and some every fortnight. That brings me in a good part of my living. Very well. I ask all who hear me, is his lordship like to keep such a stud now he is dead? Is he like to want hunters? I grant you, for the sake of argument, that the young lady and young gentleman will have their cobs and ponies, but will there be anything like as many horses kept as there have been? No, in reason there cannot be. So you may consider what a loss to me is the death of his lordship. My worst personal enemy couldn't have hit me harder than when he knocked Lord Lamerton over the Cleave. He as much as knocked a dozen or fourteen horses over with him, each with four hoofs, at sixpence a shoe, and shod, let us say, eighteen times in the year."
"You are right," put in the tailor, "landed property is tied up, and his lordship's property is tied up—tied up and sealed like mail bags—till the young lord comes of age, which will not be for eleven years. So, Blatchford,"—addressing the blacksmith—"you must multiply your horses by eleven."
"That makes," said the smith, working out the sum in chalk on the shutter of the shop, "say fourteen horses eighteen times—two hundred and two—and by four—and again by eleven—and halved because of sixpences, that makes five hundred and fifty-four pounds; then there were odd jobs, but them I won't reckon. Whoever chucked Lord Lamerton down the Cleave chucked five hundred and fifty-four pounds of as honestly-earned money as ever was got, belonging to me, down along with him."
"Fax is fax," said the miner.
"And human nature is human nature to feel it," added the tailor.
"There's another thing to be considered," said a game-keeper. "In the proper sporting season, my lord had down scores of gentlemen to shoot his covers, and that brought
