"Yis, Squire."

"I suppose that you have heard nothing more from Janter, have you?"

"No, Squire, nawthing. He means to git the place at his own price or
chuck it."

"And what is his price?"

"Five shillings an acre. You see, sir, it's this way. That army gent,
Major Boston, as is agent for all the College lands down the valley,
he be a poor weak fule, and when all these tinants come to him and say
that they must either hev the land at five shillings an acre or go, he
gits scared, he du, and down goes the rent of some of the best meadow
land in the country from thirty-five shillings to five. Of course it
don't signify to him not a halfpenny, the College must pay him his
salary all the same, and he don't know no more about farming, nor
land, nor northing, than my old mare yinder. Well, and what comes of
it? Of course every tinant on the place hears that those College lands
be going for five shillings an acre, and they prick up their ears and
say they must have their land at the same figger, and it's all owing
to that Boston varmint, who ought to be kicked through every holl on
the place and then drowned to dead in a dyke."

"Yes, you're right there, George, that silly man is a public enemy,
and ought to be treated as such, but the times are very bad, with corn
down to twenty-nine, very bad."

"I'm not a-saying that they ain't bad, Squire," said his retainer, his
long face lighting up; "they are bad, cruel bad, bad for iverybody.