"That's a pity," said Dick, knowing of nothing better to say.
"Yes; I suppose it is," said Hal; "only—'Whatever is, is right,' unless, of course, it is something contrary to God's will; and this can't be, as I was born so. I mean all the same to be like my grandfather."
"He isn't very big," put in Dick, cheerfully.
"Some people," continued Hal, "don't think you can be a proper Squire unless you can ride in the steeplechase and follow the hounds. My grandfather doesn't now; but he used to formerly. I've heard him say what a pity it was that I couldn't learn to sit a horse. But you see it isn't just the same as it used to be in the olden times when there were serfs, and the lord of the manor lived in a castle with a moat and drawbridge. He had to be a sort of petty king in those days. And if other lords stole his vassals' sheep or wives, he had to rally all his men and besiege their castles. I'm afraid I shouldn't be very well able to do that. But all that is changed nowadays, and there are no serfs—which ought to make the poor people much better off. What a good Squire has to do is to pull down all the badly built cottages on his estate, and have them properly drained, and damp courses put in, so that the walls don't rot."
Dick inquired whether that was the reason why some cottages near his father's house were being pulled down.
Hal nodded. "Why," said he, "the jam actually mildewed in the parlour cupboard! Think of that I saw it. And the old lady's wedding-dress went all spotty where it hung in the press upstairs. It was silk; and she had worn it every Christmas Day and Easter Sunday since she was married, and every time any of her sons and daughters had a wedding. It was very vexatious for her. You couldn't let such a house stand."
Hal spoke with such earnestness that Dick was quite convinced, and immediately thought of the preservation of old silk wedding-dresses as one of the chief duties of a good Squire.
"There's to be a proper slate course at the bottom of the walls this time," added Hal. "You'll see it will be quite dry."
"Then there's the drainage," continued he; "because if that's bad, the wells get poisoned, and people have fevers. And although it doesn't say anything in the Bible actually about drainage, it says a great deal which seems to me to mean that if you own an estate, you ought to look after the health and comfort of the tenants. Oh, there's a lot a Squire has to do that I think I could do! And perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "I should do it all the better for not riding in the steeplechase and following the hounds. You can't do everything; and if you come to think," concluded Hal, "perhaps that is why God let me be like this; because, you know, He could have made it different if He had chosen to."
"A Squire has to make a speech at the rent dinner, doesn't he?" suggested Dick, glad to show that he had some knowledge of a Squire's duties.