In the hall the glass was still going down. He caught the 9.15, wiring to his agent to meet him at the station, and to the impresario of the strike-breakers to hold up their departure until he telegraphed. The three-mile drive up from the station, fully half of which was through his own land, put him in possession of all the agent had to tell: Nasty spirit abroad--men dumb as fishes--the farmers, puzzled and angry, had begun cutting as best they could. Not a man had budged. He had seen young Mr. and Miss Freeland going about. The thing had been worked very cleverly. He had suspected nothing--utterly unlike the laborers as he knew them.
They had no real grievance, either! Yes, they were going on with all their other work--milking, horses, and that; it was only the hay they wouldn't touch. Their demand was certainly a very funny one--very funny--had never heard of anything like it. Amounted almost to security of tenure. The Tryst affair no doubt had done it! Malloring cut him short:
"Till they've withdrawn this demand, Simmons, I can't discuss that or anything."
The agent coughed behind his hand.
Naturally! Only perhaps there might be a way of wording it that would satisfy them. Never do to really let them have such decisions in their hands, of course!
They were just passing Tod's. The cottage wore its usual air of embowered peace. And for the life of him Malloring could not restrain a gesture of annoyance.
On reaching home he sent gardeners and grooms in all directions with word that he would be glad to meet the men at four o'clock at the home farm. Much thought, and interviews with several of the farmers, who all but one--a shaky fellow at best--were for giving the laborers a sharp lesson, occupied the interval. Though he had refused to admit the notion that the men could be chicaned, as his agent had implied, he certainly did wonder a little whether a certain measure of security might not in some way be guaranteed, which would still leave him and the farmers a free hand. But the more he meditated on the whole episode, the more he perceived how intimately it interfered with the fundamental policy of all good landowners--of knowing what was good for their people better than those people knew themselves.
As four o'clock approached, he walked down to the home farm. The sky was lightly overcast, and a rather chill, draughty, rustling wind had risen. Resolved to handle the men with the personal touch, he had discouraged his agent and the farmers from coming to the conference, and passed the gate with the braced-up feeling of one who goes to an encounter. In that very spick-and-span farmyard ducks were swimming leisurely on the greenish pond, white pigeons strutting and preening on the eaves of the barn, and his keen eye noted that some tiles were out of order up there. Four o'clock!
Ah, here was a fellow coming! And instinctively he crisped his hands that were buried in his pockets, and ran over to himself his opening words. Then, with a sensation of disgust, he saw that the advancing laborer was that incorrigible 'land lawyer' Gaunt. The short, square man with the ruffled head and the little bright-gray eyes saluted, uttered an "Afternoon, Sir Gerald!" in his teasing voice, and stood still. His face wore the jeering twinkle that had disconcerted so many political meetings. Two lean fellows, rather alike, with lined faces and bitten, drooped moustaches, were the next to come through the yard gate. They halted behind Gaunt, touching their forelocks, shuffling a little, and looking sidelong at each other. And Malloring waited. Five past four! Ten past!
Then he said:
"D'you mind telling the others that I'm here?"
Gaunt answered:
"If so be as you was waitin' for the meetin', I fancy as 'ow you've got it, Sir Gerald!"
A wave of anger surged up in Malloring, dyeing his face brick-red.
So! He had come all that way with the best intentions--to be treated like this; to meet this 'land lawyer,' who, he could see, was only here to sharpen his tongue, and those two scarecrow-looking chaps, who had come to testify, no doubt, to his discomfiture. And he said sharply:
"So that's the best you can do to meet me, is it?"
Gaunt answered imperturbably:
"I think it is, Sir Gerald."
"Then you've mistaken your man."
"I don't think so, Sir Gerald."
Without another look Malloring passed the three by, and walked back to the house. In the hall was the agent, whose face clearly showed that he had foreseen this defeat. Malloring did not wait for him to speak.
"Make arrangements. The strike-breakers will be down by noon to-morrow. I shall go through with it now, Simmons, if I have to clear the whole lot out. You'd better go in and see that they're ready to send police if there's any nonsense. I'll be down again in a day or two." And, without waiting for reply, he passed into his study. There, while the car was being got ready, he stood in the window, very sore; thinking of what he had meant to do; thinking of his good intentions; thinking of what was coming to the country, when a man could not even get his laborers to come and hear what he had to say. And a sense of injustice, of anger, of bewilderment, harrowed his very soul.
