cloud and mist for it to break through. It's going to be a scorcher
to-day."

"Good," I replied; and for a few minutes we discussed weather signs like
any other conventional Englishmen. A natural comparison led us presently
to the subject of Canada. But through it all he bore himself as a man with
a preoccupation he could not forget; and I was looking for a good opening
to make an excuse of fatigue and go back to the Hall, when something of
the thought that was intriguing him broke through the surface of his talk.

"I'm going back there as soon as I can," he said with a sudden impatience.
"There's room to turn round in Canada without hitting up against a notice
board and trespassing on the preserves of some landed proprietor. I'd
never have come home if it hadn't been for the old people. They thought
chauffering for Mr. Jervaise would be a chance for me! Anyhow my father
did. He's got the feeling of being dependent. It's in his bones like it is
with, all of 'em--on the estate. It's a tradition. Lord, the old man would
be horrified, if he knew! The Jervaises are a sort of superior creation to
him. We've been their tenants for God knows how many hundred years. And
serfs before that, I suppose. I get the feeling myself, sometimes. It's
infectious. When you see every one kow-towing to old Jervaise as if he
were the angel Gabriel, you begin to feel as if there must be something in
it."

The full day had come, and the cold draught of air that had preceded the
sunrise came now from behind me as if the spirits of the air had
discovered that their panic-stricken flight had been a mistake and were
tentatively returning to inquire into the new conditions. The birds were
fully awake now, and there was a tremendous gossiping and chattering going
on, that made me think of massed school-children in a railway station,