’But this must be a very healthy life of yours—out in the fresh air always—plenty of exercise—and so forth.’ ’Just the healthiest possible, sir.’ ’But monotonous a little?’ ’’Deed no, sir. A keeper need never be idle if he minds his business; there’s always something new on hand.’ ’Then we’ll say it is a very enjoyable life, so long as your health lasts, and you are fit for the work?’ This was apparently a question. ’Well, sir, the head stalker on the Rothie-Mount forest is seventy-two years of age; and there is not one of the young lads smarter on the hill than he is.’ ’An exception, doubtless. The betting is all against your matching that record. Well, take your own case: what have you to look forward to as the result of all your years of labour? I agree with you that in the meantime it is all very fine; I can understand the fascination of it, even, and the interest you have in becoming acquainted with the habits of the various creatures, and so forth. Oh yes, I admit that—the healthiness of the life, and the interest of it; and I daresay you get more enjoyment out of the shooting and stalking than Lord Ailine, who pays such a preposterous price for it. But say we give you a fairly long lease of health and strength sufficient for the work: we’ll take you at sixty; what then? Something happens—rheumatism, a broken leg, anything—that cripples you. You are superseded; you are out of the running; what is to become of you?’ ’Well, sir,’ said Ronald instantly, ’I’m thinking his lordship wouldna think twice about giving a pension to a man that had worked for him as long as that.’ It was a luckless answer. For Mr. Hodson, whose first article of belief was that all men are born equal, had come to Europe with a positive resentment against the very existence of lords, and a detestation of any social system that awarded them position and prestige merely on account of the accident of their birth. And what did he find now? Here was a young fellow of strong natural character, of marked ability, and fairly independent spirit, so corrupted by this pernicious system that he looked forward quite naturally to being helped in his old age by his lordship—by one of those creatures who still wore the tags and rags of an obsolete feudalism, and were supposed to ’protect’ their vassals. The House of Peers had a pretty bad time of it during the next few minutes; if the tall, sallow-faced, gray-eyed man talked with little vehemence, his slow, staccato sentences had a good deal of keen irony in them. Ronald listened respectfully. And perhaps the lecture was all the more severe that the lecturer had but little opportunity of delivering it in his own domestic circle. Truly it was hard that his pet grievance won for him nothing but a sarcastic sympathy there; and that it was his own daughter who flouted him with jibes and jeers.