“This place is very much altered within a few years: I should scarcely have known it again,” said Mr. Fletcher to himself, as they passed a gentleman’s estate.
“Yes,” said Mary; “even I can remember the time when there were no corn-fields where they now stretch almost as far as we can see.”
“This was all common: was it not?” said Mr. Fletcher. “I think it was a very bleak common, with nothing but furze growing upon it, when I saw it last.”
“Yes, sir; and the owner of it had a great deal of trouble about the alterations he wished to make. But you see he persevered.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“The poor people were discontented when their cows were not allowed to graze, and when they could not cut their turf on the common any longer.”
“Well; do not you think it was very hard upon them?”
“I dare say it was, at first; but papa says it is much better worth while to grow corn enough to maintain a great many men, than only grass enough for a few cows.”
Mr. Fletcher nodded; and Selina observed that all the rest of the way he enquired of Mary who lived at every gentleman’s seat they passed. Sometimes she knew, and sometimes she did not; but he did not sneer when she had no satisfactory answer to give. One mansion, which stood on a lawn a little way back from the road, appeared in a state of lamentable ruin. It was unroofed, and the stone pillars and doorways, and naked window-sills were blackened with smoke. In answer to Mr. Fletcher’s question, “When was this burned down?” Mary told all that she knew of the when and the how; and then turned to the ladies to relate some circumstances of a different kind. Notwithstanding Selina’s exclamations of admiration and pity, and his wife’s heightened colour, which testified to the deep interest of the story, Mr. Fletcher also for once seemed inclined to listen.
“Eh? What was that?” said he, after leaning forwards, in vain, to hear.