"Well, what is it you want? Jackson!"
"We were took on at Mr. William's, beg your pardon, Sir William's, sir, and now we're turned off. It don't seem hardly fair, and we thought we'd come to you about it."
"How were you taken on? By the week?"
"Yes, sir. But—"
"Coombe has just been here, and told me that you've had a week's wages instead of notice. So there's nothing unfair in it."
"Well, sir, we were told that it would be a two month's job. That's what Coombe told us."
"Coombe took you on, I suppose; not Sir William?"
"Yes, sir. It was like this—"
"I've just heard all about it from Coombe. There has been a mistake. When you came in, I was just about to telegraph to Sir William. What you'd better do is to wait till I get an answer, and I've no doubt that to-morrow you'll be going on where you left off. You'll have had a day's holiday at full pay, and you won't have anything to grumble at, eh?"
He said this with a smile. He liked old Jackson, and had often stopped to have a word with him, when he had been employed on estate work, mending a fence, clearing a drain, or whatever job it might be that had to do with the land on which he had worked since boyhood. He was full of homely wisdom; a true son of the soil, with few desires that were not connected with it. Such men appeal to the fatherly instinct that is born in the best type of landowner towards those dependent on him. Their simplicity must be respected; their reliance upon the justice of their "betters" must be met by the most careful consideration of their troubles.