But after a few days, he began to grow weary of the talk about the war with France, and the efforts the Cardinal was making to incline the King towards a policy of peace—not that he openly advocated this to the King or to any one else—but his secretaries knew what was intended, and why the increased supply of corn, needed from the Low Countries, always seemed a source of vexation to their master.
This question of the corn supply did interest him for a little while, and he resolved to spare no pains to get as much as he could off his land, for he heard on all aides that corn was fetching such a high price now, that he thought he might induce some of his neighbours to give up the sheep farming and return to the old system.
At last the day arrived when he was to meet Maud Guildford and her father. He took Maud to stay for the night with Dame Monmouth, at "The Golden Fleece," that they might start on their journey at daybreak. He also wanted to hear whether Master Tyndale had sailed for Hamburg.
It was a still greater pleasure when, after a rather wearisome journey of several days, Paton Hall was reached, and his darling wife came out with his sister to meet them.
It was the happiest homecoming he ever remembered, and the meeting of Maud and Cicely was very pleasant to witness, and quite repaid him for all the additional trouble caused by bringing a young girl such a long journey.
The summer of that year, 1524, was a busy one on the Paton estate; and the blacksmith, Diccon, and his men, were at the forge from morning till night, making new implements, or repairing old ones; for the energy of Sir Miles seemed to have entered into his tenants, and the village workpeople too, for all alike seemed eager to make the utmost of the land that had been brought into cultivation once more.
The fence round the "Haugh," that had kept off the village sheep and cows from grazing, had been taken down, and this alone had evoked such a burst of thankfulness from the peasants, that in their gratitude they promised to do anything and everything their master desired, and then drank themselves helpless at the village alehouse, as they felt bound to do, being Englishmen.
As much of the pasture-land as could be sown with wheat, rye, and barley, was brought into cultivation again, and the sheep still further reduced in number, by being transferred to the villagers, as they could buy them with their labour. Several farms had been let on the old rental to the old tenants or their sons—Miles stipulating that the old people should be provided for by the young farmer, if the hard life of the woods had made them incapable of work for themselves.
There had to be a good deal of self-denial on the part of the people as well as their master, for their life in the woods had brought on habits of laziness and shiftlessness that was not easy to break through, especially among the young men and women; and to these the daily recurring round of toil in the fields, or in building the cottages or barns, grew irksome, and they sometimes felt tempted to go off to the woods,—with its plenty one day, and starvation for a week afterwards,—rather than this steady, plodding work that, as yet, brought them no result beyond regular, frugal meals and a shelter.
But when the harvest time came, and one neighbour could tell another that his land had produced more than ever it did in the old days, there was universal rejoicing, and Sir Miles felt repaid for all his trouble in the altered appearance of everything and everybody around him.