Tired People, had never left Homewood.

For a time after his arrival Philip Hardress had gained steadily in
strength and energy; then a chill had thrown him back, and for months
he sagged downwards; never very ill, but always losing vitality. The
old depression seemed to come back to him tenfold. He could see
nothing good in life: a cripple, a useless cripple. His parents were
dead; save for a brother in Salonica, he was alone in the world. He
was always courteous, always gentle; but a wall of misery seemed to
cut him off from the household.

Then the magnificent physique of the boy asserted itself, and
gradually he grew stronger, and the hacking cough left him. Again it
became possible to tempt him to try to ride. He spent hours in the
keen wintry air, jogging round the fields and lanes with Mr. Linton
and Geoffrey, returning with something of the light in his eyes that
had encouraged Norah in his first morning, long ago.

"I believe all he wants is to get interested in something," Norah
said, watching him, one day, as he sat on the stone wall of the
terrace, looking across the park. "He was at Oxford before he joined
the Army, wasn't he, Dad?"

Mr. Linton assented. "His people arranged when he was little that he
should be a barrister. But he hated the idea. His own wish was to go
out to Canada."

Norah pondered.

"Couldn't you give him a job on the farm, Dad?"

"I don't know," said her father. "I never thought of it. I suppose I
might find him something to do; Hawkins and I will be busy enough
presently."

"He's beginning to worry at being here so long," Norah said. "Of
course, we couldn't possibly let him go: he isn't fit for his own
society. I think if you could find him some work he would be more
content."

So David Linton, after thinking the matter over, took Hardress into
his plans for the farm which was to be the main source of supply for
Homewood. He found him a quick and intelligent helper. The work was
after the boy's own heart: he surrounded himself with agricultural
books and treaties on fertilizers, made a study of soils, and took
samples of earth from different parts of the farm--to the profound
disgust of Hawkins. War had not done away with all expert
agricultural science in England: Hardress sent his little packets of
soil away, and received them back with advice as to treatment which,
later on, resulted in the yield of the land being doubled--which
Hawkins attributed solel