It exquisitely pained them, moreover, to find pretty distinct indications of a sterner and stricter rule being apparent at Yatton, than had ever been known there before, so far as the tenants and villagers were concerned. Rents were now required to be paid with the utmost punctuality; many of them were raised, and harsher terms introduced into their leases and agreements. In Mr. Aubrey's time a distress or an action for rent was a thing literally unheard of in any part of the estate; but nearly a dozen had occurred since the accession of Mr. Titmouse. If this had been at the instance of the ruling spirit, Mr. Gammon personally had certainly got none of the odium of the proceeding; every letter announcing a resort to hostile measures expressly purporting to be authorized by Mr. Titmouse himself; Mr. Gammon on most of such occasions, putting in a faint word or two in favor of the tenant, but ineffectually. The legal proceedings were always conducted in the name of "Bloodsuck and Son," whose town agents were, "Quirk, Gammon, and Snap;" but _their_ names never came under the eye of the defendants! No longer could the poor villagers, and poorer tenants, reckon on their former assistance from the Hall in the hour of sickness and distress: cowslip wine, currant wine, elderberry wine, if made, were consumed in the Hall. In short, there was a discontinuance of all those innumerable little endearing courtesies, and charities, and hospitalities, which render a good old country mansion the very _heart_ of the neighborhood. The doctor in one of his letters, intimated, with a sort of agony, that he had heard it mentioned by the people at the Hall as probable, that Mr. Titmouse--the little Goth--would pull down that noble old relic, the turreted gateway; but that Mr. Gammon was vehemently opposed to such a measure; and that, if it were preserved after all, it would be entirely owing to the taste and the influence of that gentleman. Had Dr. Tatham chosen, he could have added a fact which would indeed have saddened his friends--viz. that the old sycamore, which had been preserved at the fond entreaties of Kate, and which was hallowed by so many sad and tender associations, had been long ago removed, as a sort of eyesore: Mr. Gammon had, in fact, directed it to be done; but he repeatedly expressed to Dr. Tatham, confidentially, his regret at such an act on the part of Titmouse. The doctor could also have told them that there had been a dog-fight in the village, at which Mr. Titmouse was present! Persons were beginning to make their appearance too, at Yatton, of a very different description from any who had been seen there in the time of the Aubreys--persons, now and then, of loose, and wild, and reckless characters. Mr. Titmouse would often get up a fight in the village, and reward the victor with five or ten shillings! Then the snug and quiet little "Aubrey Arms" was metamorphosed into the "Titmouse Arms" and another set up in opposition