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The vast wall encloses his pleasure-grounds and mansion; the broad iron gates give access to mile after mile of park and wood, and the decorated warden or pensioner has but to open them for the free entry of all Fleeceborough and her citizens.
Cattle from the uplands, sheep, horses, labourers, corn or hay, or anything and anybody from thence, he has grown up accustomed to regard almost as foreign. There is good reason, from an agricultural point of view, for this. The district, with its capital city, Fleeceborough, really is distinct, well marked, and defined. The very soil and substrata are characteristic.
The very spirit and character of Fleeceborough is embodied in the ale; rich, strong, genuine. No one knows what English ale is till he has tried this. After the market dinner the guests sit still they do not hurry away to counter and desk; they rest awhile, and dwell as it were on the flavour of their food. There is a hum of pleasant talk, for each man is a right boon companion.
The policy is simply perfect freedom, with support and substantial assistance to any and to every movement set on foot by the respectable men of Fleeceborough, or by the tenant farmers round about. This has been going on for generations; so that the personnel of the actual owner concerns little. His predecessors did it, he does it, and the next to come will do it. It is the tradition of the house.
Hodge may tend his flock on distant pastures, may fodder his cattle in far-away meadows, and dwell in little hamlets hardly heard of, but all the same he is a Fleeceborough man. It is his centre; thither he looks for everything.
He stays in the same cottage on the same farm all his life, his descendants remain and work for the same tenant family. He can trace his descent in the locality for a hundred years. From time immemorial both Hodge and his immediate employers have looked towards Fleeceborough as their capital.
Fleeceborough smiles when it meets at night in its council-rooms, with its glass and pipe; Fleeceborough knows that the traditional policy of the Hall will continue, and that policy is acceptable to it. What manner of man is this 'despot' and prince behind his vast walls? Verily his physique matters nothing; whether he be old or of middle age, tall or short, infirm or strong.
All the produce wheat, barley, oats, hay, cattle, and sheep is sent into the capital to the various markets held there. The very ideas held in the villages by the inhabitants come from Fleeceborough; the local papers published there are sold all round, and supply them with news, arguments, and the politics of the little kingdom. The farmers look to Fleeceborough just as much or more.
The landlord grows his own vegetables every householder in Fleeceborough has an ample garden and produces the fruit from his own orchards for the tarts. Ever and anon a waiter walks round with a can of ale and fills the glasses, whether asked or not. Beef and mutton, vegetables and fruit tarts, and ale are simple and plain fare, but when they are served in the best form, how will you surpass them?
The place is a little market town, the total of whose population in the census records sounds absurdly small; yet it is a complete world in itself; a capital city, with its kingdom and its ruler, for the territory is practically the property of a single family. Enter Fleeceborough by whichever route you will, the first object that fixes the attention is an immensely high and endless wall.
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