A TENANT FARMER 



John Weston thenceforth became a tenant farmer on 

 his own account. In the first instance he rented some 

 four hundred acres, afterwards increased to rather more 

 than five hundred. Not quitting his old village, he 

 married and settled down — after a few years in a 

 smaller dwelling — in a large, comfortable house of the 

 country sandstone, built for him by the great land- 

 owner from whom he rented most of his holding. In 

 that house he brought up his family, lived the re- 

 mainder of his days, and was succeeded by his own 

 son. He had had an excellent training from his father, 

 and was a sound and careful farmer and a good judge 

 of stock of all kinds. He had a great fancy for Here- 

 ford cattle, and the fine white-faced, deep-red bullocks 

 were always a sight worth seeing in his pastures. 

 Perhaps, if he had a failing, it was that he disliked 

 hurry in business, was a little hesitating in his judg- 

 ment, and in the old and good days, like many others 

 of his fellows, kept his wool too long. Now and again 

 he may have scored by thus holding back his fleeces 

 from the wool-buyer, but in the long run I am con- 

 vinced he was a loser rather than a gainer by the 

 practice. 



Like his father before him, he loved a good glass 

 of port, and in his earlier days had laid down an 

 excellent cellar. His '34 — that wonderful vintage — 

 lasted, if I am not mistaken, until a little past the 

 eighties, by which time it was beginning to show 

 undoubted signs of age. Yet was John Weston 

 usually an abstemious man, well contented with his 

 glass of home-brewed ale, except upon Sunday after- 

 noons or when he had company. His cellar always 

 held, too, good store of home-made wine. In autumn, 

 when walnuts were ripe, the old gentleman loved no 

 fruit so well, and a bottle of cowslip wine and a dish 



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