motor-car, but after running over the house he would come out
and, remarking that it was a "rummy old place," remount his
car and vanish in a cloud of dust to be seen no more.

The dead owner, I found, was much in the village mind; and no
wonder, since Norton had never been without a squire until he
passed away, leaving no one to succeed him. It was as if some
ancient landmark, or an immemorial oak tree on the green in
whose shade the villagers had been accustomed to sit for many
generations, had been removed. There was a sense of something
wanting something gone out of their lives. Moreover, he had
been a man of a remarkable character, and though they never
loved him they yet reverenced his memory.

So much was he in their minds that I could not be in the
village and not hear the story of his life--the story which, I
said, interested me less than that of the good baker and his
wife. On his father's death at a very advanced age he came, a
comparative stranger, to Norton, the first half of his life
having been spent abroad. He was then a middle-aged man,
unmarried, and a bachelor he remained to the end. He was of a
reticent disposition and was said to be proud; formal, almost
cold, in manner; furthermore, he did not share his neighbours'
love of sport of any description, nor did he care for society,
and because of all this he was regarded as peculiar, not to
say eccentric. But he was deeply interested in agriculture,
especially in cattle and their improvement, and that object
grew to be his master passion. It was a period of great
depression, and as his farms fell vacant he took them into his
own hands, increased his stock and built model cowhouses, and