were told of a restless and a very decided lady down these parts as well;
and the earl her husband daren't come nigh in his dread of her, so that
he runs as if to save his life out of every place she enters. And he's
not one to run for a trifle. His pride is pretty well a match for
princes and princesses.

All the same, he shakes in his shoes before her, durst hardly spy at
Esslemont again while she's in occupation. His managing gentleman comes
down from him, and goes up from her; that's how they communicate. One
week she's quite solitary; another week the house is brimful as can be.
She 's the great lady entertaining then. Yet they say it 's a fact, she
has not a shilling of her own to fling at a beggar. She 'll stock a
cottage wanting it with provision for a fortnight or more, and she'll
order the doctor in, and she'll call and see the right things done for
illness. 'But no money; no one's to expect money of her. The shots you
hear in Esslemont grounds out of season are she and her maid, always
alongside her, at it before a target on a bank, trying that old Lord
Levellier's gunpowder out of his mill; and he's got no money either; not
for his workmen, they say, until they congregate, and a threatening to
blow him up brings forth half their pay, on account. But he 's a known
miser. She's not that. She's a pleasant-faced lady for the poor. She
has the voice poor people like. It's only her enemy, maybe her husband,
she can be terrible to. She'd drive a hole through a robber stopping her
on the road, as soon as look at him.

This was Esslemont's atmosphere working its way to the earl, not so very
long after the establishment of his countess there. She could lay hold
of the English, too, it seemed. Did she call any gentleman of the
district by his Christian name? Lord Simon Pitscrew reported her doing
so in the case of one of the Welshmen. Those Welshmen! Apparently they