“Come, come, Fanny, you have been here long enough for to-day,” said Richard. “Do go down before you are quite chilled or suffocated.” Fanny declared herself in no danger of either the one or the other calamity. She was at the moment looking abroad upon the park at her feet, and the mountainous range behind, and feared nothing so much as this being pronounced an unfit residence for her, and her return to London insisted upon. She waited anxiously for the reply to the steward’s question,— “What do you think of the place, sir? Have you any idea of living in it, now you see what it is?” “O yes, if you have people at hand who can set it to rights, and if——” His brothers understood the contortion of his long form, and laughed. “And if,” said they, “anybody will be master instead of you. Leave it to us.” Wallace would enjoy nothing so much as such an excuse for making the most of a fine sporting season; and James had no objection to go backwards and forwards between Fellbrow and his new living,—taking what sport he could get at the one place, and perhaps amusing himself with building a house at the other. “As for the quality of the tradespeople, sir,” said the steward, “you will be better off than if you had happened to come a while ago. Among other things that the new road has brought us, sir, is a number of better workmen than we had before. Some of the old folks, who cannot give up their custom of doing their work as slow as they please, and charging what they like, are apt to stand grumbling at their doors, with their hands in their pockets. But what you have to do with, sir, is the new-comers, in the new part of the town, who will be glad of the opportunity of keeping a-head in the competition, and doing your work out of hand.” “I had rather employ the old ones who used to work for my father, if they will bestir themselves to serve me properly.” “I doubt they won’t, sir; and I would not have you think yourself under obligation to employ them. They have made, and are making, provision enough for themselves out of your property already.” What could this mean? The gentlemen must ask Morse. Morse, the gamekeeper? Then it was meant that the tradesmen and work-people of A—— were poachers. But which? It could not surely be meant that glaziers and carpenters, shoemakers and chimney-sweepers, made any hand of poaching. The steward supposed time would show what sort of men the gangs were composed of. This much he knew; that the people he alluded to spoke of the falling off of their business for the sake of new-comers, and of the weight of their taxation, as if they thought it justified their laying hands on a property which they did not consider as a property; which was the case with game all over the world.