"Won't you come into the house for a moment or two?" said Mary, with a vague notion that she ought to be polite to a tenant who paid her £1400 a year: moreover, she had ulterior ends in view. Mr. Watson consented; Mary went and called a gardener, who took charge of the cob; and then the two young ladies and the farmer proceeded up the stone steps, and through the hall, and into the wide hexagonal drawing-room in the tower. Then she asked him to be seated, adding some vague suggestion about a glass of wine and a biscuit after his ride.
"No, I thank ye," said Mr. Watson. "I am a teetotaller—not an ordinary thing in these parts. Ay, and a vegetarian. But I practise—I don't preach," he explained, with a complacent smile; "so I do no harm to other folk. Both things suit me; but I let other people alone. That's the fair way in the world."
"I wanted to ask you, Mr. Watson," said she, with a certain timidity, "whether you would be disposed to give up the pasturage of Meall-na-Cruagan?"
In a second the shrewd and humorous blue eyes had become strictly observant and business-like.
"To give it up?" he said, slowly.
"I mean," she interposed, "at a valuation. I know it is yours under the lease; we cannot disturb you; nor should I wish to do so, except entirely with your own goodwill."
"Miss Stanley," said he, "I will ask ye a plain question: what for do ye want me to give up the Meall-na-Cruagan?"
"The crofters——"
"Ay, ay, just that," said he, without much ceremony. "They've been at ye, in the absence of Mr. Purdie. Well, let me tell ye this: I am willing on my part to give up the Meall-na-Cruagan, at a fair valuation; but I warn ye that if ye hand it over to the crofters, they'll be not one penny the better off, and you'll be just so much the worse. Where are they to get the stock to put on it? They've enough grazing for what stock they've got."
"Yes, but it is not wholly that," said Mary. "I want to have them satisfied."