He might as well own the wind, or think he
could write his name on a morning cloud. Besides, if we want poor
people to respect property we must give them some property to
respect. You ought to have land of your own; and I'm going to give
you some if I can."
"Going to give me some land!" repeated Long Adam.
"I apologize for addressing you as if you were a public meeting,"
said Fisher, "but I am an entirely new kind of public man who says
the same thing in public and in private. I've said this to a hundred
huge meetings throughout the country, and I say it to you on this
queer little island in this dismal pond. I would cut up a big estate
like this into small estates for everybody, even for poachers. I
would do in England as they did in Ireland--buy the big men out, if
possible; get them out, anyhow. A man like you ought to have a
little place of his own. I don't say you could keep pheasants, but
you might keep chickens."
The man stiffened suddenly and he seemed at once to blanch and flame
at the promise as if it were a threat.
"Chickens!" he repeated, with a passion of contempt.
"Why do you object?" asked the placid candidate. "Because keeping
hens is rather a mild amusement for a poacher? What about poaching
eggs?"
"Because I am not a poacher," cried Adam, in a rending voice that
rang round the hollow shrines and urns like the echoes of his gun.
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