what?"

"It represents in round numbers about two years' income from an estate
in which Captain Hill's father must have invested, first and last, more
nearly L40,000 than L20,000 of money that never came out of it."

"That doesn't sound like a very good operation. But isn't the question,
Whether the tenants have earned this sum, such as it is, out of the land
let to them by Captain Hill?"

"No, not exactly, I think. You must remember there are some twelve
hundred families living here on land bought with Lord George's money,
and enjoying all the advantages which the place owes to his investment
and his management, much more than to any labour or skill of theirs. You
must look at their rents as accommodation rents. Suppose they earn the
rent in Scotland, or England, or Tyrone, or wherever you like, the
question is, What do they get for it from Captain Hill? They get a
holding with land enough to grow potatoes on, and with as much free fuel
as ever they like, and with free pasture for their beasts, and all this
they get on the average, mind you, for no more than ten shillings a
year! Why, there was a time, I can assure you, when the women here
earned the value of all the Hill rents by knitting stockings and making
woollen stuffs. You see the stuffs lying here in this window that they
make even now, and good stuffs too. But before the League boycotted the
agency here, the agency ten years ago used to pay out L900 in a year,
where it pays less than L100 to the women for their work."

"Why did the League do this?"

"Why? Why, because it wanted to control the work itself, and to know
just what it brings into the place. You must remember Father M'Fadden is
the President of the League, and the people will do anything for him. I
have heard of one old woman who sat up of nights last year knitting
socks to send up to London, to pay the Christmas dues to the
Father,--six shillings' worth."

"And are these stuffs here in the hotel made for the agency you speak
of?"

"Oh no; these are just made by women that know the hotel, and Mr.
Robinson here, he kindly takes in the stuffs. You see the name of every
woman on every one of them that made it, and the price. If a stranger
buys some, he pays the money to Mr. Robinson, and so it goes to the
women, and no commission charged."

The "stuffs" are certainly excellent, very evenly woven; and the
patterns, all devised, I am told, by the women themselves, very simple
and tasteful. The