“Something on the old green road, I think.  The grouse turned as they crossed the hollow.”

A short distance off there was a fold in the moor, and while Osborn wondered whether he would walk to the top a man came over the brow, leading two horses that hauled a clumsy sledge.  Another team followed and presently four advanced across the heath.

“Now you know what spoiled the drive,” Thorn remarked with some dryness.  “You can’t expect a good shoot on the day your tenants move their peat.”

Osborn, who was very angry, picked up the glasses.  “The first two are not my tenants.  They’re the Askews, and the boundary of their sheepwalk runs on this side of the green road.”

“Then I suppose there’s nothing to be said!”

In the meantime, Osborn’s friends had left the other butts and come up, with Jardine in front.  He was a fat, red-faced man, and as he got nearer remarked to his companions:  “I call it wretched bad management!  Somebody ought to have turned the fellows off the moor.”

Osborn heard and glanced at Thorn as he left the butt.  “There is something to be said; I’m going to relieve my mind.”

He went off and signaled the farmers to stop.  They waited, standing quietly by their horses.  On the open moor, their powerful figures had a touch of grace, and their clothes, faded by sun and rain, harmonized with the color of the heath.  Peter Askew’s brown face was inscrutable when he fixed his steady eyes on Osborn.

“You turned back the grouse and spoiled the beat.  Do you call that sporting?” Osborn asked.

“I’m sorry,” Peter replied.  “If I’d kenned you were shooting, mayhappen we could have put off loading the peat.”

“You knew we were shooting when you saw the beaters.”

“Aw, yis,” said Peter.  “It was over late then.  I wadn’t willingly spoil any man’s sport, but we had browt up eight horses and had to get to work.”

“You have plenty of work at Ashness.”

“It’s verra true; but the weather’s our master and we canna awtogether do what we like.  The peat’s mair important than a few brace of grouse.”

“Important to you!” Osborn rejoined.  “But what about me and my friends?  One has come from London for a few days’ sport.”

“Then I’m sorry he has lost the afternoon,” Kit interposed quietly.  “But you well know the wages laborers get in the dale, and there are old folks and some sick at Allerby who need a good fire.  The winter’s hard and some of the cottages are very damp.”

“The farmers pay the wages.”

“None of them make much money.  They pay what their rent allows.”

“I don’t force up the rents.  They’re fixed by the terms new tenants are willing to offer when a lease runs out.”

“That is so,” Kit agreed.  “I don’t know that my neighbors grumble much because the rule works on your side.  But peat is plentiful and we don’t see why it can’t be used when coal is dear.”