It was, then, both with pleasure as an old friend, and with renewed hopefulness for the village, that he visited John Thorndyke on his return.

The change in the state of affairs was almost instantaneous.

As soon as it became known that the Rector was backed, heart and soul, by the Squire's authority, and that a complaint from him was followed the next day by a notice to quit at the end of a week, his own authority was established as firmly as it had been in the old Squire's time, and in a couple of years Crowswood became quite a model village.

Every garden blossomed with flowers; roses and eglantine clustered over the cottages, neatness and order prevailed everywhere.
The children were tidily dressed and respectful in manner, the women bright and cheerful, and the solitary alehouse remaining had but few customers, and those few were never allowed to transgress the bounds of moderation.

The Squire had a talk with the landlord a fortnight after his arrival.
"I am not going to turn you out, Peters," he said.