"Very little," Osborn replied. "Corn's too dear. The Tarnside pheasants live on the country."
"I expect that really means they live on the farmers!"
Osborn frowned. It was Jardine's habit to make stupid remarks like that;
Osborn wondered whether the fellow thought them smart.
"The farmers knew my rules when they signed the lease," he said. "Anyhow, pheasants do much less damage than ground game, and I don't think my tenants have left a hare in the dale."
Jardine began to talk about something else, and no more was said about Osborn's grievances until the party met on the new terrace in the twilight. The tarn glimmered with faint reflections from the west, but thin mist drifted across the pastures, and the hills rose, vague and black, against the sky, in which a half moon shone. Osborn, sitting at the top of the shallow steps that went down to the lawn, grumbled to his wife about the day's shooting.
"I don't think I'm an exacting landlord," he remarked. "In fact, since I ask for nothing but a little give-and-take, it's annoying when people spoil my sport. Dowthwaite made himself unpleasant about his broken wall, the Askews turned the grouse back, and then I found the Allerby cottage children, ransacking Redmire Wood when the pheasants were going to roost."
Grace, who stood close by with Thorn, indicated the smooth gravel and the low, wide-topped wall on which red geraniums grew.
"This," she said, "is a great improvement on the old grass bank. The wide steps and broad slate coping have an artistic effect. However, you can't often get the things you like without paying."
"Very true, but rather trite," Osborn agreed. "I don't see how it applies."
"Well, I'm really sympathetic about your spoiled day, but it looks as if all your disappointments sprang from the same cause."