Frank D——­, Esq.’s coarse grandeur answered very well indeed so long as prices were high.  While the harvests were large and the markets inflated; while cattle fetched good money; while men’s hearts were full of mirth—­all went well.  It is whispered now that the grand Frank has secretly borrowed 25_l_. of a little cottage shopkeeper in the adjacent village—­a man who sells farthing candles and ounces of tea—­to pay his reapers.  It is also currently whispered that Frank is the only man really safe, for the following reason—­they are all ‘in’ so deep they find it necessary to keep him going.  The squire is ‘in,’ the bank is ‘in,’ the lawyer is ‘in,’ the small farmers with two hundred pounds capital are ‘in,’ and the elderly ladies who took their bank-notes out of their tea-caddies are ‘in.’  That is to say, Mr. Frank owes them so much money that, rather than he should come to grief (when, they must lose pretty well all), they prefer to keep him afloat.  It is a noticeable fact that Frank is the only man who has not raised his voice and shouted ‘Depression.’  Perhaps the squire thinks that so repellent a note, if struck by a leading man like Frank, might not be to his interest, and has conveyed that thought to the gentleman in the dog-cart with the groom behind.  There are, however, various species of the facade farmer.

‘What kind of agriculture is practised here?’ the visitor from town naturally asks his host, as they stroll towards the turnips (in another district), with shouldered guns.  ‘Oh, you had better see Mr. X——­,’ is the reply, ‘He is our leading agriculturist; he’ll tell you all about it.’  Everybody repeats the same story, and once Mr. X——­’s name is started everybody talks of him.  The squire, the clergyman—­even in casually calling at a shop in the market town, or at the hotel (there are few inns now)—­wherever he goes the visitor hears from all of Mr. X——.  A successful man—­most successful, progressive, scientific, intellectual.  ’Like to see him?  Nothing easier.  Introduction?  Nonsense.  Why, he’d be delighted to see you.  Come with me.’

Protesting feebly against intruding on privacy, the visitor is hurried away, and expecting to meet a solid, sturdy, and somewhat gruff old gentleman of the John Hull type, endeavors to hunt up some ideas about shorthorns and bacon pigs.  He is a little astonished upon entering the pleasure grounds to see one or more gardeners busy among the parterres and shrubberies, the rhododendrons, the cedar deodaras, the laurels, the pampas grass, the ‘carpet gardening’ beds, and the glass of distant hothouses glittering in the sun.  A carriage and pair, being slowly driven by a man in livery from the door down to the extensive stabling, passes—­clearly some of the family have just returned.  On ringing, the callers are shown through a spacious hall with a bronze or two on the marble table, into a drawing-room, elegantly furnished.  There is a short iron grand open with a score carelessly left by the last player, a harp in the corner, half hidden by the curtains, some pieces of Nankin china on the side tables.