daubs representing the Royal Family of Gmunden venerated like sacred relics. You will find a farmer's wife who knows the latest bulletin about the sick prince much better than do the society newspapers. The new postman-the old one was discharged for Guelph leanings-takes occasion to whisper, "I, too, am a good Hanoverian." I asked one old squire whether he really believed that there was any chance of the Guelphs coming back. Baumfest," he stoutly

cried; sure as a tree." The thriving trader has become Prussian; even the noble, the peasant's natural leader, has in many cases deserted him; his pretender hardly exerts himself even to pretend. The slow-speaking, slow-thinking countryman remains true to his loyalty and his love. "Sure as a tree?” Alas! but one thing remains sure as a tree-the old man's constancy to his lost cause.

209

V.

A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.

THE baron stood at his gate and looked out over his land. He wore a coarse brown holland jacket; there was dust on the hem of his trousers and on his big boots. Under the little straw hat the solid features and ruddy skin proclaimed him a countryman; the fine lines of his face, the unperturbed blue eyes, the imperious mouth under the yellow-grey moustache, warranted him a gentleman. Under the blazing sun, as he watched his people getting in his harvest, he stood up quiet and unmistakable, the cleanest of all God's creatures, a country gentleman.

Behind him was the house wherein he was born, and wherein his fathers had lived for five hundred years. Nothing like Hatfield or Longleat a small, white, square-windowed house, with red tiles showing on the top and behind it a round tower for the single winding staircase. The house was the

farther end of an oblong; on each side ran forward the outbuildings. On the left the byre, the peasants' cottages, and the mill; on the right the stable, the coach-houses, and the barn; in front of all the gate. In the court rested a dozen haywaggons; behind them, just in front of the house, was a bit of a lawn with a variegated maple-tree, a cinder-drive on each side; against the stable a vine, before the byre a line of standard roses, cobbles in front of the door.

It was about four o'clock, and we went in to dinner. The usual dinner - hour of the house is two, but it had been put back an hour for the convenience of the guests. There were the baroness and her niece, who had spent their morning in cotton clothes out and about and among the servants. So we sat down to dinner. We ate the typical German soup, trout tickled in their own. waters by Fritz- who was waiting at the table in a groom's blue jacket with brass buttons, and who was unaffectedly complimented on his skilland the typical German joint of meat, which appears to aim at the shape of a perfect cube. It was placed on the table at the baron's side; he carved it, and the slices were passed round on a plate; which done he poured out a glass of Rhine wine. and drank the health of the guests. Then an ice - pudding, which somehow had got unfrozen.

"Ach! mein Eis," sighed the baroness, for she had made it herself. Her niece, meanwhile, was for ever springing up to help the perspiring Fritz in getting the dishes round the table. Except

for one small loaf of white bread, eaten sparingly, no single dish had ever been off the estate in its life. Dinner over, we had coffee, and lit cigars; and then, who could stay indoors? The baron let out the fox-terriers; we duly cuddled the baroness's ponies, and went out to be shown every single building and beast about the place, from the new chapel to the tame roe-calves.

The estate is not a large one, as we count estates in England. About 1300 acres I made it out to be, if my reduction of morgen to English measure is correct. Such as it is, the baron farms every rod of it himself. It was a strange hearing to English ears that he could not afford to have any of it down in pasture, except just enough for hay. Thirty-six cows live their whole lives tied by the head in the byre. Their fodder is straw; that and the very water are brought in to them there. They last three years of this life, after which they become beef. Meanwhile they average ten litres of milk a-day-say nine quarts; it was read off the dairy-sheet with great pride, but we should almost be ashamed of it in England.

The proprietors of the neighbourhood havo

a milkery in the town four miles away; part is sold as milk-2d. a litre retail, 11d. wholesalepart is made into butter, and if there is skim-milk unsold it comes back for the pigs. But the stand-by was the crops. The rolling hills above us were checkered with the yellow stooks; across the stream men and women were mowing with heavy scythes, fitted with a basket between blade and handle to lay the corn evenly. It was a good harvest, though short in the straw, and it would be all in within ten days. Yes, it was possible to use the mowingmachine, but hand labour was cheaper. But I suspected also that the baron has a lurking objection to the mower as a new-fangled invention, to be identified with the Prussians-is he not a stout Hanoverian? and with the consequent social democracy. But it was a good harvest-to God be praise and thanks!—and wheat had gone up from £6, 10s. to £8, 2s. per ton-the best price since that other root of all evil, the Russian commercial treaty of '93. Why, at that very moment appeared a Jewish corn-dealer to spend an hour in vainly imploring the highly well-born Ritter Gutsbesitzer to sell the already sold crops at £8, 5s.

Of course the corn is threshed on the estate, as soon as the autumn rains bring down the waterpower to drive the machine. What is wanted in the house is ground afterwards in the mill. The