an had budged. He had seen
young Mr. and Miss Freeland going about. The thing had been worked very
cleverly. He had suspected nothing--utterly unlike the laborers as he
knew them. They had no real grievance, either! Yes, they were going on
with all their other work--milking, horses, and that; it was only the hay
they wouldn't touch. Their demand was certainly a very funny one--very
funny--had never heard of anything like it. Amounted almost to security
of tenure. The Tryst affair no doubt had done it! Malloring cut him
short:

"Till they've withdrawn this demand, Simmons, I can't discuss that or
anything."

The agent coughed behind his hand.

Naturally! Only perhaps there might be a way of wording it that would
satisfy them. Never do to really let them have such decisions in their
hands, of course!

They were just passing Tod's. The cottage wore its usual air of
embowered peace. And for the life of him Malloring could not restrain a
gesture of annoyance.

On reaching home he sent gardeners and grooms in all directions with word
that he would be glad to meet the men at four o'clock at the home farm.
Much thought, and interviews with several of the farmers, who all but
one--a shaky fellow at best--were for giving the laborers a sharp lesson,
occupied the interval. Though he had refused to admit the notion that
the men could be chicaned, as his agent had implied, he certainly did
wonder a little whether a certain measure of security might not in some
way be guaranteed, which would still leave him and the farmers a free
hand. But the more he meditated on the whole episode, the more he
perceived how intimately it interfered with the fundamental policy of all
good landowners--of knowing what was good for their people better than
those people knew themselves.

As four o'clock approached, he walked down to the home farm. The sky was
lightly overcast, and a rather chill, draughty, rustling wind had risen.
Resolved to handle the men with the personal touch, he had discouraged
his agent and the farmers from coming to the conference, and passed the
gate with the braced-up feeling of one who goes to an encounter. In that
very spick-and-span farmyard ducks were swimming leisurely on the
greenish pond, white pigeons strutting and preening on the eaves of the
barn, and his keen eye noted that some tiles were out of order up there.
Four o'clock! Ah, here was a fellow coming! And instinctively he crisped
his hand