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With pillows to neutralize the jarring, the land baron stretched himself indolently upon his couch, and gazed through the window at the crystalline lights of the heavens, while thoughts of lease-holders and barn-burners faded into thin air. At dawn, when he opened his eyes, the morning star yet gleamed with a last pale luster.
A musty smell pervaded the apartment, for Mynheer, the Patroon, had lived so closely to himself that he had shut out both air and sunlight from his rooms. The flickering glare fell upon the young actress standing, hand upon her heart, listening with bated breath, and Mauville, with ominous expression, brooding over that chance which sent the lease-holders to the manor on that night of nights.
The candidates borrow the money at a high rate of interest from some Armenian business house, while the government permits these "lease-holders" to recoup themselves by the exploitation of their provinces to whatever extent they wish. Withal, they must fear either a higher bidder, who leaves them no time to get rich, or the State, if they happen to have grown rich.
From their window the soldier and his companion observed the abrupt encounter at the entrance of the manor grounds and the dispersion of the lease-holders like leaves before the autumn gusts. Constance, who had breathlessly watched the flight of the erstwhile assailants, felt her doubts reawakened as the horsemen drew up before the door.
Was it a tendril of the vine that touched his cheek gently? He started, his face toward the haze in the open borderland. "Clearly these men are not the lease-holders. They may be seeking you." She turned eagerly from the window. In the darkness their hands met. Momentary compunction made her pause. "I haven't yet thanked you!" And he felt the cold, nervous pressure of her hands on his.
There are upon it in all more than a hundred tenants, twelve of whom are Protestants, holding a little less in all than one-fourth of the property. There are fifteen judicial tenants, twenty-one lease-holders, and seventy-seven hold from year to year. The gross rental is a little over £2000 a year of which one-half goes to Mr. Brooke's mother. Mr.
To further add to the land baron's dissatisfaction over his heritage, "rent-day" that all-important day in the olden times; when my lord's door had been besieged by the willing lease-holders, cheerful in rendering unto Caesar what was due Caesar! seemed to have been dropped from the modern calendar, as many an ancient holiday has gradually been lost in the whirligig of time.
Some were employed on his estate, others he had trained in his particular branch of agriculture, after which, and with his recommendation, they had found no difficulty in obtaining brilliant positions as stewards or lease-holders of estates, and two of his brothers had appointments on royal domains.
The "ignoble," "not noble," men with no charter from the Crown, or Earl, Thane, or Church, were, if lease-holders, though not "noble," still "free." Beneath them were the "unfree" nativi, sold or given with the soil. The old Celtic landholders were not expropriated, as a rule, except where Celtic risings, in Galloway and Moray, were put down, and the lands were left in the King's hands.
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