Who would have dreamed it?
No one had ever told him that the cholera had really been there before.

What could he do?
Send for Thurnall?
Tom was sent for; and Scoutbush found, to his horror, that what little he could have ever done ought to have been done three months ago, with Lord Minchampstead's improvements at Pentremochyn.
The little man walked up and down, and wrung his hands.

He cursed Tardrew for not telling him the truth; he cursed himself for letting the cottages go out of his power; he cursed A, B, and C, for taking the said cottages off his hands; he cursed up, he cursed down, he cursed all around, things which ought to have been cursed, and things which really ought not--for half of the worst sanatory sinners, in this blessed age of ignorance, yclept of progress and science (how our grandchildren will laugh at the epithets!) are utterly unconscious and guiltless ones.
But cursing leaves him, as it leaves other men, very much where he had started.
To do him justice, he was in one thing a true nobleman, for he was above all pride; as are most men of rank, who know what their own rank means.
It is only the upstart, unaccustomed to his new eminence, who stands on his dignity, and "asserts his power." So Scoutbush begged humbly of Thurnall only to tell him what he could do.
"You might use your moral influence, my lord." "Moral influence ?" in a tone which implied naively enough, "I'd better get a little morals myself before I talk of using the same." "Your position in the parish--" "My good sir!" quoth Scoutbush in his shrewd way; "do you not know yourself what these fine fellows who were ready yesterday to kiss the dust off my feet would say, if I asked leave to touch a single hair of their rights?
--'Tell you what, my lord; we pays you your rent, and you takes it.

You mind your business, and we'll mind our'n.' You forget that times are changed since my seventeenth progenitor was lord of life and limb over man and maid in Aberalva." "And since your seventeenth progenitor took the trouble to live at Penalva Court," said Campbell, "instead of throwing away what little moral influence he had by going into the Guards, and spending his time between Rotten Row and Cowes." "Hardly fair, Major Campbell!" quoth Tom; "you forget that in the old times, if the Lord of Aberalva was responsible for his people, he had also by law the power of making them obey him." "The long and the short of it is, then," said Scoutbush a little tartly, "that I can do nothing." "You can put to rights the cottages which are still in your hands, my lord.

For the rest, my only remaining hope lies in the last person whom one would usually depute on such an errand." "Who is that ?" "The schoolmistress." "The who ?" asked Scoutbush.
"The schoolmistress; at whose house Major Campbell lodges." And Tom told them, succinctly, enough to justify his strange assertion.
"If you doubt me, my lord, I advise you to ask Mr.Headley.He is no friend of hers; being a high churchman, while she is a little inclined to be schismatic; but an enemy's opinion will be all the more honest." "She must be a wonderful woman," said Scoutbush; "I should like to see her." "And I too," said Campbell, "I passed a lovely girl on the stairs last night, and thought no more of it.