attend a farmers' club, to listen to a scientific lecture. But his teams of
horses were the admiration of the country side--no such horses came into
the market town. His rent was paid punctually, and always with country
bank-notes--none of your clean, newfangled cheques, or Bank of England
crisp paper, but soiled, greasy country notes of small denomination.

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