of the woods. 



The impressions of youth are always strongest with 

 us, and so it is that recollecting the scenes in which he 

 passed his earlier days he looks with some contempt 

 upon the style of agriculture followed in the locality ; 

 for he was born in the north, where the farms are some- 

 times of a great area, though perhaps not so rich in soil, 

 and he cannot forgive the tenants here because they 

 have not got herds of three or four hundred horned 

 cattle. Before he settled down in the south he had 

 many changes of situation, and was thus brought in 

 contact with a wonderful number of gentlemen, titled 

 or otherwise distinguished, whose peculiarities of 



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