The chivalry of the committee had prompted them to offer her Southland to respond to this toast.  But Joanna had doubts of his powers as an orator, whereas she had none of her own.  She stood up, a glow of amber brightness above all the black coats, and spoke of her gratification, of her work at Ansdore and hopes for south-country farming.  Her speech, as might have been expected, was highly dogmatic.  She devoted her last words to the Marsh as a grain-bearing district—­on one or two farms, where pasture had been broken, the yield in wheat had been found excellent.  Since that was so, why had so few farms hitherto shown enterprise in this direction?  There was no denying that arable paid better than pasture, and the only excuse for neglecting it was poverty of soil.  It was obvious that no such poverty existed here—­on the contrary, the soil was rich, and yet no crops were grown in it except roots and here and there a few acres of beans or lucerne.  It was the old idea, she supposed, about breaking up grass.  It was time that old idea was bust—­she herself would lead the way at Ansdore next spring.

As she was the guest of the evening, they heard her with respect, which did not, however, survive her departure at the introduction of pipes and port.

“Out on the rampage again, is she?” said Southland to his neighbour.

“Well, if she busts that ‘old idea’ same as she bust the other ’old idea’ about crossing Kent sheep, all I can say is that it’s Ansdore she’ll bust next.”

“Whosumdever breaks pasture shall himself be broke,” said Vine oracularly.

“Surelye—­surelye,” assented the table.

“She’s got pluck all the same,” said Sir Harry.

But he was only an amateur.

“I don’t hold for a woman to have pluck,” said Vennal of Beggar’s Bush, “what do you say, Mr. Alce?”

“I say nothing, Mr. Vennal.”

“Pluck makes a woman think she can do without a man,” continued Vennal, “when everyone knows, and it’s in Scripture, that she can’t.  Now Joanna Godden should ought to have married drackly minute Thomas Godden died and left her Ansdore, instead of which she’s gone on plunging like a heifer till she must be past eight and twenty as I calculate—­”

“Now, now, Mr. Vennal, we mustn’t start anything personal of our lady guest,” broke in Furnese from the Chair, “we may take up her ideas or take ’em down, but while she’s the guest of this here Farmers’ Club, which is till eleven-thirty precise, we mustn’t start arguing about her age or matrimonious intentions.  Anyways, I take it, that’s a job for our wives.”

“Hear, hear,” and Joanna passed out of the conversation, for who was going to waste time either taking up or taking down a silly, tedious, foreign, unsensible notion like ploughing grass?...

Indeed, it may be said that her glory had gone up in smoke—­the smoke of twenty pipes.