Hawermann knew the nature of the people amongst whom he had worked for so many years. A feeling of uneasiness was spreading like a fever throughout the land. Reasonable complaints together with the most unreasonable and insane demands flew from mouth to mouth; what at first had been only whispered, was soon to be spoken of openly. The landowners were most to blame for that. They had lost their heads. Each of them acted as it seemed good to him, selfishly worked for his own safety regardless of others, and as long as he was at peace with his own people cared nought for his neighbour's fate. Instead of meeting their people honestly and straightforwardly, and showing them the real state of the case, some of the squires granted every demand their labourers chose to make in their folly and ignorance, while others, getting on horseback, wanted to reduce their labourers to order with swords and pistols, and I know several landowners who never went out to drive in their own grounds without taking a couple of loaded muskets in the carriage with them. And why was this? Because their conscience pricked them for their former conduct, and because there was no kindly human sympathy between them and their dependents. Of course that was not the case with all the masters.
Alick was one of those landowners who had never ill-treated his people. He was not hard on them generally speaking, but he could be hard if he thought his position was becoming insecure. During that time of political and social excitement the hidden qualities of all men were clearly revealed, and he who could look calmly on the march of events, and do what had to be done with quiet circumspection, who could distinguish good from evil, and steer his ship through the breakers which threatened to engulf it, was a wise and far-seeing man. That was not Alick's character. He was surrounded by his discontented vassals, and tried now this way, and now that way, of stemming the rising tide of insubordination, so it came to pass that he made two of the mistakes we have before alluded to; at one time he would foolishly submit to the villagers' demands, and at another, he would return to the ideas of a cavalry-officer and threaten his people with fire and sword. The peasantry also were changed, and it was his own fault that this was the case. He had taken from them little customs to which they were attached from use and wont, and at other times he had, in his good-nature, given them all kinds of injudicious liberties, that had only made them greedy of more, for he did not understand human nature as a whole, nor did he understand the peasantry at his gates. He had praised the people when they were idle, and he had scolded them when they were working hard, for he didn't know their capabilities. In short his actions were not guided by right and justice, but by his impulses, and as he had been rather low spirited of late, the discontent of the labourers was increasing, and threatened soon to break out into a blaze.