“I’m not a-saying that they ain’t bad, Squire,” said his retainer, his long face lighting up; “they are bad, cruel bad, bad for iverybody. And I’m not denying that they is bad for the tinants, but if they is bad for the tinants they is wus for the landlord. It all comes on his shoulders in the long run. If men find they can get land at five shillings an acre that’s worth twenty, why it isn’t in human natur to pay twenty, and if they find that the landlord must go as they drive him, of course they’ll lay on the whip. Why, bless you, sir, when a tinant comes and says that he is very sorry but he finds he can’t pay his rent, in nine cases out of ten, you’d find that the bank was paid, the tradesmen were paid, the doctor’s paid, iverybody’s paid before he thinks about his rent. Let the landlord suffer, because he can’t help hisself; but Lord bless us, if a hundred pounds were overdue to the bank it would have the innards out of him in no time, and he knows it. Now as for that varmint, Janter, to tell me that he can’t pay fifteen shillings an acre for the Moat Farm, is nonsense. I only wish I had the capital to take it at the price, that I du.” “Well, George,” said the Squire, “I think that if it can be managed I shall borrow the money and take the farm on hand. I am not going to let Janter have it at five shillings an acre.” “Ah, sir, that’s the best way. Bad as times be, it will go hard if I can’t make the interest and the rent out of it too. Besides, Squire, if you give way about this here farm, all the others will come down on you. I’m not saying a word agin your tinants, but where there’s money to be made you can’t trust not no man.” “Well, well,” said the Squire, “perhaps you are right and perhaps you ain’t. Right or wrong, you always talk like Solomon in all his glory. Anyway, be off with that note and let me have the answer as soon as you get back. Mind you don’t go loafing and jawing about down in Boisingham, because I want my answer.” “So he means to borrow the money if he can get it,” said Ida to herself as she sat, an invisible auditor, doing her hair by the open window. “George can do more with him in five minutes than I can do in a week, and I know that he hates Janter. I believe Janter threw up the farm because of his quarrelling with George. Well, I suppose we must take our chance.”