met, Atheling! You are the very man I wished to see! Do you remember Exham?”

There was a little complimentary speaking, and then the Duke said earnestly: “Squire, if there is one thing above another that at this time the landed interest ought to do, it is to stand together. The country is going to the devil; it is on the verge of revolution. We must have a majority in the next Parliament; and we want you for the borough of Asketh. Exham has come back from Italy purposely to take Gaythorne. What do you say?”

It was the great ambition of the Squire to go to Parliament, and the little dispute he had just had with the stranger on the green had whetted this desire to a point which made the Duke’s question a very interesting one to him; but he was too shrewd to make this satisfaction apparent. “There are younger men, Duke,” he answered slowly; “and they who go to the next Parliament will have a trying time of it. I hear queer tales, too, of Parliament men; and the House keeps late hours; and late hours never did suit my constitution.”

11“Come, Atheling, that is poor talk at a crisis like this. There will be a meeting at the Castle on Friday–a very important meeting–and I shall expect you to take the chair. We are in for such a fight as England has not had since the days of Oliver Cromwell; and it would not be like John Atheling to keep out of it.”

11

“It wouldn’t. If there is anything worth fighting for, John Atheling will be thereabouts, I’ll warrant him.”

“Then we may depend upon you–Friday, and two in the afternoon, is the day and the hour. You will not fail us?”

“Duke, you may depend upon me.” And so the men parted; the Squire, in the unexpected proposal just made him, hardly comprehending the messages of friendly courtesy which Lord Exham charged him to deliver to Mrs. and Miss Atheling.

“My word! My word!” he exclaimed, as soon as the Duke and he were far enough back to back. “Won’t Maude be set up? Won’t little Kitty plume her wings?” and in this vague, purposeless sense of wonder and elation he reached his home. The gates to the large, sweet garden stood open, but after a moment’s thought, he passed them, and went round to the farm court at the back of the house. The stables occupied one side of this court, and he left his horse there, and proceeded to the kitchen. The girls were starting the fires under the coppers for the quarterly 12 brewing; they said “the Missis was 

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