But it was Sir James's evident annoyance that most stirred Mr. Brooke.
"Well, you know, Chettam," he said, rising, taking up his hat and
leaning on his stick, "you and I have a different system. You are all
for outlay with your farms. I don't want to make out that my system is
good under all circumstances--under all circumstances, you know."
"There ought to be a new valuation made from time to time," said Sir
James. "Returns are very well occasionally, but I like a fair
valuation. What do you say, Cadwallader?"
"I agree with you. If I were Brooke, I would choke the 'Trumpet' at
once by getting Garth to make a new valuation of the farms, and giving
him carte blanche about gates and repairs: that's my view of the
political situation," said the Rector, broadening himself by sticking
his thumbs in his armholes, and laughing towards Mr. Brooke.
"That's a showy sort of thing to do, you know," said Mr. Brooke. "But
I should like you to tell me of another landlord who has distressed his
tenants for arrears as little as I have. I let the old tenants stay
on. I'm uncommonly easy, let me tell you, uncommonly easy. I have my
own ideas, and I take my stand on them, you know. A man who does that
is always charged with eccentricity, inconsistency, and that kind of
thing. When I change my line of action, I shall follow my own ideas."
After that, Mr. Brooke remembered that there was a packet which he had
omitted to send off from the Grange, and he bade everybody hurriedly
good-by.
"I didn't want to take a liberty with Brooke," said Sir James; "I see
he is nettled. But as to what he says about old tenants, in point of
fact no new tenant would take the farms on the present terms."
"I have a notion that he will be brought round in time," said the
Rector. "But you were pulling one way, Elinor, and we were pulling
another. You wanted to frighten him away from expense, and we want to
frighten him into it. Better let him try to be popular and see that
his character as a landlord stands in his way. I don't think it
signifies two straws about the 'Pioneer,' or Ladislaw, or Brooke's
speechifying to the Middlemarchers. But it does signify about the
parishioners in Tipton being comfortable."
"Excuse me, it is you two who are on the wrong tack," said Mrs.
Cadwallader. "You should have proved to him that he loses money by bad
management, and then we should all have pulled together. If you put
him a-horseback on politics, I warn you of the consequences. It was
all very well to ride on sticks at home and call them ideas."