The Buccaneer Farmer. Harold Bindloss

moved noisily away. Osborn waited for a few moments, but his face was very red when he went back to the butts. The farmer's refusal to dispute with him was galling. For all that, he must try to find his friends some sport, and after consulting with his gamekeeper sent the beaters on across the moor.

      The new drive was not successful, and in the evening the party came down the hill with a very poor bag. When they reached the Redmire wood Osborn stopped beside a broken hedge. Red beeches shone among the yellow birches and dark firs, the sun was low and its slanting rays touched the higher branches, but the gaps between the trunks were filled with shadow. A few bent figures moved in the gloom, and Osborn frowned when three or four children came down a drive, dragging a heavy fallen bough. An elderly woman with a sack upon her back followed them slowly, and it was obvious that cottagers from Allerby were gathering fuel.

      "Confound them! This is too much!" he exclaimed and beckoned his gamekeeper. "If that is Mrs. Forsyth, tell her to come up."

      The woman advanced and rested her sack upon the hedge. Her wrinkled face was wet with sweat, but she did not look alarmed.

      "Eh!" she said, "sticks is heavy and I'm none so young as I was."

      "You have no business in the wood," said Osborn sternly.

      "There's nea place else where we can pick up sticks."

      "That is your affair. You know you're not allowed to gather wood in my plantations."

      "We canna gan withoot some kindling; when you canna keep it dry, peat is ill to light. Terrible messy stuff, too, and mak's nea end o' dirt."

      The children came up and when they stood, open-mouthed, gazing at the party one of the sportsmen laughed.

      "Then burn coal and the dirt won't bother you," Osborn rejoined.

      "Hoo can we burn coal?" the woman asked. "Noo Tom Bell has lease o' baith yards, he's putten up t' price, and when you've paid what he's asking there's nowt left for meal. I canna work for Mrs. Osborn as I used, and with oad Jim yearning nobbut fifteen shilling—"

      She paused for breath and wiped her hot face, and Osborn signed to the keeper. The woman was making him ridiculous.

      "Turn them all out, Holliday," he said and went on with his friends.

      "The old lady's talkative," one remarked. "Quite frank, but not at all angry; I thought her line was rather dignified. I've met country folks who'd have been servilely apologetic, and some who would have called you ugly names."

      "These people are never apologetic," Osborn said dryly. "As a rule, they're not truculent, but they're devilish obstinate."

      "I think I see. After all, it's possible to stick to your point without abusing your antagonist. I suppose you turned them out because of the pheasants?"

      "Yes; good cover's scarce, and if the birds are disturbed they move down to Rafton Woods. For a sporting neighbor, Hayton hardly plays the game. To put down corn is, of course, allowable, but he uses damaged raisins!"

      "Then you don't feed?"

      "Very little," Osborn replied. "Corn's too dear. The Tarnside pheasants live on the country."

      "I expect that really means they live on the farmers!"

      Osborn frowned. It was Jardine's habit to make stupid remarks like that;

       Osborn wondered whether the fellow thought them smart.

      "The farmers knew my rules when they signed the lease," he said. "Anyhow, pheasants do much less damage than ground game, and I don't think my tenants have left a hare in the dale."

      Jardine began to talk about something else, and no more was said about Osborn's grievances until the party met on the new terrace in the twilight. The tarn glimmered with faint reflections from the west, but thin mist drifted across the pastures, and the hills rose, vague and black, against the sky, in which a half moon shone. Osborn, sitting at the top of the shallow steps that went down to the lawn, grumbled to his wife about the day's shooting.