"Corn's a ticklish business, master," replied Beer. "Yet 'tis to be done if you'll bring your soil to a husband-like tilth an' not spare lime. Burn clean, plough, an' dress as generously as your pocket will stand. Then spread fresh mould afore the seed earth. Earth must be fetched, for you've got to remember there's none there. Then sow your wheat--ten pecks to the acre--harrow in, strike out the furrows, and pray God for eighteen bushels to the acre. He can do it an' He's a minded. Next year the man must refresh his stubble, plough, sow, hack in, an' hope for ten or twelve bushels. Then turnips must follow--not broadcast like our fathers sowed 'em--for that's to spread a table for the fly, but the two-furrow way. Then the land must have three years' fallow; an' that's the whole law an' the prophets about it, so far as I know anything." "In my youth," said Uncle Smallridge, "when the world was awful backward at farming, us growed nought but rye; an' a fool here an' there do still cling to his fathers' coat-tails an' go on growing it. But not one in the forefront of the day, like Dick Beer." "All the same," concluded Mr. Beer, "the gentleman's best stand-by will be beasts, like the rest of us. It don't pay trying to tame Dartmoor--he'll soon find that out, despite all the talk of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt an' such-like great men." "And you want work?" asked the listener. "So I do. I'm ready to try an' make a fortune for anybody." "Why are you out of employment?" "My last master have gived up," confessed the labourer. "Did you make his fortune?" "To be plain, he was very unlucky. I couldn't help him. Nobody couldn't. He was overlooked, I reckon. The evil eye was upon him." "Ah!--Well, Maurice Malherb is not frightened of the evil eye. What wages do you get?" "Nought to trumpet about. Seven shilling a week--'tis the usual wage, but pinching. My wife be good for two shilling. So us do very well--thanks to God, who didn't send no childer." "I'll give you ten shillings a week." "You! Who be you, master?' "I am Maurice Malherb, of Fox Tor Farm. Work must begin in a month. I'm looking round me. My head man comes up presently. But he doesn't know Dartmoor. You appear to do so. Provided your credentials and character are good, I'll engage you on trial." "Aw jimmery! this be great news. Ten shilling a week!" "My workpeople will be the marrow of my farm. I know that very well." "You'd do wise to take his wife along with him, your honour," said Uncle Smallridge. "Such a dairymaid ban't often met with. Fifteen cows she've been known to tackle with no more than help in the milking. That's three more'n any other woman I've ever heard about."