“I don’t,” said Mr. Woodburn. “I think every man should stand boldly by his conscientious convictions. Mr. Fairfax did not care a straw about the amount of the tax. It was the public of Castleborough, doing homage to his uprightness, that refused to mulct him with the tax and the costs of the distraint. I could tell you many other remarkable acts of this genuine Quaker, as far from any cant or selfishness as Pole is from Pole; but I see George standing with a proposition in his face.” “Yes,” said George, “it is a most delicious forenoon. The air is blowing charmingly, and tempers the heat. I am going to Hillmartin and a little beyond, and I want you, Letty, to mount Fairaway, and have a gallop in the breeze. It is what you want to take the dismals out of your blood. Ann, what say you?” “I say that I shall stay and help mother; but, Letty, by all means, and Mr. Thorsby will join you.” “Of course he will,” said Thorsby. “Your horse is saddled, Letty,” added George. “I will have him brought out, and so away, and get on your habit.” Letty was soon arrayed in hat and habit, looking as fresh and blithe as if nothing had disturbed her nerves: and anon the three, with Letty in the middle, were taking their way up the ascending road towards Hillmartin. It was, as George had said, a delicious July day. Over the sky light clouds were scattered; the breeze, soft yet fresh, made the sun genial and not oppressive. The wild roses wound fragrantly from the tall hedges, and the light-blue buglos, and the lighter-blue chicory—the latter with flowers as if cut out of silk, and stuck formally on the stalks—studded the sandy banks of the wide heathery lane that they rode along. The wheat-fields stood green, but in full ear, and the convolvulus and the scarlet poppy showed themselves gaily round the borders of the corn-fields. “I never see those flaunting field-poppies now,” said George Woodburn, “without thinking of that young poet Keats:— ‘Those scarlet poppies, which do bring to mind The scarlet coats which trouble human kind.’” “Ah!” said Letty, “but I think more fondly of Ruth, in the ‘Ode to the Nightingale’:— ‘when sick for home She stood in tears amid the alien corn.’ That image of the faithful daughter of Moab has given me a new and lasting charm in corn-fields.” “I wish,” said George, “some great poet or magician could come and drive a little poetry, or at least common sense, into the old fellow yonder looking over his homestead gate.” “Why,” said Letty, “that is that wretched old miser, Timothy Squance.” “Yes, it’s Tim Squance, sure enough,” said George. “Notice him well, Thorsby.”