The Forresters held also the same tenure of the pasture lands and meadows which sloped down from Ford Manor, and, in earlier times, they had been the keepers of the woods which clothed the undulating ground about Penshurst, and the stately beeches and chestnut trees which stand almost unrivalled in the far stretching park, where the grand old house of the Sidneys is situated.
But Mr Forrester, the father of Mary Gifford and Lucy, was the last of his race, and, though his widow and daughter still occupied the Manor Farm, the office of keeper of the woods had fallen to another family on a more distant part of the estate, and it was only by courtesy that Mrs Forrester was permitted to remain in the house for her life.
The Ratcliffes occupied a superior position, and Mrs Ratcliffe prided herself on her family, and considered Mrs Forrester very much beneath her in the social scale.
Was not her younger son the favourite squire of Mr Philip Sidney, an honour coveted by many, and had he not acquired the air and bearing of the gentlemen about the Court of the Maiden Queen, and was he not, moreover, educated in book learning as befitted his position. George, if more homely in his person and manner, was known in the whole district as a man of honour, and celebrated for his breed of horses, and for the excellence of his farm produce.
He superintended everything connected with the small estate, and supplied the neighbouring gentry with horses, when, perhaps for some hastily formed expedition, they were suddenly required.
Both brothers were respected in the neighbourhood, and Mrs Ratcliffe had indeed cause to be satisfied with the sons who had so well taken up the place their father had left vacant, by a sudden death in the prime of his manhood.
George Ratcliffe found his mother seated at the head of the long table, where the men and maidens employed on the farm were gathered at the lower end.
All rose when George entered, and he said, addressing his mother, as he seated himself near her,—
'I am later than I thought. I crave pardon, good mother.'
'Granted, my son,' was the reply, with an inclination of the head, which was, to say the least of it, very stately.