He wondered whether the old order of landed gentry were doomed. The parson, Mr. Hamlin, a bit of a Radical, held iconoclastic views. According to this reverend gentleman, who much enjoyed an argument, great estates, and in particular those which suffered from lack of ready money, would share the fate of similar properties in France, and be duly apportioned amongst a triumphant democracy to the betterment of the majority. Fishpingle loathed such a possibility, the more so because the parson’s arguments were hard nuts to crack. Such a man, upon such an estate, provoked surprise and exasperation. Fishpingle knew that he had been offered the living because he was famous as a cricketer. The Squire believed in muscular Christianity. After the irreparable event came the soul-shattering discovery that the parson supported Mr. Gladstone. A three acres and a cow fellow! A May sun illumined the landscape. The dining-room faced due east, and to the west, beyond the woods which fringed the park, stretched the New Forest. Sir Geoffrey hunted with both fox-hounds and buck-hounds, and Fishpingle could well remember the days, not long passed, when the house at this spring season was hospitably full of “thrusters” from the shires, keen to kill a May fox in the most beautiful woodlands in England. Economy prohibited such lavish entertainment now that rents were falling with the price of corn and the rate of living steadily rising. A soft voice put to flight these reflections. “Ah, Ben, I thought I should find you here.” Fishpingle turned hastily to behold his mistress smiling at him.