"Troubles that the rich sometimes bring upon the poor, sir," answered the pedlar. "Just about the time when I first took to this trade, I remember him, as fine a looking man of forty-three or forty-four as any in the whole county, and as gay and light-hearted too. He had then two children, a girl of about seventeen or eighteen, and this young man who now holds the great farm: he was not above fourteen then, and the girl was the prettiest creature I ever saw in my life, and quite like a lady. Poor Mary Graves! I shan't forget her in a hurry. But she fell in love, one unlucky day, with a gentleman who came down into these parts from London--a rich merchant they said he was. He did not behave well by the old man, though not so bad as they said at first; but he coaxed the girl to go away with him, without her father's knowledge; and for a long time Farmer Graves thought he had seduced her, and it well-nigh broke his heart. In the end, however, he found that they were really married; but she died with her first child, poor thing, and the old man has never got over it." "Poor man!" said Henry, in a very grave tone; "it is a sad tale indeed. Did his daughter's husband never do anything to compensate for the pain he had inflicted?" "There are some things, sir," said the pedlar, "for which there is no compensation. He could not give him back his child again; he could not wipe out a long year of misery, during which the old man was ruined and dishonoured; he could never make his mind what it was before, nor take out of his heart all the bitterness he had planted there. I have heard, indeed, that he did offer to do a great deal which Farmer Graves would not accept of; and the people say that it was through him that the young man was enabled to take this great farm he now holds, and to stock it. They never knew rightly who he really was, for they say the name he was married under was a feigned one; and all they could find out was that he was a great merchant in London; for the child was put out to nurse for some time, and then the father came suddenly and took it away, and nothing more was ever heard of it, by the family at least."