know what other people in other parts of the world were saying and
doing.

About the time of the Reform agitation of 1867 he rode round to the
masons' shed. The men were having their eleven o'clock meal, and as they
ate their bread and cheese, Fat Jack, the stone-cutter, read to them one
of Mr. John Bright's speeches. The Squire did not exactly know, or care
to know, who Mr. John Bright might be, but he gathered enough from Fat
Jack's guttural elocution to cause uneasiness. He declared that if ever
the postman brought such a thing into the village again he would never
allow a letter to be delivered on his estate. But with all this bluster,
the common people knew that their landlord wished them well, and they
were ready to do anything for him.

One night, while he was dragging his trout stream, he fell into the
ugliest part of the water. He had hardly had time to come to the surface
when six men were in after him, and he had to thank each one of the six
in the same formal terms before any of them would consent to resign the
whole credit of the rescue.

His eldest son was killed in battle. Before departing for the fatal
campaign, the young officer had dragged the burn, and placed all the
brown trout that he caught in a great tarn that lay amongst the low
hills on the moor. The fish increased and multiplied until the little
lake was swarming. Big fat trout used to roll easily round on summer
evenings, and make lazy lunges at the flies. It would have been easy to
have taken twenty dozen out of the lake in a day; but the Squire said he
did not want the pond fished because his boy had stocked it. So no
native ever cast a line there, although the temptation was almost
unbearable.