94 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



ruddy faces, robust health and loud, honest 

 voices. 



The smoking-room we entered after dinner was 

 so full that my companion, after looking in, turned 

 back, but the chorus of voices that called after 

 him : " There's a chair vacant, sir," caused us to 

 carry out our first intention of being listeners to 

 agricultural talk. Efforts were made by our neigh- 

 bours, on either side, to start a conversation with 

 us, but the market, its prices, seductive offers for 

 unsold lots and inquiries for sound meadow hay, 

 soon engrossed them, and when these bargain- 

 ings simmered to a settlement the more general 

 questions, rents and the price of wheat, were 

 talked of in louder voices. Many seemed to think 

 that farming could not be profitable so long as a 

 farmer could buy foreign grain cheaper than he 

 could grow it. Many were of opinion that wheat 

 could not be grown profitably under forty shillings, 

 and there was an almost universal opinion that 

 rents were still far too high. The biggest man in 

 the room, a very big one, smoked his pipe and 

 drank his toddy with the beamiest countenance 

 imaginable, and, although more than once appealed 

 to, only beamed and refixed his hat. Excitement 

 grew by degrees until the more vigorous speakers 

 thumped the tables and made the glasses and their 

 stirring spoons jump, and every time this happened 

 the big man moved his hat again, sometimes back- 

 ward, at others forward until his eyes were almost 

 hidden. A speaker desired to know, with a thump 

 that made all the tables shake: "What do the 

 Tory party mean by putting a shilling on wheat and 

 then taking it off again ? Rents too high, I should 



