was dark and gloomy; a trifle weary, too, as though he kept this
appointment rather through politeness than with any care for its
outcome. He saluted the Lord Proprietor respectfully, but at once bent
his eyes to the ground.

"Good afternoon! Good afternoon, Tregarthen!" Sir Caesar began, in his
heartiest voice, to show that he bore no malice. "I like punctuality,
and those who practise it. Punctuality, if I may say so, is not a
wide-spread virtue in these Islands. Shall we go round and take stock?"

"If it will give you satisfaction, sir," assented Eli.

Sir Caesar led the way, pausing at every gate to discuss the soil, the
crop, the present price of oats, barley, roots of beef and mutton;
drainage and top-dressing; aspect and shelter; a hundred odds and ends.
He talked uncommonly good sense, too, as Eli confessed to himself. The
Lord Proprietor had taken up with agriculture late in life, but he
brought to it a trained and thoroughly practical mind. Once or twice he
submitted a point to Sam Leggo, who had worked all his life on this
very farm, and Eli was forced to admire the pertinence of his questions
and cross-questions.

He talked with great good humour, too, although Eli gave it small
encouragement. The shadow of leaving Saaron had hung over Eli's mind
for more than two months; heavy, oppressive, but until this morning
intangible as a cloud. Vashti had remarked that the days deadened him
while they should have been nerving him to action; and Vashti, this
very morning, had forced his eyes open by asking, in a business-like
way, if he had ever thought of emigrating to the mainland. Were it not
wiser, since the wrench must come, to make it complete?--to go where
regret would not be kept aching by the daily sight of Saaron? The
children would find better schools on the mainland, and it was high
time to be thinking of Matthew Henry, who deserved a better education
than the Islands could afford.

In arguing thus, Vashti was not entirely serious. She knew that Eli
would never cut himself loose from the Islands; but she hoped, by
forcing him to face the alternative, to shake him out of his torpor. In
this she had partly succeeded. For the first time the man opened his
eyes and saw hard facts--facts that in a few weeks' time he must
grapple with, since neither grieving nor grumbling would remove them.
But for the moment the discovery, instead of nerving him, inflamed his
wrath.

A strong man, finding himself helple