The Buccaneer Farmer Part 5

"It's verra true; but the weather's our master and we canna awtogether do what we like. The peat's mair important than a few brace of grouse."

"Important to you!" Osborn rejoined. "But what about me and my friends?

One has come from London for a few days' sport."

"Then I'm sorry he has lost the afternoon," Kit interposed quietly. "But you well know the wages laborers get in the dale, and there are old folks and some sick at Allerby who need a good fire. The winter's hard and some of the cottages are very damp."

"The farmers pay the wages."

"None of them make much money. They pay what their rent allows."

"I don't force up the rents. They're fixed by the terms new tenants are willing to offer when a lease runs out."

"That is so," Kit agreed. "I don't know that my neighbors grumble much because the rule works on your side. But peat is plentiful and we don't see why it can't be used when coal is dear."

"I imagine you can see an opportunity of selling the right to cut it,"

Osborn sneered.

"We are willing to sell at the buyers' price. Anybody who can't pay may have the peat for nothing. None of the day laborers has paid us yet and none shall be forced to pay."

Osborn did not know whether he could believe this statement or not, but he said ironically, "Then it looks as if you were generous! However, you are not a friend of my agent's and no doubt see a chance of making trouble. When you meddle with my tenants you play a risky game, and they may find they were foolish to join you."

One of the farmers who had stood quietly by Peter Askew looked up with a slow smile; another's weather-beaten face got a little harder. They were seldom noisily quarrelsome, but they were stubborn and remembered an injury long. Peter, however, interposed:

"We won't fratch; there's not much in arguing. You can beat moor t'ither side o' green road. Good day to you!"

He spoke to the horses and the sledge lurched forward with its chocolate-colored load. The other teams strained at the chains; there was a beat of hoofs, and the row of sledges moved noisily away. Osborn waited for a few moments, but his face was very red when he went back to the b.u.t.ts. The farmer's refusal to dispute with him was galling. For all that, he must try to find his friends some sport, and after consulting with his gamekeeper sent the beaters on across the moor.

The new drive was not successful, and in the evening the party came down the hill with a very poor bag. When they reached the Redmire wood Osborn stopped beside a broken hedge. Red beeches shone among the yellow birches and dark firs, the sun was low and its slanting rays touched the higher branches, but the gaps between the trunks were filled with shadow. A few bent figures moved in the gloom, and Osborn frowned when three or four children came down a drive, dragging a heavy fallen bough. An elderly woman with a sack upon her back followed them slowly, and it was obvious that cottagers from Allerby were gathering fuel.

"Confound them! This is too much!" he exclaimed and beckoned his gamekeeper. "If that is Mrs. Forsyth, tell her to come up."

The woman advanced and rested her sack upon the hedge. Her wrinkled face was wet with sweat, but she did not look alarmed.

"Eh!" she said, "sticks is heavy and I'm none so young as I was."

"You have no business in the wood," said Osborn sternly.

"There's nea place else where we can pick up sticks."

"That is your affair. You know you're not allowed to gather wood in my plantations."

"We canna gan withoot some kindling; when you canna keep it dry, peat is ill to light. Terrible messy stuff, too, and mak's nea end o' dirt."

The children came up and when they stood, open-mouthed, gazing at the party one of the sportsmen laughed.

"Then burn coal and the dirt won't bother you," Osborn rejoined.

"Hoo can we burn coal?" the woman asked. "Noo Tom Bell has lease o' baith yards, he's putten up t' price, and when you've paid what he's asking there's nowt left for meal. I canna work for Mrs. Osborn as I used, and with oad Jim yearning n.o.bbut fifteen s.h.i.+lling--"

She paused for breath and wiped her hot face, and Osborn signed to the keeper. The woman was making him ridiculous.

"Turn them all out, Holliday," he said and went on with his friends.

"The old lady's talkative," one remarked. "Quite frank, but not at all angry; I thought her line was rather dignified. I've met country folks who'd have been servilely apologetic, and some who would have called you ugly names."

"These people are never apologetic," Osborn said dryly. "As a rule, they're not truculent, but they're devilish obstinate."

"I think I see. After all, it's possible to stick to your point without abusing your antagonist. I suppose you turned them out because of the pheasants?"

"Yes; good cover's scarce, and if the birds are disturbed they move down to Rafton Woods. For a sporting neighbor, Hayton hardly plays the game.

To put down corn is, of course, allowable, but he uses damaged raisins!"

"Then you don't feed?"

"Very little," Osborn replied. "Corn's too dear. The Tarnside pheasants live on the country."

"I expect that really means they live on the farmers!"

Osborn frowned. It was Jardine's habit to make stupid remarks like that; Osborn wondered whether the fellow thought them smart.

"The farmers knew my rules when they signed the lease," he said. "Anyhow, pheasants do much less damage than ground game, and I don't think my tenants have left a hare in the dale."

Jardine began to talk about something else, and no more was said about Osborn's grievances until the party met on the new terrace in the twilight. The tarn glimmered with faint reflections from the west, but thin mist drifted across the pastures, and the hills rose, vague and black, against the sky, in which a half moon shone. Osborn, sitting at the top of the shallow steps that went down to the lawn, grumbled to his wife about the day's shooting.

"I don't think I'm an exacting landlord," he remarked. "In fact, since I ask for nothing but a little give-and-take, it's annoying when people spoil my sport. Dowthwaite made himself unpleasant about his broken wall, the Askews turned the grouse back, and then I found the Allerby cottage children, ransacking Redmire Wood when the pheasants were going to roost."

Grace, who stood close by with Thorn, indicated the smooth gravel and the low, wide-topped wall on which red geraniums grew.

"This," she said, "is a great improvement on the old gra.s.s bank. The wide steps and broad slate coping have an artistic effect. However, you can't often get the things you like without paying."

"Very true, but rather trite," Osborn agreed. "I don't see how it applies."

"Well, I'm really sympathetic about your spoiled day, but it looks as if all your disappointments sprang from the same cause."

"Ah!" said Osborn, sharply; "I suppose you mean the coal yards' lease?"

"I think I mean Bell's greediness. If he didn't charge so much for his coal, Askew would not have cut the peat, and the children would not have been sent to gather wood. Then Dowthwaite might not have grumbled about his wall; he feels the farmers have not been treated justly, and I imagine he blames you."

Osborn knitted his brows. "Then it's an example of the fellow's wrong-headed att.i.tude! He and one or two others are treated better than they deserve, and would not be satisfied with anything I did. If you had to manage the estate, pay extortionate taxes, and make the unnecessary repairs the farmers demand, it would be interesting to see the line you would take."

"Perhaps the right line isn't easy," Grace admitted. "Still, if I wanted a guide, there's the motto of our county town: 'Be just and fear not.'"

Osborn looked at her with indignant surprise, and then shrugged scornfully. Thorn smiled.

"It's an excellent motto; but they chose it some time since. One imagines it's out of date now."

Grace colored and moved away, feeling embarra.s.sed. She had made herself ridiculous, and perhaps sentiment such as she had indulged was cheap; but it hurt to feel that she, so to speak, stood alone. Although she had, no doubt, been imprudent, she had said what she felt, and Thorn had smiled.

She turned to him angrily when he followed her along the terrace.