Hayes’ face was inscrutable as he flicked over the notes.  “The total’s correct.  It’s an awkward bundle; a check would have been simpler.”

“A check has the drawback that it must be signed,” Kit remarked with a meaning smile.  “We’re modest folk, and nobody was anxious to write himself down the leader.”

“I see!” said Hayes.  “I don’t know if you’re modest; but you’re certainly cautious.”

“Anyhow, we’re aw in this,” said one of the others.

“So it seems.  I hope you won’t lose your money,” Hayes rejoined dryly and took out a fountain pen.  “Well, here’s your receipt, Mr. Railton.  I don’t think there is anything more to be said.”

He put the receipt on the table and when he went away a farmer laughed.

“O’ad Hayes is quiet and cunning as a hill fox, but my lease has some time to go and he canna put us aw oot.”

Railton tried to thank them, while Mrs. Railton smiled with tears in her eyes, but the dales folk dislike emotion and as soon as it was possible the visitors went away.

An hour or two afterwards Grace heard about the matter from the sick wife of a farmer, whom she had gone to see, and when she went home thought she had better not confess that she had taken Hayes’ note to Mireside.  When Osborn joined his wife and daughter at the tea-table in the hall after some disappointing shooting, his remarks about his tenants were rancorous.  Grace thought it prudent not to talk and left the table as soon as she could.  When she had gone, Osborn frowned and getting up savagely kicked a log in the grate.

“I got a nasty knock this morning,” he said.  “It’s not so much that I mind letting Railton stop; I hate to feel I’ve been baffled and made the victim of a plot.”

“After all, wasn’t it rather Hayes’s idea than yours that Railton ought to go?” Mrs. Osborn ventured.

“It was; there’s some comfort in that!  You don’t like Hayes much.”

“I don’t know that I dislike him.  I’m not sure I trust him.”

“Well,” said Osborn thoughtfully, “I sometimes feel he’s keenest about my interests when they don’t clash with his, and this last affair was a pretty good example of nepotism.  For all that, his nephew would have been a better tenant and have paid a higher rent.”  He paused and knitted his brows angrily as he resumed:  “However, it’s done with, and one can’t blame Railton for holding on to his lease.  What I hate to feel is, the others plotted to baffle me.  The land is mine, but I’d sooner get on well with my tenants.”

“One cannot, so to speak, have it both ways,” Mrs. Osborn remarked timidly.

“Oh, I know what you mean!  But I don’t think I’m a harsh landlord.  If money was not quite so scarce, I might be generous.  In fact, I don’t know that I’d have agreed to turning Railton out if it hadn’t been for Gerald’s confounded debts and his allowance at Woolwich.  That’s a fresh expense.”