The Buccaneer Farmer - Harold Bindloss
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Where the smooth, brown water ran past the alder roots, a very small,
dark object moved in advance of a faint, widening ripple. Grace knew it
was the point of the otter's head; the animal's lungs were empty since
it remained up so long. Next moment plunging dogs churned the pool into
foam, the object vanished, and men ran along the bank to the lower
rapid, while those already there beat the shallow with their poles. The
dogs bunched together and began to swim up stream; Gerald and one or two
more plunged into the water, and for a few moments the otter showed
itself again.
It looked like a fish and not an animal as it broke the surface, rising
in graceful leaps. Then it went down, with the dogs swimming hard close
behind, and Grace thought it must be caught. It was being steadily driven
to the lower end of the stopped rapid, where the water was scarcely a
foot deep. The animal reappeared, plunging in and out among the shallows
but forging up stream, and the men who meant to turn it back closed up.
There was one at every yard across the belt of sparkling foam. They had
spiked poles to beat the water and it seemed impossible that their victim
could get past.
Yet the otter vanished, and for a minute or two there was silence, until
the dogs rushed up the bank. Then somebody shouted, the huntsman blew his
horn, and a small, wedge-shaped ripple trailed, very slowly across the
next pool. The otter had somehow stolen past the watchers' legs and
reached deep water, but its slowness told that its strength had gone. The
dogs took the water with a splash, and Grace turned her head. She felt
pitiful and did not want to see the end. The animal had made a gallant
fight, and she shrank from the butchery.
The clatter of heavy boots on stones suddenly stopped; there was a
curious pause, and Grace looked up as somebody shouted: "'Gone to holt!
Ca' off your hounds. Wheer's t' terrier?"
The hunt swept up the bank, smashed through a hedge, and spread along
the margin of the neighboring pool. A few big alders grew beside its
edge, sending down their roots into deep water; but for the most part
the bank was supported by timbers driven into the soil, and freshly laid
with neatly-bedded turf. Grace knew this had been done to protect the
meadow, because the stream is thrown against the concave side when a
pool lies in a bend.
As she stopped at the broken hedge a man ran past carrying a small wet
terrier, and two or three more came up with spades. The otter could not
escape now, since the hounds would watch the underwater entrance to the
cave among the alder roots, while the terrier would crawl down from the
other side. If a hole could not be found, the men would dig. They were
interrupted soon after they began, for somebody said, "Put down your
spade, Tom. Hold the terrier."
Grace studied the man who had interfered. He was young and on the whole
attractive. His face was honest and sunburned; he carried himself well,
and was dressed rather neatly in knickerbockers and shooting jacket. She
knew Christopher Askew was the son of a neighboring farmer, who owned his
land. Then, as the men stopped digging, Thorn pushed past.
"What's this?" he asked haughtily. "Why have you meddled?"
Askew looked hard at him, but answered in a quiet voice, "It cost us some
trouble to mend the bank, and if you dig out the otter the stream will
soon make an ugly gap."
"Then it's a matter of the cost!" said Thorn. "How much?"
"Not altogether," Askew replied, coloring. "It's a matter of the damage
the next flood may do. We had an awkward job to strengthen the bank and
I'm not going to have it cut."
"Noo, Kit, dinna spoil sport," the old huntsman urged. "It's none a trick
for a canny lad to cheat the hounds."
"Put terrier in an' niver mind him!" shouted another, and there were
cries of approval.
"Stop digging, Tom," Askew said with quiet firmness. "Pick up the dog."
"We are wasting time," Thorn remarked. "I don't like bargaining; you had
better state your price."
Grace, looking on across the broken hedge, sympathized with the farmer.
For one thing, she wanted the otter to escape; besides, she approved the
man's resolute quietness. He had pluck, since it was plain that he was
taking an unpopular line, and he used some self-control, because Thorn's
tone was strongly provocative. In fact, she thought Thorn was not at his
best; he was not entitled to suggest that the other was trying to extort
as much money as he could.
"No more do I like bargaining," Askew replied. "There will be no digging
here. You have smashed the hedge, and that's enough. Call off your dogs."
