With some slight concessions to the times only, Farmer M——­ led the life his fathers led before him, and farmed his tenancy upon the same principles.  He did not, indeed, dine with the labourers, but he ate very much the same food as they did.  Some said he would eat what no labourer or servant would touch; and, as he had stated, drank the same smallest of small beer.  His wife made a large quantity of home-made wine every year, of which she partook in a moderate degree, and which was the liquor usually set before visitors.  They rose early, and at once went about their work.  He saw his men, and then got on his horse and rode round the farm.  He returned to luncheon, saw the men again, and again went out and took a turn of work with them.  He rode a horse because of the distance—­the farm being large—­not for pleasure.  Without it he could not have visited his fields often enough to satisfy himself that the labourers were going on with their work.  He did not hunt, nor shoot—­he had the right, but never exercised it; though occasionally he was seen about the newly-sown fields with a single-barrel gun, firing at the birds that congregated in crowds.  Neither would he allow his sons to shoot or hunt.

One worked with the labourers, acting as working bailiff—­it was he who drove the reaping machine, which, after long argument and much persuasion the farmer bought, only to grumble at and abuse every day afterwards.  The other was apprenticed as a lad to a builder and carpenter of the market town, and learned the trade exactly as the rest of the men did there.  He lodged in the town in the cheapest of houses, ate hard bread and cheese with the carpenters and masons and bricklayers, and was glad when the pittance he received was raised a shilling a week.  Once now and then he walked over to the farm on Sundays or holidays—­he was not allowed to come too often.  They did not even send him in a basket of apples from the great orchard; all the apples were carefully gathered and sold.

These two sons were now grown men, strong and robust, and better educated than would have been imagined—­thanks to their own industry and good sense, and not to any schooling they received.  Two finer specimens of physical manhood it would have been difficult to find, yet their wages were no more than those of ordinary labourers and workmen.  The bailiff, the eldest, had a pound a week, out of which he had to purchase every necessary, and from which five shillings were deducted for lodgings.  It may be that he helped himself to various little perquisites, but his income from every source was not equal to that of a junior clerk.  The other nominally received more, being now a skilled workman; but as he had to pay for his lodgings and food in town, he was really hardly so well off.  Neither of these young men had the least chance of marrying till their father should die; nothing on earth would induce him to part with the money required to set the one in business up or the other in a separate farm.  He had worked all his time under his father, and it seemed to him perfectly natural that his sons should work all their time under him.