want your hand, please," said Sophie as soon as they were safe among
the beech boles and the lawless hollies. "D'you remember the old maid in
'Providence and the Guitar' who heard the Commissary swear, and hardly
reckoned herself a maiden lady afterward? Because I'm a relative of
hers. Lady Conant is--"

"Did you find out anything about the Lashmars?" he interrupted.

"I didn't ask. I'm going to write to Aunt Sydney about it first. Oh,
Lady Conant said something at lunch about their having bought some land
from some Lashmars a few years ago. I found it was at the beginning of
last century."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Really, how interesting!' Like that. I'm not going to push
myself forward. I've been hearing about Mr. Sangres's efforts in that
direction. And you? I couldn't see you behind the flowers. Was it very
deep water, dear?"

George mopped a brow already browned by outdoor exposures.

"Oh no--dead easy," he answered. "I've bought Friars Pardon to prevent
Sir Walter's birds straying."

A cock pheasant scuttered through the dry leaves and exploded almost
under their feet. Sophie jumped.

"That's one of 'em," said George calmly.

"Well, your nerves are better, at any rate," said she. "Did you tell 'em
you'd bought the thing to play with?"

"No. That was where my nerve broke down. I only made one bad break--I
think. I said I couldn't see why hiring land to men to farm wasn't as
much a business proposition as anything else."

"And what did they say?"

"They smiled. I shall know what that smile means some day. They don't
waste their smiles. D'you see that track by Gale Anstey?"

They looked down from the edge of the hanger over a cup-like hollow.
People by twos and threes in their Sunday best filed slowly along the
paths that connected farm to farm.

"I've never seen so many on our land before," said Sophie. "Why is it?"

"To show us we mustn't shut up their rights of way."

"Those cow-tracks we've been using cross lots?" said Sophie forcibly.

"Yes. Any one of 'em would cost us two thousand pounds each in legal
expenses to close."

"But we don't want to," she said.

"The whole community would fight if we did."

"But it's our land. We can do what we like."

"It's not our land. We've only paid for it. We belong to it, and it
belongs to the people--our people they call 'em. I've been to lunch with
the English too."

They passed slowly from one bracken-dotted field to the next--flushed
w