"So you mean to spoil sport, even if the damage costs you nothing? I know
your kind; it's getting common."
"Oh, no," said Askew. "I won't have the bank cut down, but that is all.
If you like, you can look for another otter on our part of the stream."
Thorn gave him a searching glance, and then, seeing he was resolute,
shrugged contemptuously. The huntsman blew his horn, the dogs were drawn
off, and Gerald followed the others across the field. Grace, however, sat
down on a fallen tree to rest her foot and for a minute or two thought
herself alone. Then she rose as Askew came through the gap in the hedge.
He began to pull about the broken rails and thorns, but saw her when he
looked up.
"They have left you behind, Miss Osborn," he remarked with a smile.
"I think I had enough; besides, I hurt my foot."
"Badly?"
"No," said Grace. "I have only begun to feel it hurt, but I wish it
wasn't quite so far to the bridge."
Askew looked at the water, measuring its height. "The stepping stones are
not far off. One or two may be covered, but perhaps I could help you
across and it would save you a mile."
Grace went on with him and they presently stopped beneath the alder
branches by a sparkling shallow. Tall brush grew up the shady bank and
briars trailed in the stream. A row of flat-topped stones ran across, but
there were gaps where the current foamed over some that were lower than
the rest. Grace's foot was getting worse, and sitting down on a slab of
the slate stile, she glanced at her companion.
"I imagine it needed some pluck to stop the hunt," she said. "For one
thing, you were alone; nobody agreed with you."
Askew smiled. "Opposition sometimes makes one obstinate. But do you think
it's hard to stand alone?"
"Yes," said Grace, impulsively. "I know it's hard. Yet, of course, if you
feel you are taking the proper line, you oughtn't to be daunted by what
others think."
She stopped, remembering that the man was a stranger; and then resumed in
a different tone, "But why did you really stop the hunt? Are you one of
the people who don't believe in sport?"
"No," said Askew good humoredly. "It's curious that Mr. Thorn hinted
something like that. Anyhow, I'm not a champion of the otter's right to
destroy useful fish. I think they ought to be shot."
"Oh!" said Grace with a touch of indignation; "you would shoot an otter?
Well, I suppose they must be killed; but to use a gun!"
"It's better for the otter. Which do you imagine it would choose--a
mercifully sudden end, or two or three hours of agony, with men and dogs
close behind, until the half-drowned, exhausted animal is torn to pieces
or mangled by the poles?"
"I suppose one must answer as you expect."
"You're honest," Askew remarked. "I imagine it cost you something
to agree!"
"It did," Grace admitted. "After all, you know our traditions, and many
people, not cruel people, like the sport."
"That is so; but let's take the hunt to-day, for an example. There were
three or four men without an occupation, and no doubt they find following
the hounds healthy exercise. The others had left work that ought to be
done; in fact, if you think, you'll own that some were men we have not
much use for in the dale."
"Yes," said Grace, with some reluctance; "I know the men you mean. All
the same, it is really not our business to decide if they ought to
work or hunt."
Askew looked amused and she liked his twinkle. He was obviously
intelligent, and on the whole she approved his unconventional point of
view. Conventional insincerities were the rule at Tarnside. Besides,
although it was possible she ought not to talk to the man with such
freedom, her foot hurt and the stile made a comfortable seat. She liked
to watch the shadows quiver on the stream and hear the current brawl
among the stones. This was an excuse for stopping, since she would not
acknowledge that the young farmer's society had some charm.
After a moment or two he resumed: "It is not my business, anyhow, and I
don't want to argue if otter-hunting is a proper sport; it's an
advantage, so to speak, to stick to the point. All I objected to was the
hunt's breaking down the mended bank. There are not many good meadows at
the dale-head, and grass land is too valuable to be destroyed. Don't you
think this justifies my opposition?"
"I suppose it does," Grace agreed, and then decided that she had talked
to him enough. "Well, I must go on," she added with a doubtful glance at
the stream. "But it doesn't look as if one could get across."
"You can try," Askew replied, and jumping down stood in the water,
holding out his hand. "Come on; there's not much risk of a slip."
