The Buccaneer Farmer | Page 5

better start.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, but with a hint of resolution. "I don't want

to criticize, but Bell is greedy and cunning, and now he has got both
coal yards will charge the farmers more than he ought. He has already
got too large a share of all the business that is done in the dale."
"It's obvious that you have learned less than you think," Osborn
rejoined, feeling that he was on safer ground. "You don't seem to
understand that concentration means economy. Bell, for example, buys
and stores his goods in large quantities, instead of handling a number of
small lots at different times, which would cost him more."
"I can see that," Grace admitted, "But I imagine he will keep all he
saves. You know the farmers are grumbling about his charges."
Osborn frowned. "You talk too much to the farm people; I don't like it.
You can be polite, but I want you to remember they are my tenants, and
not to sympathize with their imaginary grievances. They're a grumbling
lot, but will keep their places if you leave them alone."
He got up abruptly and when he went off across the lawn Mrs. Osborn
gave the girl a reproachful glance.
"You are very rash, my dear. On the whole, your father was remarkably
patient."
Grace laughed, a rather strained laugh, as Osborn's angry voice rose
from behind a shrubbery.
"He isn't patient now, and I'm afraid Jackson is paying for my fault.
However, I really think I was patient, too. To talk about people keeping
their places is ridiculous; in fact, it's piffle! Father's notions are horribly
out of date. One wonders he doesn't know."
"Things change. Perhaps we don't quite realize this when we are getting
old. But you mustn't argue with your father. He doesn't like it, and
when he's annoyed everybody suffers."
"It's true; but how illogical!" Grace remarked, and mused while she
looked dreamily across the grass.

She was romantic and generous, and had learned something about
social economy at the famous school; in fact, Osborn would have been
startled had he suspected how much she knew. Nevertheless, she was
young; her studies were half digested, and her theories crude. She had
come home with a vague notion of playing the part of Lady Bountiful
and putting things right, but had got a jar soon after she began. Her
father's idea of justice was elementary: he resented her meddling, and
was sometimes tyrannical. When it was obvious that he had taken an
improper line he blamed his agent; but perhaps the worst was he
seldom knew when he was wrong. Then the agent's main object was to
extort as much money from the tenants as possible.
Grace did not see what she could do, although she felt that something
ought to be done. She had a raw, undisciplined enthusiasm, and
imagined that she was somehow responsible. Yet when she tried to use
some influence her father got savage and she felt hurt. Well, she must
try to be patient and tactful. While she meditated, Mrs. Osborn got up,
and they went back to the house.

CHAPTER II
THE OTTER HOUNDS
Grace's tweed dress was wet and rather muddy when she stood with
Gerald on a gravel bank at the head of a pool, where the beck from the
tarn joined a larger stream that flowed through a neighboring dale.
There had been some rain and the water was stained a warm
claret-color by the peat. Bright sunshine pierced the tossing alder
branches, and the rapid close by sparkled between belts of moving
shade. Large white dogs with black and yellow spots swam uncertainly
about the pool and searched the bank; a group of men stood in the rapid,
while another group watched the tail of the pool. Somewhere between
them a hard-pressed otter hid.
A few of the men wore red coats and belonged to the hunt; the rest
were shepherds and farmers whom custom entitled to join in the sport.

All carried long iron-pointed poles and waited with keen expectation
the reappearance of the otter. Grace was perhaps the only one to feel a
touch of pity for the exhausted animal and she wondered whether this
was not a sentimental weakness. There was not much to be said for the
otter's right to live; it was stealthy, cruel, and horribly destructive,
killing many more fish and moorhens than it could eat. Indeed, before
she went to school, she had followed the hunt with pleasant excitement,
and was now rather surprised to find the sport had lost its zest.
The odds against the otter were too great, although it had for some
hours baffled men who knew the river, and well-trained dogs. It had
stolen up shallow rapids, slipping between the