"Edgar is making a lot of trouble ready for himself," said the Squire to his wife; "but Edgar can't live without a fight on hand. I'll warrant that he gets more fighting than he bargains for; a few hundreds of those Lancashire and Yorkshire operatives aren't as easy to manage as he seems to think. They have 'reformed' their lawgivers; and they are bound to 'reform' their masters next."
The Squire had said little about this new influx into his peaceful neighbourhood, but it had grieved his very soul; and his wife wondered at his reticence, and one day she told him so.
"Well, Maude," he answered, "when Edgar was one of my household, I had the right to say this and that about his words and ways; but Edgar is now Squire, and married man, and Member of Parliament. He is a Reformer too, and bound to carry out his ideas; and, I dare say, his wife keeps the bit in his mouth hard enough, without me pulling on it too. I have taken notice, Maude, that these sweet little women are often very masterful."
"I am sure his grandfather Belward would never have suffered that mill chimney in his sight for any money."
"Thou knowest different. My father always made everything go as he wanted it. The Belwards know no other road but their own way."
"I should think thou needest not tell me that. I have been learning it for a quarter of a century."
"Now, John! When I changed my name, I changed my way also. I have been Atheling, and gone Atheling, ever since I was thy wife."
"Pretty nearly, Maude. But Edgar's little, innocent-faced, gentle wife will lead Edgar, Curzon way. She has done it already. Fancy an Atheling, land lords for a thousand years, turning into a loom lord. Maude, it hurts me; but then, it is a bit of Reform, I suppose."
For all this interior dissatisfaction, the Squire and his son were good friends and neighbours; and, in a kind of a way, the father approved the changes made around him. They came gradually, and he did not have to swallow the whole dose at once. Besides he had his daughter. And Kitty never put him behind Gisbourne or any other cause. They were constant companions. They threw their lines in the trout streams together through the summer mornings; and in the winter, she was with him in every hunting field. About the house, he heard her light foot and her happy voice; and in the evenings, she read the papers to him, and helped forward his grumble at Peel, or his anger at Cobbett.