The “easy” profession carries with it the immense penalty of an influence reaching forward into the future long after death, in a fashion characteristic of scarcely any other. There are some of us whose chief honour and glory is to find men of humble station still appraising right and wrong by the standards taught them of our fathers. Wiggie’s eye ran along the dark heads etched on the yellow light, from Stubbs, somnolently fixing Lanty to the punctuation of a spasmodic “Hear, hear!” to Dockeray, thoughtful and quiet, Brack, supercilious but attentive, Wolf, quiveringly interested and yet outside, and finally to Bluecaster in his big chair at the head. He wondered afterwards why, of all the tragedies at the table--and there was more than one plain to the eye--Bluecaster’s had seemed to him the most helpless and complete. There is something terrible in the relentlessness with which inheritance may force a man into a position he is not framed to fill, thrusting power into his hands and judgment into his mouth whether he desire their fiery splendours or no. He may, of course, pluck the joys of heritage and leave its duties to look after themselves; but if he has good blood behind him and a strong hand beside him, he will come to them, soon or late. Left to himself, with no great name to support, Bluecaster would have been a tennis champion or somebody’s private skipper, chauffeur or huntsman--anything but the head of a large estate, with his generous but harassed brain besieged by the growing problems of the day. Yet he had hurried home from Egypt to take his place, to speak the right word as far as he knew, and was sitting with his patient dog’s eyes raised in courteous attention, keeping his end up not too unsuccessfully, thanks to the spur of race and the steady influence of a good servant. Lancaster finished the survey of the half-year, covering general events, agricultural conditions and the new legislation; and then, on an impulse that he never ceased to regret, referred, in his final sentences, to a subject already closed. “I should just like to add that I hope all the marsh-men are sleeping well!” he ended, dropping into a lighter tone. “Mr. Bracken Holliday was a little anxious, as we all know, about the beginning of last autumn, but I trust that by now he has come round to the general conclusion of safety.” He lifted his glass. “I wish all on the marsh a succession of prosperous seasons and no dreams!”