Why, the place has been an eyesore to the whole neighborhood, the resort of poaching, thieving rascals; by gad, if my brother George had gone down there I don't know what would have happened! It will cost a couple of years' rent to get things put straight." When the Squire was at home there was scarce an evening when the Rector did not come up to smoke a pipe and take his glass of old Jamaica or Hollands with him.
"Look here, Bastow," the latter said, some three years after his return, "what are you going to do with that boy of yours?
I hear bad reports of him from everyone; he gets into broils at the alehouse, and I hear that he consorts with a bad lot of fellows down at Reigate.

One of my tenants--I won't mention names--complained to me that he had persecuted his daughter with his attentions.

They say, he was recognized among that poaching gang that had an affray with Sir James Hartrop's keepers.

The thing is becoming a gross scandal." "I don't know what to do about him, Squire; the boy has always been a trouble to me.

You see, before you came home, he got into bad hands in the village here.