The squire or my lord or my lady can be depended upon to care for their old bones until they are laid under the sod in the green churchyard.

With wealth and good will at the Great House, life warms and offers prospects.

There are Christmas feasts and gifts and village treats, and the big carriage or the smaller ones stop at cottage doors and at once confer exciting distinction and carry good cheer.
But Stornham village had scarcely a remote memory of any period of such prosperity.

It had not existed even in the older Sir Nigel's time, and certainly the present Sir Nigel's reign had been marked only by neglect, ill-temper, indifference, and a falling into disorder and decay.

Farms were poorly worked, labourers were unemployed, there was no trade from the manor household, no carriages, no horses, no company, no spending of money.