Rightly to understand what follows—which is the ending (or the beginning, according to standpoint) of romance—you must recall to memory that Peter the First, grandfather of our Mr. Jameson, who left the country for the town at the commencement of the great English manufacturing era about eighteen hundred and forty, tried his luck in the City of London, and ended his days on the tobacco-farm in Guanabacoa, Cuba; also Peter the Second, father of our Mr. Jameson, and founder of Jameson & Co., Lime Street. Nor must you quite forget Captain “Chips” Bradley, Tessa Bradley, and the exotic Hebraic strain of the Miraflores. For all these played their ghostly parts in the mind of their descendant as he walked that debatable paddock in the warm sunshine of a late May morning ten days after the death of old man Tebbits....

Fry had dug up half-an-acre of that paddock; and already the mauve potato-flower was in bloom above its dark leaves. “Confound it,” thought Peter, “I’m not going to be done out of this paddock. I paid to have it dug up, didn’t I?”

He looked at the two chicken-houses. They would have to be moved. It would take Fry half-a-day to move them. Half-a-day at thirty shillings a week....

And immediately the word “business” formed itself in Peter’s brain. He had never before considered the country in the light of business: the country had been for him a place where town-people made holiday; a rather jolly picturesque kind of place—scenery among which one rode, or killed pheasants, or drove golf-balls. Now he saw the country as the peasant sees it—but the peasant in Peter had been sharpened by a half-a-generation among townsfolk.

“It isn’t just a business,” he thought. “It’s the business. The greatest business in the world. And I’ve been living right in the middle of it for six months without grasping that simple fact.”

Then the Jew in Peter said, quite distinctly, “My boy, there’s money in this.”

Prudence the pig grunted a hint of feeding-time. But to Peter she was Prudence the pig no longer: she was Prudence the breeding sow, and the sooner she went to the boar the better. Pigs! “Little pigs pays all right,” he seemed to hear old man Tebbits speaking. Then imagination outran Tebbits; if little pigs paid to sell, big hogs paid to rear. “Question of feeding cost,” remarked the ghost of Peter the First....

The man in the white flannel trousers, with the belted shooting-coat and the Old Etonian tie, looked at the woods beyond the paddock. Beeches! There were beeches in those woods; beech-mast, roots, all sorts of pig-fodder. He saw an endless procession of hogs, running through the paddock to feed in those woods.

“Damn it,” said Peter, “I’ve got to have the paddock....”

Three hens fluttered up onto the wire-netting round the potato-patch; swayed there a moment; dropped over among the potato-plants. Patricia couldn’t make hens pay. Of course she couldn’t. They were bad hens. And chicken food was too dear. But if one grew one’s own corn....

“Self-supporting,” thought Peter suddenly. “Cut the middle-man’s profit.”

A cow lowed from across the road. Thought process went on. Peasant, soldier, Jew and business-man met round the board-room table of Peter’s brain. First the land; then the men to work the land. “Don’t pay rent. Buy outright,” said Business. “Keep ’em in order,” rasped the soldier. “Crops and stock,” said the peasant, “crops and stock, stock and crops.” “And your markets,” whispered the Jew, “never forget your markets. Work to your markets—supply and demand, demand and supply.” ... All of which counsels the old Etonian crystallized into the words, “Why not become a gentleman-farmer?”

“Snobbish idea”—this time Peter spoke aloud. “Gentleman farmer—gentleman business-man—discharged officer would like to sell wine and cigars on commission. Rubbish! A job’s a job. The man who does his job is a gentleman: the man who plays with his job is....” The Expeditionary Force epithet sailed bluely into the country air.

From abstract ideas, thought switched automatically to Tebbits’ Farm. The position, as far as he could gather from Harry, was this: the Colonel (“damn that Colonel,” thought Peter, “why hasn’t his wife called on Pat?”) did not want to renew old man Tebbits’ lease; the Colonel wanted to sell his land; Harry Tebbits couldn’t afford to buy it. But he, Peter, could afford to buy it; and if he didn’t—here the peasant in Peter grew very angry—somebody else might do him out of this very paddock. “Then sue Tebbits’ estate for damage,” counselled the Jew. “You don’t know anything about farming. You’ll make a hash of it like your brother Arthur. Farming’s a difficult business, my boy. Why not lend Harry the money? Six per cent and no risk. If he can’t make it pay, you foreclose....”

