or poultry; doctored farmer's cows; and even won the heart of the stud-
groom by a mysterious sedative ball, which had reduced to serene docility
a highly nervous and hitherto unmanageable four-year-old. Sophy had been
no less popular. No one grudged her the favour of Lady Montfort--no one
wondered at it. They were loved and honoured. Perhaps the happiest
years Waife had known since his young wife left the earth were passed in
the hamlet which he fancied her shade haunted; for was it not there--
there, in that cottage--there, in sight of those green osiers, that her
first modest virgin replies to his letters of love and hope that soothed
his confinement and animated him--till then little fond of sedentary
toils--to the very industry which, learned in sport, now gave
subsistence, and secured a home. To that home persecution had not
come--gossip had not pryed into its calm seclusion--even chance, when
threatening disclosure, had seemed to pass by innocuous. For once
--a year or so before he left--an incident had occurred which alarmed him
at the time, but led to no annoying results. The banks of the great
sheet of water in Montfort Park were occasionally made the scene of rural
picnics by the families of neighbouring farmers or tradesmen. One day
Waife, while carelessly fashioning his baskets on his favourite spot, was
recognised, on the opposite margin, by a party of such holiday-makers to
whom he himself had paid no attention. He was told the next day by the
landlady of the village inn, the main chimney of which he had undertaken
to cure of smoking, that a "lady" in the picnic symposium of the day
before had asked many questions about him and his grandchild, and had
seemed pleased to hear they were both so comfortably settled. The
"lady" had been accompanied by another "lady," and by two or three young
gentlemen. They had arrived in a "buss," which they had hired for the
occasion. They had come from Humberston the day after those famous races
which annually filled Humberston with strangers--the time of year in
which Rugge's grand theatrical exhibition delighted that ancient town.