was nothing very tangible to dislike him for; he
was just a blood-relation, with whom Tom had no single taste or interest
in common, and with whom, at the same time, he had had no occasion for
quarrel. Laurence had left the farm early in life, and had lived for a
few years on a small sum of money left him by his mother; he had taken up
painting as a profession, and was reported to be doing fairly well at it,
well enough, at any rate, to keep body and soul together. He specialised
in painting animals, and he was successful in finding a certain number of
people to buy his pictures. Tom felt a comforting sense of assured
superiority in contrasting his position with that of his half-brother;
Laurence was an artist-chap, just that and nothing more, though you might
make it sound more important by calling an animal painter; Tom was a
farmer, not in a very big way, it was true, but the Helsery farm had been
in the family for some generations, and it had a good reputation for the
stock raised on it. Tom had done his best, with the little capital at
his command, to maintain and improve the standard of his small herd of
cattle, and in Clover Fairy he had bred a bull which was something rather
better than any that his immediate neighbours could show. It would not
have made a sensation in the judging-ring at an important cattle show,
but it was as vigorous, shapely, and healthy a young animal as any small
practical farmer could wish to possess. At the King's Head on market
days Clover Fairy was very highly spoken of, and Yorkfield used to
declare that he would not part with him for a hundred pounds; a hundred
pounds is a lot of money in the small farming line, and probably anything
over eighty would have tempted him.

It was with some especial pleasure that Tom took advantage of one of
Laurence's rare visits to the farm to lead him down to the enclosure
where Clover Fairy kept solitary state--the grass widower of a grazing
harem. Tom felt some of his old dislike for his half-brother reviving;
the artist was becoming more languid in his manner, more unsuitably
turned-out in attire, and he seemed inclined to impart a slightly
patronising tone to his conversation. He took no heed of a flourishing
potato crop, but waxed enthusiastic over a clump of yellow-flowering weed
that stood in a corner by a gateway, which was rather galling to the
owner of a really very well weeded farm; again, when he might have been
duly complimentary a