The Squire's Daughter - Silas K. Hocking

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when the field was safely sheafed and shocked, they repaired to the farm kitchen, where supper was laid, and where ancient jokes were trotted out amid roars of laughter, and where the hero of the evening was the man who had a new story to tell. Supper ended, they made their way home through the quiet lanes or across the fields. That, to some of the young people, seemed the best part of the day. They forgot the weariness engendered by a dozen hours in the open air while they listened to a story old as the human race, and yet as new to-day as when syllabled by the first happy lover.

      But on the small farms, where no outside help was employed, there was very little mirth or hilarity. All the romance of harvest was found where the crowd was gathered. Young people sometimes gave their services of an evening, so that they could take part in the fun.

      As David Penlogan and his family toiled in the fields in the light of the harvest moon they sometimes heard sounds of merry-making and laughter floating across the valley from distant farmsteads, and they wondered a little bit sadly where the next harvest-time would find them.

      On the third Saturday night they stood still to listen to a familiar sound in that part of the country.

      "Listen, Ralph," Ruth said, "they're cutting neck at Treligga."

      Cutting neck means cutting the last shock of the year's corn, and is celebrated by a big shout in the field, and a special supper in the farmer's kitchen.

      Ralph raised himself from his stooping posture, and his father did the same. Ruth took her mother's hand in hers, and all four stood and listened. Clear and distinct across the moonlit fields the words rang—

      "What have 'ee? What have 'ee?"

      "A neck! A neck!"

      "Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!"

      Slowly the echoes died over the hills, and then silence reigned again.

      Ralph and David had also cut neck, but they raised no shout over it. They were in no mood for jubilation.

      Sir John Hamblyn had not spoken yet, nor had his steward been across to see them. Why those many days of grace, neither David nor Ralph could surmise.

      It was reported that the squire's daughter was slowly recovering from her accident, but that many months would elapse before she was quite well and able to ride again.

      "We shall not have to wait much longer, depend upon it," David said, on Monday morning, as he and Ralph went out in the fields together; and so it proved. About ten o'clock a horseman was seen riding up the lane toward the house. David was the first to catch sight of him.

      "It's the squire himself," he said.

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      Sir John alighted from his horse and threw the reins over the garden gate, then he walked across the stockyard, and looked at the barn and the cowsheds, taking particular notice of the state of repair they were in. After awhile he returned to the dwelling-house and walked round it deliberately, looking carefully all the time at the roof and windows, but he did not attempt to go inside.

      David and Ralph watched him from the field, but neither attempted to go near him.

      "He'll come to us when he has anything to say," David said, with a little catch in his voice.

      Ralph noticed that his father trembled a good deal, and that he was pale even to the lips.

      The squire came hurrying across the fields at length, slapping his leg as he walked with his riding-crop. His face was hard and set, like a man who had braced himself to do an unpleasant task, and was determined to carry it through. Ralph watched his face narrowly as he drew near, but he got no hope or inspiration from it. The squire did not notice him, but addressed himself at once to David.

      "Good-morning, Penlogan!" he said. "I see you have got down all your corn."

      "Yes, sir, we cut neck on Saturday night."

      "And not a bad crop either, by the look of it."

      "No, sir, it's pretty middling. The farm is just beginning to show some fruit for all the labour and money that have been spent on it."

      "Exactly so. Labour and manure always tell in the end. You know, of course, that the lease has fallen in?"

      "I do, sir. It's hard on the parson at St. Goram, and it's harder lines on me."

      "Yes, it's rough on you both, I admit. But we can't be against these things. When the Almighty does a thing, no man can say nay."

      "I'm not so sure that the Almighty does a lot of those things that people say He does."

      "You're not?"

      "No, sir. I don't see that the parson's son had any call to go out to Egypt to shoot Arabs, particularly when he knew that my farm hung on his life."

      "He went at the call of duty," said the squire unctuously; "went to defend his Queen and country."

      "Don't believe it," said David doggedly. "Neither the Queen nor the country was in any danger. He went because he had a roving disposition and no stomach for useful ways."

      "Well, anyhow, he's dead," said the squire, "and naturally we are all sorry—sorry for his father particularly."

      "I suppose you are not sorry for me?" David questioned.

      "Well, yes; in some respects I am. The luck has gone against you, there's no denying, and one does not like to see a fellow down on his luck."

      "Then in that case I presume you do not intend to take advantage of my bad luck?"

      The squire raised his eyebrows, and his lip curled slightly.

      "I don't quite understand what you mean," he said.

      "Well, it's this way," David said mildly. "According to law this little farm is now yours."

      "Exactly."

      "But according to right it is not yours—it is mine."

      "Oh, indeed?"

      "You need not say, 'Oh, indeed.' You can see it as clearly as I do. I've made the farm. I reclaimed it from the waste. I've fenced it and manured it, and built houses upon it. And what twelve years ago was a furzy down is now a smiling homestead, and you have not spent a penny piece on it, and yet you say it is yours."

      "Of course it is mine."

      "Well, I say it isn't yours. It's mine by every claim of equity and justice."

      "I'm not talking about the claims of equity and justice," the squire said, colouring violently. "I take my stand on the law of the country; that's good enough for me. And what's good enough for me ought to be good enough for you," he added, with a snort.

      "That don't by any means follow," David answered quietly. "The laws of the land were made by the rich in the interests of the rich. That they're good for you there is no denying; but for me they're cruel and oppressive."

      "I don't see it," the squire said, with an impatient shrug of his shoulders. "You live in a free country, and have all the advantages of our great institutions."

      "I suppose you call the leasehold system one of our great institutions?" David questioned.

      "Well, and what then?"

      "I don't see much advantage in living under it," was the reply.

      "You might have something a great deal worse," the squire said angrily. "The high-and-mighty airs some of you people take on are simply outrageous."

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