156 CHRONICLES OP A CLAY FARM. 



By serving them as you do the Rats when you take 

 the Ricks away ! Starving 'em out ! There 's no 

 other way! They'll starve you if you don't starve 

 them. Their food their only food is ever has been 

 the premium price the disproportionate value of 

 the grain-crop. TAKE AWAY THAT BAUBLE!" quoth 

 farmer Oliver the Protector. 



There was an ' awful pause.' Mr. Greening was 

 looking into the fire. One would think there was 

 something written in the live embers which he was 

 trying in vain to decypher so hard he looked at it. 

 " Ah ! I've thought o' that ! " he slowly muttered 

 at last, as if to himself: " Kill or cure ! But that 's 

 ' kill first and cure afterwards.' " 



" Kill the proud flesh, to cure the sound. Yes : 

 cruel work, no doubt, at any time ; but crueller when 

 done at the wrong one." 



"When'sthat?" 



" The moment when it will be done ; as surely as 

 effect follows cause ! Does it need a ghost to tell us 

 that that time will be a time of scarcity a famine 

 perhaps, or a fancied one ? Then it will be done, and 



done in a hurry too ! And then What comes after 



a famine, Greening ? What is the recoil of Scarcity ? 

 Abundance very true: then will be the tug of 



