“I think death is made more of a nuisance than it need be really,” said the slender young gentleman who represented Royalty to the _Custos Rotulorum_ who replied with a groan, “Oh, Lord, yes! If one could only smoke!” For two miles and more the roads had been lined by rural folks waiting respectfully for the pageant to pass by; but as they drew near Vale Royal and entered on what had been Roxhall’s lands, all the cottages which they passed were shut up; not a man, woman, or child was visible in the little gardens or in the fields beyond. “I suppose the cottagers are all gone on to the churchyard,” said a plump rector in one of the carriages, as he looked out of his window. The town clerk, who was beside him, said in a whisper: “You won’t see a man-jack of Roxhall’s old tenants or peasantry show their noses to-day. They neither forget nor forgive.” “How very un-Christian!” said the plump rector, with a sigh. “Fidelity’s its own religion,” said the town clerk, who had been born on a farm on Roxhall’s land, and had hated to see the old homesteads and the familiar fields pass to the man from Dakota. He was a true prophet. None of the peasantry or of the tenantry were visible on the roads or at the church of Vale Royal, which was within the park gates and surrounded by yew-trees and holly hedges; they were loyal to their lost lord. Princes and nobles and ministers might truckle to the wealth of the dead man, but these men of the soil were faithful to the old owners of the soil. They despised the newcomer, living or dead.