The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 | Page 6

allowed me for the improvements I have made? Not a shilling; he had gone on making them without the landlord's consent. You saw me making them and encouraged me, said the master, and I made them in the belief I would be given another tack to get some of the profit out of them. The factor replied, Tut, tut, that's not the law of Scotland. The master felt very sore at the injustice done him. On his lordship's arrival from London, accompanied by a party of his English friends, for the shooting, the master resolved to see him. On the morning he left to interview him we wished him good luck, confident the landlord would not uphold the factor, and we wearied for his return. The look on his face as he came into the kitchen showed he had failed. He told us all that passed. On getting to the grand house and telling the flunkey he had come to see his master, the flunkey regarded him with disdain, and replied his lordship was engaged and would not see him. Persisting in refusing to leave the door and telling that he was a tenant, the flunkey left and returned with a young gentleman, who asked what was his business, saying he was his lordship's secretary. On being told, the young man shook his head, saying his lordship left all such matters to his factor, and it would do no good to see him. Just then a finely dressed lady swept into the hall. Pausing, she cried, 'Tompkins, what does that common-looking man want here? Tell him to go to the servants' entry.' 'He wants to see his lordship,' was the reply. 'The idea!' exclaimed the lady as she crossed the floor and disappeared by the opposite door. The master could hear the sounds of laughter and jingle of glasses. 'My, good man,' said the secretary, 'you had better go: his lordship will not see you today.' 'When will he be at liberty to see me?' asked the master, 'I will come when it suits his pleasure. I must have his word of mouth that what the factor says is his decision.' The secretary looked perplexed, and after putting a few questions, among them that he had paid his rent and wanted no favor beyond renewal of his lease on the old terms, he told my father to wait a minute and left. It might be half an hour or more when a flunkey beckoned the master to follow him. Throwing open a door he entered what he took to be the library, for it had shelves of books. His lordship was alone, seated by the fireplace with a newspaper on his lap. 'Now, say what you have to say in fewest words,' said the nobleman. Standing before him the master told how he had taken the farm 19 years ago, had observed every condition of the lease, and had gone beyond them in keeping the farm in good heart, for he had improved it in many ways, especially during the past few years when he had ditched and limed and levelled a boggy piece of land, and changed it from growing rushes into the best pasture-field on the farm. 'Gin the farm is worth more, it is me who has made it and I crave your lordship to either give me another tack at the same rent or pay me what my betterments are worth.' His Lordship turned and touched a bell. On the flunkey appearing, he said to him, 'Show this fellow to the door,' and took up his newspaper. As the master finished, he said to us, 'Dear as every acre of the farm is to me, I will leave it and go where the man who works the land may own it and where there are no lords and dukes, nor baronets. I am a man and never again will I ask as a favor what is my due of any fellow-mortal with a title.' We went to bed that night sorrowful and fearing what was before us.
When he took anything in hand the master went through with it. Before the week was out he had given up the farm, arranged for an auction sale, and for going to Canada. My heart was filled with misgivings as to what would become of me. I knew crops had been short for two years, and, though he was even with the world, the master had not a pound to spare, and depended on the auction-sale for the money to pay for outfit and passage to Canada. I had no right to expect he would pay for me, and all the more that he would have no use for a lad such as I was in his new home. It