Marat, and warranted by my Lord Bacon, he would have passed a most
agreeable evening, and really availed himself of the squire's wealth by
going home in the squire's carriage. But because he chose to take so
intellectual a view of property, he tumbled into a ditch; because he
tumbled into a ditch, he spoiled his clothes; because he spoiled his
clothes, he gave up his visit; because he gave up his visit, he got into
the village green, and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the air
of a fugitive from the treadmill; because he sat on the stocks--with that
hat, and a cross face under it--he had been forced into the most
discreditable squabble with a clodhopper, and was now limping home, at
war with gods and men; ergo (this is a moral that will bear repetition),
--ergo, when you walk in a rich man's grounds, be contented to enjoy what
is yours, namely, the prospect,--I dare say you will enjoy it more than
he does!




CHAPTER VI.

If, in the simplicity of his heart and the crudity of his experience,
Lenny Fairfield had conceived it probable that Mr. Stirn would address to
him some words in approbation of his gallantry and in sympathy for his
bruises, he soon found himself wofully mistaken. That truly great man,
worthy prime minister of Hazeldean, might perhaps pardon a dereliction
from his orders, if such dereliction proved advantageous to the interests
of the service, or redounded to the credit of the chief; but he was
inexorable to that worst of diplomatic offences,--an ill-timed, stupid,
over-zealous obedience to orders, which, if it established the devotion
of the employee, got the employer into what is popularly called a scrape!