and dry, before her ladyship every morning. She sometimes would ask to
see the original letter; sometimes she simply answered the request by a
"Yes," or a "No;" and often she would send for lenses and papers, and
examine them well, with Mr. Horner at her elbow, to see if such
petitions, as to be allowed to plough up pasture fields, were provided
for in the terms of the original agreement. On every Thursday she made
herself at liberty to see her tenants, from four to six in the afternoon.
Mornings would have suited my lady better, as far as convenience went,
and I believe the old custom had been to have these levees (as her
ladyship used to call them) held before twelve. But, as she said to Mr.
Horner, when he urged returning to the former hours, it spoilt a whole
day for a farmer, if he had to dress himself in his best and leave his
work in the forenoon (and my lady liked to see her tenants come in their
Sunday clothes; she would not say a word, maybe, but she would take her
spectacles slowly out, and put them on with silent gravity, and look at a
dirty or raggedly-dressed man so solemnly and earnestly, that his nerves
must have been pretty strong if he did not wince, and resolve that,
however poor he might be, soap and water, and needle and thread, should
be used before he again appeared in her ladyship's anteroom). The out-
lying tenants had always a supper provided for them in the servants'-hall
on Thursdays, to which, indeed all comers were welcome to sit down. For
my lady said, though there were not many hours left of a working man's
day when their business with her was ended, yet that they needed food and
rest, and that she should be ashamed if they sought either at the
Fighting Lion (called at this day the Hanbury Arms). They had as much
beer as they could drink while they were eating; and when the food was
cleared away, they had a cup a-piece of good ale, in which the oldest
tenant present, standing up, gave Madam's health; and after that was
drunk, they were expected to set off homewards; at any rate, no more
liquor was given them. The tenants one and all called her "Madam;" for