“This is going to be dull, so clear off out for a breath of fresh air, and stop putting chimneys down that precious throat of yours. It’s going to be dull, I tell you, and I ought to know! You’re not missing anything. As for Miss Shaw, she can read it in the papers, if she wants!”
That sent the faithful Wiggie flying, as he expected, to cool his aching head in the drawing-in afternoon; and with the tail of his eye on Stubbs and his behaviour, Lancaster got to work.
His speech was technical, concentrated, rigidly pinned down to the main interest, but dull it was not, so clearly did the plain words round and emphasise each situation, salting hard facts with the short, dry wit that stimulates the Northerner like his own first frosts. Drifting outside to an uncurtained window, Wiggie was fascinated by the picture within. Through the mist of smoke he saw the faces at the table turned with the stillness of complete attention to the forceful figure at the end. Lancaster was at his best when speaking. The whole man braced and strengthened, and the almost dour look, so often seen in those who come early into big responsibilities, relaxed as some apt finish sent a slow ripple round the ring, setting its final seal on his own mouth. There came to Wigmore, of the town, a sense of the wide qualifications that go to the making of the ideal steward. A well-known member of this “easy” profession has said that the land agent must be “a keen judge of character, of a genial and sympathetic disposition and energetic nature, must know when to be firm, when yielding, the many times when he must lead, the few when he must drive, whom to trust and whom to suspect, what to notice and what to ignore, where to command and where merely to suggest, whom to praise and whom censure. Forethought, vigilance, courtesy, reticence are qualities which will carry him far.... He has duties to perform on behalf of tenants as well as landlord. He is a human buffer between his employer and the farmers, and must shield the former from annoyance, and uphold the just claims of the latter, even to the sacrifice of his own popularity. He must be as reticent as the lawyer, as upright as the parson, as firm as the policeman. He must be well informed on every subject, whether it be Bradshaw or the debenture stocks of a company—the pedigree of a cow or that of a peer; the price of a Scotch moor, or the vintage of a claret.”
The “easy” profession carries with it the immense penalty of an influence reaching forward into the future long after death, in a fashion characteristic of scarcely any other. There are some of us whose chief honour and glory is to find men of humble station still appraising right and wrong by the standards taught them of our fathers.
Wiggie’s eye ran along the dark heads etched on the yellow light, from Stubbs, somnolently fixing Lanty to the punctuation of a spasmodic “Hear, hear!” to Dockeray, thoughtful and quiet, Brack, supercilious but attentive, Wolf, quiveringly interested and yet outside, and finally to Bluecaster in his big chair at the head. He wondered afterwards why, of all the tragedies at the table—and there was more than one plain to the eye—Bluecaster’s had seemed to him the most helpless and complete. There is something terrible in the relentlessness with which inheritance may force a man into a position he is not framed to fill, thrusting power into his hands and judgment into his mouth whether he desire their fiery splendours or no. He may, of course, pluck the joys of heritage and leave its duties to look after themselves; but if he has good blood behind him and a strong hand beside him, he will come to them, soon or late. Left to himself, with no great name to support, Bluecaster would have been a tennis champion or somebody’s private skipper, chauffeur or huntsman—anything but the head of a large estate, with his generous but harassed brain besieged by the growing problems of the day. Yet he had hurried home from Egypt to take his place, to speak the right word as far as he knew, and was sitting with his patient dog’s eyes raised in courteous attention, keeping his end up not too unsuccessfully, thanks to the spur of race and the steady influence of a good servant.
Lancaster finished the survey of the half-year, covering general events, agricultural conditions and the new legislation; and then, on an impulse that he never ceased to regret, referred, in his final sentences, to a subject already closed.
“I should just like to add that I hope all the marsh-men are sleeping well!” he ended, dropping into a lighter tone. “Mr. Bracken Holliday was a little anxious, as we all know, about the beginning of last autumn, but I trust that by now he has come round to the general conclusion of safety.” He lifted his glass. “I wish all on the marsh a succession of prosperous seasons and no dreams!”
Denny seized this excellent opportunity for sending round a cardboard nautical imitation labelled “The Thweng Life-Boat,” and quite a number of pence was jangled down in front of Brack. He nodded careless thanks, but he whitened angrily, and he sent one long glance up the table which set Lancaster biting his lip. The farmer said nothing, however, and his lordship, grateful that the difficult subject was not to be re-opened, muttered—“Bounder got some decent feeling, after all!” and handed him his own cigarette-case. Brack coloured, this time, and fell into frowning thought. The courtesy got home, even through his armour of conceit, but vaguely he groped for subtler sympathy behind. Who knew what Bluecaster really thought about the Lugg?
Denny was asked to respond for “The Bonny Lasses of Westmorland,” and did so with enthusiasm, quite unabashed by pointed interrogations, such as: “Wha was fust-footer ower to Braithet’s?” (Braithwaite had a crowd of pretty daughters) and, “Wha’s buits bed ta gitten fur t’job?” etc., etc. Michael opened the singing in the gentle, light tenor that he raised every Sunday in the Ladyford family pew where his fathers had worshipped. The song was the inevitable “Kind Mary,” and Lanty wondered whether he was thinking of his own cheerful, masterful partner as he sang with his mild eyes fixed on the ceiling, marking the rhythm with slow nods. Denny gave them the famous “Eh, poor Lassie, she was Dumb!” and called upon Brack to oblige with “Pull for the Shore, Sailor!” or “Throw out the Life-Line!” but his victim, placated by the cigarette-case, was not to be drawn. Old Simon contributed “The Mardale Hunt,” hammering out the time with the punch-ladle, and quaveringly commanding the chorus to “give it weft!” Lanty always sang the same song, his father’s song: “In the Downhill of Life.” Wigmore, drawn gradually back by the music, stood presently in the doorway, listening to the simple faith of an older generation—
“In the Downhill of Life when I find I’m declining,