The room is crowded with tenant farmers, the entire hunting field is present.

Every clergyman in the district is here, together with the gentry, and many visitors for the hunting season.

Among them, shoulder to shoulder, are numbers of agricultural labourers, their wives, and daughters, dressed in their best for the occasion.

After some speeches, a name is called, and an aged labourer steps forward.
His grandchildren are behind him; two of his sons, quite elderly themselves, attend him almost to the front, so that he may have to make but a few steps unsupported.

The old man is frosted with age, and moves stiffly, like a piece of mechanism rather than a living creature, nor is there any expression--neither smile nor interest--upon his absolutely immobile features.