But this sweet spot had its disadvantages. It was frightfully out of the way, being five miles from the nearest railway station, and that on a branch line. The necessaries of life were only to be obtained with difficulty, and farm and dairy produce was expensive, and in supply, precarious. There was one butcher, and no baker, and a post-office chiefly noteworthy for the blundering wherewith Her Majesty's mails were received and dispensed. Moreover, the Brackenshire folk were not of a particularly pleasant rustic type. They were very "independent," which is to say they did what seemed right in their own eyes, irrespective of such little matters as honesty or square dealing. They were, as a rule, incapable of speaking the truth, except accidentally, and they had very long tongues. Suffice it briefly to say, they excelled in the low and sordid cunning which usually characterises the simple-hearted rustic of whatever county. The Rev. Dudley Vallance had a shibboleth which he never wearied of pronouncing. This was it:--County Society. Now, at Lant-Hanger this article, within anything like the accepted meaning of the term, did not exist. It was a crying want, and like all such so capable, it must be supplied. Our "squarson" set to work to supply it by a simple device. He went into bricks and mortar. His jerry-built "bijou residences," and tinkered-up rustic cottages soon let, and let comfortably--for him. Not so for the tenants, however, for the honest Brackenshire craftsmen "did" their employer most thoroughly, and the luckless householders found themselves let in for all sorts of horrors they had never bargained for. Thus the Rev. Dudley "did" as he was "done." But he got his "County Society." This, at the period with which we have to deal, in the year of grace 1875, consisted of a sprinkling of maiden ladies and clergymen's relicts, who leased the delectable dwellings aforesaid; a retired jerry-builder, who knew better than to do anything of the kind; the village doctor; a few neighbouring vicars of infinitesimal intellect; a couple of squireens evolved from three generations of farmers, and, lastly, Mr Santorex of Elmcote; all of whom, with the notable exception of the last-named, constituted an array of satellites revolving round the centre planet, the Rev. Dudley himself.