From the lodge of a neighbouring hall rides forth a cavalcade; Sir Watkin Strahan, well-mounted, is the leader of the party. A fair girl, the rich merchant’s daughter, is by his side; on the other is the rich merchant himself. Behind them follows a groom in livery, perhaps the best rider of the lot. As they leave the gate the keeper hands Sir Watkin an ill-written epistle on a dirty piece of paper, which Sir Watkin indignantly tears to pieces without reading. ‘If the contents are of importance,’ he says to himself, ‘they will come before him in a more legitimate manner.’ ‘’Tis that old woman from the workhouse,’ says the lodge-keeper to the groom, who gives a knowing smile in reply as he passes out. ‘She’s a good deal arter the maister,’ she replies, ‘but he’s not one to take up with the likes of her. She’s a cool one, at any rate.’ They are now on the turnpike which leads to Sloville, and hence to London itself. The crowd thickens as they near the town. The tenants on the estate are numerous, and Sir Watkin has a word for them all. He inquires after their families; as to the state of their oxen and asses; what kind of a season it has been with them, and how the crops are getting on. The tenants are careful not to reply too cheerily. They are talking to their landlord, and he may put up the rent if they brag too much. The London merchant is charmed. He has a lot more money than Sir Watkin, but it brings him no gratified courtesies either abroad or at home. He is suspicious even of his chief clerk. Everyone seems to look up to Sir Watkin. There is something in being a landowner, and the bearer of any kind of hereditary title. ‘Why,’ he asks himself, ‘does not the Queen make baronets of such as himself? Men who add to British wealth, who carry British commerce all over the world; without whom England would never have become mistress of the seas. Infinitely superior is the British merchant to the British landlord. Yet, how much we think of the one, how little of the other. Will it ever be so?’ he asks himself. Wise as he is, he fails to anticipate a time when circumstances shall break the power of the landlord, and the produce of Canada and America make the land an unsaleable commodity.