l: Nasty
spirit abroad--men dumb as fishes--the farmers, puzzled and angry, had
begun cutting as best they could. Not a man 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"Till they've withdrawn this demand, Simmons, I can't discuss that or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