"Back to the land," as his grandfather was fond of saying, was the child's unspoken motto.
The old man and his sturdy grandchild were rare intimates, and never so happy as when wandering together about the yards and farm-buildings and pastures, the child, silent and absorbed, as he clutched his grand-dad's big brown finger.
The pair did not talk much: they were too content. But there was one often-repeated conversation which took place between them as they strolled.
"What goin' to be when you grows up, Jim?"
"Farmer."
"What shall ye breed?"
"Shire-'osses."
The child came back always from those prolonged visits with the sun on his cheeks, the strength in his limbs, and Leicestershire broad upon his tongue; and he never understood why his mother cut his visits short on every imaginable pretext.
At Eton the lad's friends were almost all drawn from the families in whose blood, after generations of possession, the land and its belongings had become a real if somewhat perverted passion. They would sit on into the twilight in each other's studies and ramble on interminably and with the exaggerated wisdom of seventeen about the subject nearest to their youthful hearts.
Sometimes Mr. Bromhead would look in, grim and gray behind his spectacles.