‘Oh, any one would give ground for such a purpose! Whose is it?’
‘Mr. Grice’s, at Butter End.’
The next time Susan and Bessie encountered Arthurine, she began—
‘Can you or Admiral Merrifield do nothing with that horrid old Grice! Never was any one so pigheaded and stupid.’
‘What? He won’t part with the land you want?’
‘No; I wrote to him and got no answer. Then I wrote again, and I got a peaked-hand sort of note that his wife wrote, I should think. “Mr. Grice presented his compliments” (compliments indeed!), “and had no intention of parting with any part of Spragg’s portion.” Well, then I called to represent what a benefit it would be to the parish and his own cattle, and what do you think the old brute said?—that “there was a great deal too much done for the parish already, and he wouldn’t have no hand in setting up the labourers, who were quite impudent enough already.” Well, I saw it was of no use to talk to an old wretch like that about social movements and equal rights, so I only put the question whether having pure water easily accessible would not tend to make them better behaved and less impudent as he called it, upon which he broke out into a tirade. “He didn’t hold with cold water and teetotal, not he. Why, it had come to that—that there was no such thing as getting a fair day’s work out of a labouring man with their temperance, and their lectures, and their schools, and their county councils and what not!” Really I had read of such people, but I hardly believed they still existed.’
‘Grice is very old, and the regular old sort of farmer,’ said Bessie.
‘But could not the Admiral persuade him, or Mr. Doyle?’
‘Oh no,’ said Susan, ‘it would be of no use. He was just as bad about a playground for the boys, though it would have prevented their being troublesome elsewhere.’
‘Besides,’ added Bessie, ‘I am sure papa would say that there is no necessity. He had the water analysed, and it is quite good, and plenty of it.’