Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

16. CHAPTER XVI: THE HEIR'S SECOND VISIT TO BELTON (continued)

'You must be very anxious to see how your farm goes on,' said she.

He had not thought much of his agricultural venture at Belton for the last three or four days, and would hardly have been vexed had he been told that every head of cattle about the place had died of the murrain. Some general idea of the expediency of going on with a thing which he had commenced still actuated him; but it was the principle involved, and not the speculation itself, which interested him. But he could not explain all this, and he therefore was driven to some cold agreement with her. 'The farm! you mean the stock. Yes; I shall go and have a look at them early tomorrow. I suppose they're all alive.'

'Pudge says that they are doing uncommonly well.' Pudge was a leading man among the Belton labourers, whom Will had hired to look after his concerns.

'That's all right. I dare say Pudge knows quite as much about it as I do.'

'But the master's eye is everything.'

'Pudge's eye is quite as good as mine; and probably much better, as he knows the country.'

'You used to say that it was everything for a man to look after his own interests.'

'And I do look after them. Pudge and I will go and have a look at every beast tomorrow, and I shall look very wise and pretend to know more about it than he does. In stock-farming the chief thing is not to have too many beasts. They used to say that half-stocking was whole profit, and. whole- stocking was half profit. If the animals have plenty to eat, and the rent isn't too high, they'll take care of. their owner.'

'But then there is so much illness.'

'I always insure.'