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And if in these and other ways it is uphill work with farmers' societies, the work is still more uphill with small-holders. It is the breath of their nostrils to bargain individually, and if a society is started they will only send their stuff to be sold when they and every one else have a glut, ungraded and badly packed and then they grumble at getting a low price.
At last the judges came out. The mere judging did not take long, for Mr. James usually considered his exhibit the best, and said so; the others, being only small-holders, were generally too polite to gainsay him. Edward and Hazel went into the barn where the exhibits were set out with stern simplicity, looking brave and beautiful with their earthly glamour.
Often, the inscription was repeated upon the walls of an enclosure or of a farm, which really belonged to a dependent of the great man. Under the shelter of the lord's name, these small-holders defended themselves better against fiscal tyranny, or were included in the immunities of their patrons. So was formed, under the cover of patronage, a sort of African feudalism.
Augustin's father, who owned vineyards, was certainly a vassal of Romanianus. As the African villa was a centre of agricultural activity, it maintained on the estate a whole population of slaves, workmen, and small-holders. The chief herdsman's house neighboured that of the forester. Through deer-parks, enclosed by latticed fences, wandered gazelles.
Save for an unusually bad year following a time of long drought, or a descent of locusts, the land always gives forth enough to feed its master. To hunt, to ride horseback, now and then to go on parade, to look after his small-holders and agricultural slaves, to drive one of those bargains in which African cunning triumphs such were the employments of Patricius.
In the margin outside these hours starting at five or earlier and keeping on until dark he was helping the two small-holders, one after the other, to make their hay and get the ricks built. Then the ricks required thatching, and Turner thatched them.
In the meantime he was getting together a little rick of his own for his donkey's use, carrying home in bags the longer grass which he had mowed in the rough places of people's gardens or had chopped off in hedgerows near his home. A month later he was harvesting for the small-holders, and again there was rick-thatching for him to do.
I had been at work outside all day in connection with the new conscript army, a regiment of which was in revolt, because the men, most of whom were what we should call small-holders, declared that they wanted to go home to weed their crops. Indeed, it had proved necessary for the Child of Kings herself to be summoned to plead with them and condemn some of the ringleaders to punishment.
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