"'When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector, Lets your soul rot asleep to the grave, You will find in your God the protector Of the freeman you fancied your slave." 'She looked at the tuft of clover, And wept till her heart grew light; And at last, when her passion was over, Went wandering into the night. 'But the merry brown hares came leaping Over the uplands still, Where the clover and corn lay sleeping On the side of the white chalk hill.' 'Surely, sir,' said Lancelot, 'you cannot suppose that this latter part applies to you. or your family?' 'If it don't, it applies to half the gentlemen in the vale, and that's just as bad. What right has the fellow to speak evil of dignities?' continued he, quoting the only text in the Bible which he was inclined to make a 'rule absolute.' 'What does such an insolent dog deserve? What don't he deserve, I say?' 'I think,' quoth Lancelot, ambiguously, 'that a man who can write such ballads is not fit to be your gamekeeper, and I think he feels so himself;' and Lancelot stole an encouraging look at Tregarva. 'And I say, sir,' the keeper answered, with an effort, 'that I leave Mr. Lavington's service here on the spot, once and for all.' 'And that you may do, my fine fellow!' roared the squire. 'Pay the rascal his wages, steward, and then duck him soundly in the weir- pool. He had better have stayed there when he fell in last.' 'So I had, indeed, I think. But I'll take none of your money. The day Harry Verney was buried I vowed that I'd touch no more of the wages of blood. I'm going, sir; I never harmed you, or meant a hard word of all this for you, or dreamt that you or any living soul would ever see it. But what I've seen myself, in spite of myself, I've set down here, and am not ashamed of it. And woe,' he went on with an almost prophetic solemnity in his tone and gesture--'woe to those who do these things! and woe to those also who, though they dare not do them themselves, yet excuse and defend them who dare, just because the world calls them gentlemen, and not tyrants and oppressors.' He turned to go. The squire, bursting with passion, sprang up with a terrible oath, turned deadly pale, staggered, and dropped senseless on the floor. They all rushed to lift him up. Tregarva was the first to take him in his arms and place him tenderly in his chair, where he lay back with glassy eyes, snoring heavily in a fit of apoplexy. 'Go; for God's sake, go,' whispered Lancelot to the keeper, 'and wait for me at Lower Whitford. I must see you before you stir.'