Sir Limpidus

Excerpt from Sir Limpidus

Sir Rusticus, the father of Sir Limpidus, was a good landlord. His farms and cottages were kept in excellent repair. He made allowance for bad years and individual drawbacks, took an interest in the improvement of all breeds of livestock, and knew his tenantry and servants both by sight and name. There was on the estate a row of comfortable almshouses, each with its plot of garden, to which old labourers and wives of labourers retired to end their days. Sir Rusticus was wont to boast that no old man or woman on his property was a charge upon the rates. Yet he paid heavy rates, acquiring thus a double sense of merit and of grievance.

But all these things were subsidiary in his thinking to the real purpose of a great estate, which was to furnish sport to the possessor and his bidden friends. The crops upon the farms were not alone for profit to the farmers; they were also for the recreation and refreshment of the landlord's pheasants, hares, and partridges; and the district was patrolled by keepers day and night, to see that these more valued creatures had their way. Foxes, too, were to be venerated by the tenants, and spared to run before the 'clearfount hounds.