The Squireen

d a sportsman, respected for his own sake and the sake of his parents. Sometimes in passing him, high up in the world on gig or hunter, a peasant would pull at his forelock, or a woman curtsy in the dust. At Church he paraded himself. When he rode to hounds, or assisted at local functions, no aristocrat there lorded it over the Squire. A few laughed at him ; wiseacres at sight of his extravagances looked towards the future and shook their heads : the many just took him as he appeared, and at his own valuing. Since his father's death, some years before, he had ruled in Hillside, living there with his old mother and a couple of servants, enjoying life and wasting his patrimony, slipping on towards the inevitable day of reckoning, not thinking and not much caring. But he was thinking now; maybe was beginning to care. chapter{Section 4Up and down the room he went, hands clasped and head bowed ; presently stayed by the fire again, and fell to communing with himself. ' No,' said he, as if to his inner man ; ' it's no good. There 's no way out of it. I 'm snared, I 'm snared. Fool ? I 'm an almighty fool! Think of where I am, with only Jane Fallon between me an'?' He flung back his head and laughed mirthlessly. ' Jane Fallon,' he said, his lip curling; ' only Jane Fallon!' Again he laughed; then stood pondering a while. ' But what else can I do ? ' he went on, spreading a hand to himself. ' In God's name, what else can I do? I must have money or?or?' He paused. ' Or lose...