Farmer M——­ never asked for a return or reduction of his rent.  The neighbours said that he was cheaply rented:  that was not true in regard to the land itself.  But he certainly was cheaply rented if the condition of the farm was looked at.  In the course of so many long years of careful farming he had got his place into such a state of cultivation that it could stand two or three bad seasons without much deterioration.  The same bad seasons quite spoiled the land of such of his neighbours as had relied upon a constant application of stimulants to the soil.  The stimulating substances being no longer applied, as they could not afford to buy them, the land fell back and appeared poor.

Farmer M—–­, of course, grumbled at the weather, but the crops belied his lips.  He was, in fact, wealthy—­not the wealth that is seen in cities, but rich for a countryman.  He could have started both his sons in business with solid capital.  Yet he drank small beer which the reapers despised, and drove about in a rusty old gig, with thousands to his credit at that old country bank.  When he got home that afternoon, he carefully put away some bags of coin for the wages of the men, which he had been to fetch, and at once started out for the rickyard, to see how things were progressing.  So the Honourable on the tall four-in-hand saluted with marked emphasis the humble gig that pulled right out of the road to give him the way, and the Lady Blanche waved her hand to the dowdy in the dusty black silk with her sweetest smile.  The Honourable, when he went over the farm with his breechloader, invariably came in and drank a glass of the small beer.  The Lady Blanche, at least once in the autumn, rode up, alighted, and drank one glass of the home-made wine with the dowdy.  Her papa, the landlord, was an invalid, but he as invariably sent a splendid basket of hot-house grapes.  But Farmer M——­ was behind the age.

Had he looked over the hedge in the evening, he might have seen a row of reapers walking down the road at the sudden sound of a jingling bell behind them, open their line, and wheel like a squad, part to the right and part to the left, to let the bicycle pass.  After it had gone by they closed their rank, and trudged on toward the village.  They had been at work all day in the uplands among the corn, cutting away with their hooks low down the yellow straw.  They began in the early morning, and had first to walk two miles or more up to the harvest field.  Stooping, as they worked, to strike low enough, the hot sun poured his fierce rays upon their shoulders and the backs of their necks.  The sinews of the right arm had continually to drive the steel through straw and tough weeds entangled in the wheat.  There was no shadow to sit under for luncheon, save that at the side of the shocks, where the sheaves radiated heat and interrupted the light air, so that the shadow was warmer than the sunshine.  Coarse cold bacon and bread, cheese, and a jar of small beer, or a tin can of weak cold tea, were all they had to supply them with fresh strength for further labour.