tightened his belt and took a bee-line down over the slippery grass. He
meant to reach the cottage of the laborer Tryst before that early bird
was away to the fields. He meditated as he went. Bob Tryst was all
right! If they only had a dozen or two like him! A dozen or two whom
they could trust, and who would trust each other and stand firm to form
the nucleus of a strike, which could be timed for hay harvest. What
slaves these laborers still were! If only they could be relied on, if
only they would stand together! Slavery! It WAS slavery; so long as
they could be turned out of their homes at will in this fashion. His
rebellion against the conditions of their lives, above all against the
manifold petty tyrannies that he knew they underwent, came from use of
his eyes and ears in daily contact with a class among whom he had been
more or less brought up. In sympathy with, and yet not of them, he had
the queer privilege of feeling their slights as if they were his own,
together with feelings of protection, and even of contempt that they
should let themselves be slighted. He was near enough to understand how
they must feel; not near enough to understand why, feeling as they
did, they did not act as he would have acted. In truth, he knew them no
better than he should.

He found Tryst washing at his pump. In the early morning light the big
laborer's square, stubborn face, with its strange, dog-like eyes, had a
sodden, hungry, lost look. Cutting short ablutions that certainly were
never protracted, he welcomed Derek, and motioned him to pass into the
kitchen. The young man went in, and perched himself on the window-sill
beside a pot of Bridal Wreath. The cottage was one of the Mallorings',
and recently repaired. A little fire was burning, and a teapot of stewed
tea sat there beside it. Four cups and spoons and some sugar were put
out on a deal table, for Tryst was, in fact, brewing the morning draught
of himself and children, who still lay abed up-stairs. The sight made