his own authority was established as firmly as it had been in the
old Squire's time, and in a couple of years Crowswood became quite
a model village. Every garden blossomed with flowers; roses and
eglantine clustered over the cottages, neatness and order prevailed
everywhere.

The children were tidily dressed and respectful in manner, the
women bright and cheerful, and the solitary alehouse remaining had
but few customers, and those few were never allowed to transgress
the bounds of moderation. The Squire had a talk with the landlord
a fortnight after his arrival.

"I am not going to turn you out, Peters," he said. "I hear that
you make some efforts to keep your house decently; the other two I
shall send packing directly their terms are up. Whether you remain
permanently must depend upon yourself. I will do up your house for
you, and build a bar parlor alongside, where quiet men can sit and
smoke their pipes and talk and take their beer in comfort, and have
liberty to enjoy themselves as long as their enjoyment does not
cause annoyance to other people or keep their wives and children in
rags. I will do anything for you if I find the place well conducted;
but I warn you that I will have no drunkenness. A man who, to my
knowledge, gets drunk twice, will not get drunk a third time in
this parish, and if you let men get drunk here it is your fault as
much as theirs. Now we understand each other."

Things once placed on a satisfactory footing, the Squire had but
little more trouble, and it soon came to be understood that he was
not to be trifled with, and that Crowswood was no longer a place
for the idle or shiftless. Two or three of the farmers left at the