His face brightened. "Tell 'ee what," he said, addressing the waving grass in front of him, "I'll ask Mr. Herbert. Squire's a man who have seen the world. I'll take his advice about the boy. Seems hard like on me, too. Ne'er a Leigh till this one but what were a farmer to the backbone!" His mind made up, the farmer strode off to make arrangement with mowers. Had he been troubled with twenty unnatural and incompetent sons, the hay must be made while the sun shines. Although he had settled what to do, it was some time before the weighty resolve was carried into execution. Folks about Coombe-Acton do not move with the celerity of cotton brokers or other men of business. Sure they are, but slow. So it was not until the September rent day that the farmer consulted his landlord about his domestic difficulty--the possession of a son, an only child, of about fifteen, who, instead of making himself useful on the land, did little else save wander about in a dreamy way, looking at all objects in nature, animate or inanimate, or employed himself in the mysterious pursuit which his father described as "messing with mud." Such conduct was a departure from the respectable bucolic traditions of the Leigh family, so great, that at times the father thought it an infliction laid upon him for some cause or other by an inscrutable Providence. There are certain Spanish noblemen who, on account of the antiquity of their families and services rendered, are permitted to enter the royal presence with covered heads. It was, perhaps, for somewhat similar reasons, a custom handed down from father to son and established by time, that the tenant of Watercress Farm paid his rent to the landlord in person, not through the medium of an agent. Mr. Herbert being an important man in the West country, the Leigh family valued this privilege as highly as ever hidalgo valued the one above mentioned. Mr. Herbert, a refined, intellectual-looking man of about fifty, received the farmer kindly, and after the rent, without a word as to abatement or reduction, had been paid in notes of the county bank--dark and greasy, but valued in this particular district far above Bank of England promises--landlord and tenant settled down to a few minutes' conversation on crops and kindred subjects. Then the farmer unburdened his mind. "I've come to ask a favor of your advice, sir, about my boy, Jerry." "Yes," said Mr. Herbert, "I know him--a nice, good-looking boy. I see him at church with you, and about your place when I pass. What of him?" "Well, you zee, zur," said the farmer, speaking with more Somerset dialect than usual, "he've a been at Bristol Grammar School till just now. Masters all send good accounts of him. I don't hold wi' too much learning, so thought 'twere time he come home and helped me like. But not a bit o' good he be on the varm; not a bit, zur! Spends near all his time messing about wi' dirt." "Doing what?" asked Mr. Herbert, astonished.