Readers hardened by the _Times_ will not perhaps go so far as to
weep over a body of traders for being reduced to the average condition
of all other traders. But the individual trader, who fights for
existence against unfair odds, is to be pitied whether his shop has
plate glass or a barn door to it; and he is the more to be pitied when
he is sober, intelligent, proud, sensitive, and unlucky.

George Fielding was all these, who, a few years ago, assisted by his
brother William, filled "The Grove"--as nasty a little farm as any in
Berkshire.

Discontented as he was, the expression hereinbefore written would have
seemed profane to young Fielding, for a farmer's farm and a sailor's
ship have always something sacred in the sufferer's eyes, though one
sends one to jail, and the other the other to Jones.

It was four hundred acres, all arable, and most of it poor sour land.
George's father had one hundred acres grass with it, but this had been
separated six years ago.

There was not a tree, nor even an old stump to show for this word
"Grove."

But in the country oral tradition still flourishes.

There had been trees in "The Grove," only the title had outlived the
timber a few centuries.

On the morning of our tale George Fielding might have been seen near