the garden and the stables; and it was not till the next morning that
she found occasion to ask some advice of him.

The cottages on the land were let with the farms, so that the farmers
put their labourers into them, charged, it is true, very little rent,
but allowed them to get very much out of repair. It was the farmers'
duty to keep them in repair; but there was no agent, no one to make them
do it. Moreover, they would have it that no repairs worth mentioning
were wanted. Did Mr. Mortimer think if she spent the money she had
devoted to charity in repairing these cottages, she could fairly
consider that she had spent it in charity?

It was a nice point, certainly, for it would be improving her son's
property, and avoiding disputes with valuable and somewhat unmanageable
tenants; and, on the other hand, it would be escaping the bad precedent
of paying for repairs out of the estate; so she went on laying this
casuistry before the old man while he pulled down his shaggy white
brows, and looked very stern over the whole affair. "Some of the poor
old women do suffer so sadly from rheumatism," she continued, "and our
parish doctor says it comes from the damp places they live in, and then
there is so much fever in the lower part of the hamlet."

"You had better let me see the farmers and the cottagers," said old
Augustus. "I will go into the whole affair, and tell you what I think of
it."

Accordingly he went his way among the people, and if he had any
sorrowful reason for being glad of what rendered it his duty to pick up
all the information he could, this did not make him less energetic in
fighting the farmers.