"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.