Peter walked slowly back to the house; but the next morning, and the next, and the morning after that, he spent in the paddock. The more he considered this business of farming, the wider its scope appeared. It embraced everything he needed: plenty of work, limitless opportunities, a bit of a fight, a bit of a gamble, men to boss, horses to ride. And if one could learn to be a gunner in six months, surely one could learn to be a farmer.... “In how long?” asked Reason: and Peter realized for the first time his utter practical ignorance....

For two days he abandoned the scheme. Then a milking-time visit to Tebbits’ brought the whole business back. He might not know much about farming; but any ass could see this wasn’t right. “Filthy,” said the soldier in Peter, “filthy! Flies and filth and a dung-heap round the corner. That milk would poison a regiment.”

Finally, he decided to talk the whole thing out with Harry. If Harry would come into partnership; if Harry would listen to reason.... For already the business-man in Peter had realized that farming on Tebbits lines was a thing of the past; a picturesque anachronism.

“Farming”—Peter must have said this to himself at least a hundred times during those few days—“isn’t just a business. It’s the business. And like all businesses it’s got to be big. All this talk about small holdings is blather. The small-holder works himself to death for less wages than a dock-labourer.” ...

It must be admitted that Peter’s first talk with Harry Tebbits frightened that worthy almost as much as “our Mr. Jameson” had frightened Turkovitch in Nirvana days. Still, Harry listened. “Yes, I know we don’t produce as cheap as we might, nor sell as dear as we could,” admitted Harry. “’Tis the Government’s fault, I’m thinking.”

Peter laughed. “They don’t grow much hay in Westminster, Harry. No English Government ever helped a business-man yet. We’ve got to help ourselves. Now about the milk. Sealed bottles and our own deliveries, ‘guaranteed pure,’ ‘from the cow to the kid.’ Ford cars to Reading and Henley. Eggs too, and vegetables. Bacon....”

“Bacon!” ejaculated Harry.

“Of course. If little pigs pay, big hogs pay; if it pays people to buy big hogs, it will pay us to kill, cure, smoke and retail ’em.”

“We can’t do anything this side of Michaelmas. Lease isn’t up till then,” said Harry, hardly convinced.

“No; but we can do an awful lot of thinking.” ...

... And, thinking, thought expanded. With fourteen thousand pounds of capital; and the key-industry of life—what couldn’t a man accomplish? Peter sent for books, pamphlets; buried himself in statistics;—and the more he read the more he convinced himself that the secret of farming was no secret at all. Farming was just like any other business: it depended on two questions—“How cheaply can I produce? How dearly can I sell?”

“Machinery and marketing,” said Peter. “Same old problem.”

The spectre of “labour” did not frighten him. Eliminate the middle-man, and there would be enough surplus profits, in the particular business of farming, to give “labour” all it wanted. “Provided,” added Peter, “that ‘labour’ will do its job.” Besides, the Tebbits-Jameson farm would be run on co-partnership lines, as the Nirvana factory was to have been. “Share and share,” said our Mr. Jameson, “I’ll do my job if they’ll do theirs....”

At which exact point in his schemes for the future—Peter Jameson fell head over ears in love with his own wife!

How the thing happened: whether he had always been “in love” with her and only just discovered the fact; whether the example of Francis and Beatrice, emerging from the seclusion of honeymoon, influenced him; whether leisure, returning health, heredity, environment, or his growing affection for Sunflowers first started the wheels of passion—it is impossible to say. Remains the fact that he did fall in love with her, head over heels, madly, crazily and unreasonably in love. To elaborate a slang expression much in vogue at the time, “he dived in at the deep end.”