But these eccentricities were merely verbal, and under them lay a deep vein of genuine and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes and four 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" was the exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had been offended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When the daughter of the house married and went into a far country, she was sure to find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion, and was full of enquiries about his lordship and her ladyship, and Miss Pinkerton the governess, and whether Mr. Wheeler was still coachman, and who lived now at the entrance-lodge. Whether the sons got commissions, or took ranches, or become curates in slums, or contested remote constituencies, some grinning face was sure to emerge from the crowd with, "You know me, sir? Bill Juffs, as used to go bird's-nesting with you;" or, "You remember my old dad, my lord? He used to shoe your black pony." When the eldest son came of age, his condescension in taking this step was hailed with genuine enthusiasm. When he came into his kingdom, there might be some grumbling if he went in for small economies, or altered old practices, or was a "hard man" on the Bench or at the Board of Guardians; but, if he went on in the good-natured old ways, the traditional loyalty was unabated. Lord Shaftesbury wrote thus about the birth of his eldest son's eldest son: "My little village is all agog with the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first, it is believed, since 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was born. The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had flags and flowers. We had three triumphal arches; and all the people were exulting. 'He is one of us.' 'He is a fellow-villager.' 'We have now got a lord of our own.' This is really gratifying. I did not think that there remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasant and proprietor, landlord and tenant." Whether the kind of relation thus described has utterly perished I do not know; but certainly it has very greatly diminished, and the cause of the diminution is that people live less and less in their country houses, and more and more in London. For those who are compelled by odious necessity to sell or let their hereditary homes one has nothing but compassion; in itself a severe trial, it is made still sharper to well-conditioned people by the sense that the change is at least as painful to the poor as to themselves. But for those who, having both a country and a London house, deliberately concentrate themselves on the town, forsake the country, and abjure the duties which are inseparable from their birthright, one can only feel Charles Lamb's "imperfect sympathy." The causes which induce this dereliction and its results on society and on the country may be discussed in another chapter. XLVI HOME