" 'Ta, yer honour, sir!" the boy called as Lewrie turned his horse west on the High Street." 'Night, Squire Lewrie!"

Lewrie touched the wide brim of his hat with a riding crop in reply as he clucked his tongue and kneed his mount to a brisk walk.

Squire, Alan sighed with a snort; not exactly true, was it? Squires were freeholders who rented land to others, while he was only a tenant, a rent payer himself. Now if I sublet, he thought: perhaps to a well-off hermit (and was there such a creature as an eremite with the "blunt," he wondered?) who wished half an acre down by the creek, where he could pile himself up a grotto and become Lewrie's tenant. Performing, perhaps, the odd Jeremiad-thrice on Market Days-talking in tongues or dancing like a Dervish, or old St. Vitus, would I then be a squire at last? Or even less welcome in the parish? Might be worth doing, at that-it'd drive Caroline's uncle Phineas batty!

His horse paced through the village of Anglesgreen, heading west for the vale between the rolling hills, hooves clopping on the icy earthen road, as candles and lanterns were lit in the windows of the homes alongside, and lights were extinguished as shopkeepers at last shut, after long hours of sparse winter trade. Very few villagers were out now that the brief stint of cloud-occluded sun had all but gone, and the winds blew foul and cold. Without the casual labourers of the sowing or harvesting seasons, Anglesgreen was an even more tedious and empty a place than ever he had experienced, now Christmas and Epiphany were come and gone. And cold. As cold as Parish Poor's Rate charity. And about as unattractive.

Arse-deep in it, he told himself again, glum with rum and ennui. Up to my nose in acres of it… and that, so bloody boresome!