.'

'Then open the door and let him run in,' said Midmore.

'Don't you be'ave arbit'ry with _me_! Take all your dam' men 'ome off my
land. I won't be treated arbit'ry.'

The carts moved off without a word, and Sidney went into the house and
slammed the door.

'Now, I hold that is enormously significant,' said a visitor. 'Here you
have the logical outcome of centuries of feudal oppression--the frenzy
of fear.' The company looked at Midmore with grave pain.

'But he _did_ worry my life out about his pig-sty,' was all Midmore
found to say.

Others took up the parable and proved to him if he only held true to the
gospels of the Immoderate Left the earth would soon be covered with
'jolly little' pig-sties, built in the intervals of morris-dancing by
'the peasant' himself.

Midmore felt grateful when the door opened again and Mr. Sidney invited
them all to retire to the road which, he pointed out, was public. As
they turned the corner of the house, a smooth-faced woman in a widow's
cap curtsied to each of them through the window.

Instantly they drew pictures of that woman's lot, deprived of all
vehicle for self-expression--'the set grey life and apathetic end,' one
quoted--and they discussed the tremendous significance of village
theatricals. Even a month ago Midmore would have told them all that he
knew and Rhoda had dropped about Sidney's forms of self-expression. Now,
for some strange reason, he was content to let the talk run on from
village to metropolitan and world drama.

Rhoda advised him after the visitors left that 'if he wanted to do that
again' he had better go up to town.

'But we only sat on cushions on the floor,' said her master.

'They're too old for romps,' she retorted, 'an' it's only the beginning
of things. I've seen what _I've_ seen. Besides, they talked and laughed
in the passage going to their baths--such as took 'em.'

'Don't be a fool, Rhoda,' said Midmore. No man--unless he has loved
her--will casually dismiss a woman on whose lap he has laid his head.

'Very good,' she snorted, 'but that cuts both ways. An' now, you go down
to Sidney's this evenin' and put him where he ought to be. He was in his
right about you givin' 'im notice about changin' the pig, but he 'adn't
any right to turn it up before your company. No manners, no pig-pound.
He'll understand.'

Midmore did his best to make him. He found himself reviling the old man
in speech and with a joy quite new in all his experienc