The family's poor--very poor." "Yet the dale seems to be called after them ?" Stafford remarked.
"It is, sir!" assented the landlord.

"At one time they owned more land than any other of the big families here; miles and miles of it, with some of the best farms.

But that was before my time, though I've heard my father tell of it; there's not very much left now beyond the dale and the home meadows." He sighed as he spoke and looked sadly at the costly cigar which he was smoking.

The feudal spirit still exists in the hearts of the men who were born in these remote dales and towering hills, and the landlord of the little inn was as proud of the antiquity of the Heron family, and as sorry for its broken fortune as any _villein_ of the middle ages could have been for the misfortunes of his feudal baron.
"Heron Hall used to be a fine place at one time, sir.

I can remember my father describing what it was in his and his father's days; how there used to be scores of servants, and as many as fifty horses in the stables; with the great place filled with guests summer and winter, spring and autumn.