Simon Degge, meantime, did not trouble himself about these wrathful comments upon him in the neighbouring great houses. He had the pleasure of hearing all throughout Hillmartin, that the people there were highly pleased with the check he had given to Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, whose injustice to the farmers of this farm had been a subject of indignant comment for years. As his crops grew, he fenced off what he wanted to secure from the game, with a wire fencing, which he found perfectly effectual, leaving a considerable strip along the woodsides to the depredations of these creatures. When the harvest was got, he removed his wire-fence, and allowed the game to wander anywhere, and all autumn and winter he found an abundant supply for himself and friends, who had thus a great inducement to come out from Castleborough for a good day’s shooting every now and then. This was not less irritating to the Bullocksheds and Rockvilles, than it was delightful to the people and farmers all round, who not daring to open their mouths, yet saw with evident satisfaction this poetical justice executed on men who had never shown the least sense of justice in their own conduct whenever game was concerned. The objects of social improvement which interested Mr. and Mrs. Degge in Castleborough, were introduced by them into the little arena of Hillmartin. The condition of the poor was looked into, and their distresses relieved. Their children were afforded a good school, and many a comfort flowed unostentatiously into the homes of the aged or the sick that was never known before.