"I don't quite understand what you mean," he said.
"Well, it's this way," David said mildly. "According to law this little farm is now yours."
"But according to right it is not yours--it is mine."
"You need not say, 'Oh, indeed.' You can see it as clearly as I do. I've made the farm. I reclaimed it from the waste. I've fenced it and manured it, and built houses upon it. And what twelve years ago was a furzy down is now a smiling homestead, and you have not spent a penny piece on it, and yet you say it is yours."
"Well, I say it isn't yours. It's mine by every claim of equity and justice."
"I'm not talking about the claims of equity and justice," the squire said, colouring violently. "I take my stand on the law of the country; that's good enough for me. And what's good enough for me ought to be good enough for you," he added, with a snort.
"That don't by any means follow," David answered quietly. "The laws of the land were made by the rich in the interests of the rich. That they're good for you there is no denying; but for me they're cruel and oppressive."
"I don't see it," the squire said, with an impatient shrug of his shoulders. "You live in a free country, and have all the advantages of our great institutions."
"I suppose you call the leasehold system one of our great institutions?" David questioned.
"I don't see much advantage in living under it," was the reply.
"You might have something a great deal worse," the squire said angrily. "The high-and-mighty airs some of you people take on are simply outrageous."
"We don't ask for any favours," David said meekly. "But we've a right to live as well as other people."
"Nobody denies your right, that I know of."
"But what am I to do now that my little farm is gone? All the savings of a lifetime, and all the toil of the last dozen years, fall into your pocket."
"I grant that the luck has been against you in this matter. But we have no right to complain of the ways of Providence. The luck might just as easily have gone against me as against you."
"I don't believe in mixing luck and Providence up in that way," David answered, with averted eyes. "But, as far as I can see, what you call luck couldn't possibly have gone against you."
"Because you laid down the conditions, and however the thing turned out you would stand to win."
