Hodge and His Masters | Page 8

the clergyman
drives by with his low four-wheel and fat pony, notes the poster as the
pony slackens at the descent to the water, and tells himself to remember
and get the tithe. Some few Sundays, and Farmer Smith will appear in
church no more.
Farmer Smith this beautiful morning is looking at the wheat, which is,
and is not, his. It would have been cut in an ordinary season, but the
rains have delayed the ripening. He wonders how the crop ever came
up at all through the mass of weeds that choked it, the spurrey that
filled the spaces between the stalks below, the bindweed that climbed
up them, the wild camomile flowering and flourishing at the edge, the
tall thistles lifting their heads above it in bunches, and the great docks
whose red seeds showed at a distance. He sent in some men, as much to
give them something to do as for any real good, one day, who in a few
hours pulled up enough docks to fill a cart. They came across a number
of snakes, and decapitated the reptiles with their hoes, and afterwards
hung them all up--tied together by the tail--to a bough. The bunch of
headless snakes hangs there still, swinging to and fro as the wind plays
through the oak. Vermin, too, revel in weeds, which encourage the
mice and rats, and are, perhaps, quite as much a cause of their increase
as any acts of the gamekeeper.
Farmer Smith a few years since was very anxious for the renewal of his
lease, just as those about to enter on tenancies desired leases above
everything. All the agricultural world agreed that a lease was the best
thing possible--the clubs discussed it, the papers preached it. It was a
safeguard; it allowed the tenant to develop his energies, and to put his
capital into the soil without fear. He had no dread of being turned out
before he could get it back. Nothing like a lease--the certain
preventative of all agricultural ills. There was, to appearance, a great
deal of truth in these arguments, which in their day made much
impression, and caused a movement in that direction. Who could

foresee that in a few short years men would be eager to get rid of their
leases on any terms? Yet such was the fact. The very men who had
longed so eagerly for the blessing of security of tenure found it the
worst thing possible for their interest.
Mr. Smith got his lease, and paid for it tolerably stiffly, for at that
period all agricultural prices were inflated--from the price of a lease to
that of a calf. He covenanted to pay a certain fixed rental for so many
acres of arable and a small proportion of grass for a fixed time. He
covenanted to cultivate the soil by a fixed rotation; not to sow this nor
that, nor to be guided by the change of the markets, or the character of
the seasons, or the appearance of powerful foreign competitors. There
was the parchment prepared with all the niceties of wording that so
many generations of lawyers had polished to the highest pitch; not a
loophole, not so much as a t left uncrossed, or a doubtful interlineation.
But although the parchment did not alter a jot, the times and seasons
did. Wheat fell in price, vast shipments came even from India, cattle
and sheep from America, wool from Australia, horses from France;
tinned provisions and meats poured in by the ton, and cheese, and
butter, and bacon by the thousand tons. Labour at the same time rose.
His expenditure increased, his income decreased; his rent remained the
same, and rent audit came round with the utmost regularity.
Mr. Smith began to think about his lease, and question whether it was
such an unmixed blessing. There was no getting out of it, that was
certain. The seasons grew worse and worse. Smith asked for a
reduction of rent. He got, like others, ten per cent, returned, which, he
said looked very liberal to those who knew nothing of farming, and was
in reality about as useful as a dry biscuit flung at a man who has eaten
nothing for a week. Besides which, it was only a gracious
condescension, and might not be repeated next year, unless he kept on
his good behaviour, and paid court to the clergyman and the steward.
Unable to get at what he wanted in a direct way, Smith tried an indirect
one. He went at game, and insisted on its being reduced in number.
This he could do according to the usual terms of agreement; but when it
came to the point he found that the person called in to assess the
damage put it