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“And now we’ll have some tea,” she said. “I believe I
ought to have offered it you at first, but one doesn’t arrive at manners, somehow, when one lives alone and is considered—h’m—peculiar. ” Then with very pretty scorn, “would you like a lamp to see to eat by?”

“The firelight’s much pleasanter, I think. ” We descended into that delicious gloom and Madden brought tea.

I took my chair in the direction of the screen, ready to surprise or be surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth is always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.

“Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?” I asked idly. “Why, they are tallies!”

“Of course,” she said. “As I can’t read or write I’m driven back on the early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I’ll tell you what it meant. ”

I passed her an unburnt hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran her thumb down the nicks.

“This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last year, in gallons,” said she. “I don’t know what I should have done without tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It’s out of date now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of them’s coming now to see me. Oh, it doesn’t matter. He has no business here out of office hours. He’s a greedy, ignorant man—very greedy or—he wouldn’t come here after dark. ”

“Have you much land then?”

“Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this Turpin is quite a new man—and a highway robber. ”

“But are you sure I sha’n’t be —?”

“Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn’t any children. ”

“Ah, the children!” I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly touched the screen that hid them. “I wonder whether they’ll come out for me. ”

There was a murmur of voices—Madden’s and a deeper note—at the low, dark side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the unmistakable tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.

“Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin,” she said.

“If—if you please, Miss, I’ll—I’ll be quite as well by the door. ” He clung to the latch as he spoke, like a frightened child. Of a sudden I realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.

“Well?”

“About that new shed for the young stock—that was all. These first autumn storms settin’ in … but I’ll come again, Miss. ” His teeth did not chatter much more than the door latch.

“I think not,” she answered levelly. “The new shed—m’m. What did my agent write you on the 15th?”

“I—fancied p’r’aps that if I came to see you—ma—man to man like, Miss—but——”

His eyes rolled into every corner of the room, wide with horror. He half opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut again—from without and firmly.

“He wrote what I told him,” she went on. “You are overstocked already. Dunnett’s Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks—even in Mr. Wright’s time. And heused cake. You’ve sixty-seven and you don’t cake. You’ve broken the lease in that respect. You’re dragging the heart out of the farm. ”

“I’m—I’m getting some minerals—superphosphates—next week. I’ve as good as ordered a truck-load already. I’ll go down to the station to-morrow about ’em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the daylight…. That gentleman’s not going away, is he?” He almost shrieked.