“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.

“I don’t think I’m an exacting landlord,” he remarked.  “In fact, since I ask for nothing but a little give-and-take, it’s annoying when people spoil my sport.  Dowthwaite made himself unpleasant about his broken wall, the Askews turned the grouse back, and then I found the Allerby cottage children, ransacking Redmire Wood when the pheasants were going to roost.”

Grace, who stood close by with Thorn, indicated the smooth gravel and the low, wide-topped wall on which red geraniums grew.

“This,” she said, “is a great improvement on the old grass bank.  The wide steps and broad slate coping have an artistic effect.  However, you can’t often get the things you like without paying.”