268 BURN HAM BEECHES. 



that of extreme dissatisfaction, coupled with a sense of 

 injustice. The cottagers asserted that carts belonging to 

 persons living at a distance were continually sent to carry 

 away from the Common, by permission of the steward, 

 quantities of peat, sand, fallen leaves, and turf. They 

 complained that these parties were allowed to benefit by 

 the Common, although they contributed nothing to the 

 rates, whilst not one of these very ratepayers could 

 take a single barrow-load without going to Dropmore 

 to ask leave. " They felt, in short, that Lady Grenville 

 was seeking to establish an ' absolute ' rather than a 

 manorial property in the soil ; giving away the same 

 out of the parish in any quantity she thought fit, 

 and preventing any one but herself from using the soil 

 unless specially authorised by herself." 



Mrs. Grote goes on to say that she felt a strong 

 desire to probe the whole matter, and to contest Lady 

 Grenville's rights, in the interest of the labouring 

 people ; and that she would willingly have taken steps to 

 this end, but she found herself deterred by the fear 

 of bringing down upon the heads of the labouring 

 people the vengeance of the agent. 



" He had lately, it seems, explicitly given them to understand 

 that whoever moved in the matter or furnished information, 

 tending to call in question Lady Grenville's supremacy, would be 

 immediately turned out of their tenements. This menace had 

 the effect of tying up the tongues of all her tenants, and of 

 inducing them to wish that no further ' stir ' should be made. 

 The whole of the inhabitants, it may be said, rented cottages 

 under Lady Grenville, with the exception of my gardener, Mr. 

 Ludlam's three tenants, and one or two cottages on the Common , 



