Surely, he had seen it all; but what kink of the brain was it that the men wore flowing wigs and immense boot-legs, and sported lace in the hunting-field? And why did he see within that picture another of two ladies and a gentleman hawking? He was roused from his dream by hearing the huntsman say in a quizzical voice: “How do you like the dogs, sir?” To his last day Lugley, the huntsman, remembered the slow look of cold surprise, of masterful malice, scathing him from head to foot. The words that followed the look, simple as they were, drove home the naked reproof: “What is your name, my man?” “Lugley, sir.” “Lugley! Lugley! H’m! Well, Lugley, I like the hounds better than I like you. Who is Master of the Hounds, Lugley?” “Captain Maudsley, sir.” “Just so. You are satisfied with your place, Lugley?” “Yes, sir,” said the man in a humble voice, now cowed. The news of the arrival of the strangers had come to him late at night, and, with Whipshire stupidity, he had thought that any one coming from the wilds of British America must be but a savage after all. “Very well; I wouldn’t throw myself out of a place, if I were you.” “Oh, no, sir! Beg pardon, sir, I--” “Attend to your hounds there, Lugley.” So saying, Gaston nodded Jacques away with him, leaving the huntsman sick with apprehension. “You see how it is to be done, Brillon?” said Gaston. Jacques’s brown eyes twinkled. “You have the grand trick, sir.” “I enjoy the game; and so shall you, if you will. You’ve begun well. I don’t know much of this life yet; but it seems to me that they are all part of a machine, not the idea behind the machine. They have no invention. Their machine is easy to learn. Do not pretend; but for every bit you learn show something better, something to make them dizzy now and then.” He paused on a knoll and looked down. The castle, the stables, the cottages of labourers and villagers lay before them. In a certain highly-cultivated field, men were working. It was cut off in squares and patches. It had an air which struck Gaston as unusual; why, he could not tell. But he had a strange divining instinct, or whatever it may be called. He made for the field and questioned the workmen. The field was cut up into allotment gardens. Here, at a nominal rent, the cottager could grow his vegetables; a little spot of the great acre of England, which gave the labourer a tiny sense of ownership, of manhood. Gaston was interested. More, he was determined to carry that experiment further, if he ever got the chance. There was no socialism in him. The true barbarian is like the true aristocrat: more a giver of gifts than a lover of co-operation; conserving ownership by right of power and superior independence, hereditary or otherwise. Gaston was both barbarian and aristocrat. “Brillon,” he said, as they walked on, “do you think they would be happier on the prairies with a hundred acres of land, horses, cows, and a pen of pigs?” “Can I be happy here all at once, sir?”