was not equal to
grappling with such a catastrophe.

"Your farm is favourably situated," she continued, "and, although small,
has great possibilities. I find you are dropping behind your neighbours
and your crops are poorer each season. Have you saved any money,
Crockford?"

"Saved any money," the man blustered, "with shepherd's wages alone at
two pounds a week, and a week's rain starting in the day I began
hay-making. Why, my barley--"

"You started your hay-making ten days too late," Segerson interrupted
sternly. "You had plenty of warning. And as for your barley, you sold
it in the King's Arms at Barnstaple, when you'd had too much to drink,
at thirty per cent, below its value."

Jane turned towards the door.

"I need not stay any longer," she said. "I wanted to look at your farm
for myself, Mr. Crockford, and I thought it only right that you should
have early notice of my intention to ask you to vacate the place."

The cold truth was finding its way into the man's consciousness. It had
a wonderfully sobering effect.

"Look here, ma'am," he demanded, "is it true that you lent Farmer
Holroyd four hundred pounds to buy his own farm and the Crocombe
brothers two hundred each?"

"Quite true," Jane replied coldly. "What of it?"

"What of it?" the man repeated. "You lend them youngsters money and
then you come to me, a man who's been on this land for twenty-two years,
and you've nothing to say but 'get out!' Where am I to find another farm
at my time of life? Just answer me that, will you?"

"It is not my concern," Jane declared. "I only know that I decline to
have any tenants on my property who do not do justice to the land. When
I see that they do justice to it, then it is my wish that they should
possess it. It is true that I have lent money to some of the farmers
round here, but the greater part of what they have put down for the
purchase of their holdings is savings,--money they had saved and earned
by working early and late, by careful farming and husbandry, by putting
money in the bank every quarter. You've had the same opportunity. You
have preferred to waste your time and waste your money. You've had more
than one warning you know, Crockford."

"Aye, more than a dozen," Segerson muttered.

The man looked at them both and there was a dull hate gathering in his
eyes.

"It's easy to talk about saving money and working hard, you that have
got everything you want in life and no work to do," he protest