“I imagine it needed some pluck to stop the hunt,” she said.  “For one thing, you were alone; nobody agreed with you.”

Askew smiled.  “Opposition sometimes makes one obstinate.  But do you think it’s hard to stand alone?”

“Yes,” said Grace, impulsively.  “I know it’s hard.  Yet, of course, if you feel you are taking the proper line, you oughtn’t to be daunted by what others think.”

She stopped, remembering that the man was a stranger; and then resumed in a different tone, “But why did you really stop the hunt?  Are you one of the people who don’t believe in sport?”

“No,” said Askew good humoredly.  “It’s curious that Mr. Thorn hinted something like that.  Anyhow, I’m not a champion of the otter’s right to destroy useful fish.  I think they ought to be shot.”

“Oh!” said Grace with a touch of indignation; “you would shoot an otter?  Well, I suppose they must be killed; but to use a gun!”

“It’s better for the otter.  Which do you imagine it would choose—­a mercifully sudden end, or two or three hours of agony, with men and dogs close behind, until the half-drowned, exhausted animal is torn to pieces or mangled by the poles?”

“I suppose one must answer as you expect.”

“You’re honest,” Askew remarked.  “I imagine it cost you something to agree!”

“It did,” Grace admitted.  “After all, you know our traditions, and many people, not cruel people, like the sport.”

“That is so; but let’s take the hunt to-day, for an example.  There were three or four men without an occupation, and no doubt they find following the hounds healthy exercise.  The others had left work that ought to be done; in fact, if you think, you’ll own that some were men we have not much use for in the dale.”

“Yes,” said Grace, with some reluctance; “I know the men you mean.  All the same, it is really not our business to decide if they ought to work or hunt.”

Askew looked amused and she liked his twinkle.  He was obviously intelligent, and on the whole she approved his unconventional point of view.  Conventional insincerities were the rule at Tarnside.  Besides, although it was possible she ought not to talk to the man with such freedom, her foot hurt and the stile made a comfortable seat.  She liked to watch the shadows quiver on the stream and hear the current brawl among the stones.  This was an excuse for stopping, since she would not acknowledge that the young farmer’s society had some charm.

After a moment or two he resumed:  “It is not my business, anyhow, and I don’t want to argue if otter-hunting is a proper sport; it’s an advantage, so to speak, to stick to the point.  All I objected to was the hunt’s breaking down the mended bank.  There are not many good meadows at the dale-head, and grass land is too valuable to be destroyed.  Don’t you think this justifies my opposition?”

“I suppose it does,” Grace agreed, and then decided that she had talked to him enough.  “Well, I must go on,” she added with a doubtful glance at the stream.  “But it doesn’t look as if one could get across.”