rmers in the district! I wish they had put you on the
Inspection Committee.'

'Well, they didn't,' said the other, perhaps with a slight emphasis.
'And there's many of us feel, I can assure you, as I do. Gregson's a
poor creature, but he hasn't had quite fair play, Sir Henry--that's
what we feel. And he's been fifteen years on his place.' The man
spoke hesitatingly, but strongly. There was a queer, suppressed
hostility in his pleasant blue eyes.

'Fifteen years too long,' interrupted Sir Henry. 'I tell you, Adam,
we can't afford now to let men like Gregson spoil good land while
the country's likely to go hungry! The old happy-go-lucky days are
done with. I wonder whether even you recognize that we're fighting
for our lives?'

'I know we are, Sir Henry. But if the war makes slaves of us what
good will it do if we do win it?'

Sir Henry laughed. 'Well, Adam, you were always a Radical and I was
always a Conservative. And I don't like being managed any more than
you do. But look at the way I'm managed in my business!--harried up
and down by a parcel of young fellows from the Ministry that often
seem to me fools! But we've all got to come in. And this country's
worth it!'

'You know I'm with you there, sir. But why don't you get at the
Squire himself? What good have he or his agent ever been to anybody?
You're a landlord worth living under; but--'

'Ah! don't be in too great a hurry, Adam, and you'll see what you
will see!' And with a pleasant salute, his handsome face twitching
between frowns and smiles, Sir Henry rode on. 'What trade unionists
we all are--high and low! That man's as good a farmer as Gregson's a
vile one. But he stands by his like, as I stand by mine.'

Then his thoughts took a different turn. He was entering a park,
evidently of wide extent, and finely wooded. The road through it had
long fallen out of repair, and was largely grass-grown. A few sheep
were pasturing on it, and a few estate cottages showed here and
there. Sir Henry looked about him with quick eyes. He understood
that the Inspection Sub-Committee, constituted under the Corn
Production Act, and on the look-out for grass-land to put under the
plough, had recommended the ploughing up of all this further end of
Mannering Park. It carried very few sheep under its present
management; and the herd of Jersey cattle that used to graze it had
long since died out. As for the game, it had almost gone--before the
war. No use, either for business