Since it was too late to refuse, Grace took his hand and he waded across,
steadying her, while the current rippled round his legs. Some of the
stones were covered, but with his support she sprang across the gaps and
the effort did not hurt her foot as much as she had thought. He was not
awkward. She liked his firm grasp, and his care that she did not fall;
particularly since she saw he was satisfied to give her the help she
needed and knew when to stop. After she got across she thanked him and
let him go.
When she crossed the field Askew went home in a thoughtful mood, though
he was conscious of a pleasant thrill. He had felt the girl's charm
strongly as he stood near her at the stile, and now tried to recapture
the scene; the dark alder branches moving overhead, the sparkle of the
water, and the light and shadow that touched his companion. Her face was
attractive; although he was not a judge of female beauty, he knew its
molding was good. Mouth, nose, and chin were finely but firmly lined; her
color was delicate pink and white, and she had rather grave blue eyes.
Her figure was marked by a touch of patrician grace. Askew smiled as he
admitted that patrician was a word he disliked, but he could not think of
another that quite expressed what he meant. Anyhow the girl's charm was
strong; she was plucky and frank, perhaps because she knew her value and
need not to pretend to dignity. In a sense, this was patrician, too.
All the same, Askew, though young and romantic, was not a fool. He had
had a good education and had then spent two years at an agricultural
college; but he was a farmer's son and he knew where he stood, from the
Osborns' point of view. He had been of help, but this was no reason Miss
Osborn should recognize him when they next met; yet he somehow thought
she would. In the meantime, it was rash to think about her much, although
his thoughts returned to the stile beneath the alders where he had
watched the sun and shadow play about her face.
CHAPTER III
A COUNCIL OF DEFENCE
The sun had sunk behind the moors when Peter Askew sat by an open window
in his big, slate-flagged kitchen at Ashness. All was quiet outside,
except for the hoarse turmoil of the force and a distant bleating of
sheep. In front, across a stony pasture, the fellside ran up abruptly;
its summit, edged with purple heath, cut against a belt of yellow sky.
The long, green slope was broken by rocky scars and dotted by small
Herdwick sheep that looked like scattered stones until they moved.
The kitchen was shadowy, because the house was old and built with low,
mullioned windows to keep out snow and storm, and a clump of stunted ash
trees grew outside the courtyard wall. A fire of roots and peat, however,
burned in the deep hearth, and now and then a flickering glow touched old
copper and dark oak with red reflections. Collectors had sometimes
offered to buy the tall clock and ponderous meal chest, but Askew would
not sell. The most part of his furniture had been brought to Ashness by
his great-grandfather.
Peter's face was brown and deeply lined, and his shoulders were bent, for
he had led a life of steady toil. This was rather from choice than stern
necessity, because he owned the farm and had money enough to cultivate it
well. As a rule, he was reserved and thoughtful, but his neighbors
trusted him. They knew he was clever, although he used their homely
dialect and lived as frugally as themselves. In the dale, one worked hard
and spent no more than one need. Yet Peter had broken the latter rule
when he resolved to give his son a wider outlook than he had had.
Kit had gone from the lonely farm to a good school where he had beaten,
by brains and resolution, the sons of professional and business men. His
teachers said he had talent, and although Peter was often lonely since
his wife died, he meant to give the lad his chance. Somewhat to his
relief, Kit decided to return to the soil, and Peter sent him to an
agricultural college. Since Kit meant to farm he should be armed by such
advantages as modern science could give. It was obvious that he would
need them all in the struggle against low prices and the inclement
weather that vexed the dale. Now he had come home, in a sense not much
changed, and Peter was satisfied. Kit and he seldom jarred, and the
dalesfolk, who did not know how like they were under the surface,
sometimes thought it strange.
Four or five of their neighbors sat in the kitchen, for the most part
smoking quietly, but now and then grumbling about the recent heavy rain.
This was not what they had come to talk about, and Peter waited. He knew
their cautious reserve; they were obstinate and slow to move, and if he
tried to hurry them might take alarm. By and by one knocked out his pipe.
"How are you getting forrad with t' peat-cutting?" he asked.
"We have cut enough to last for three or four months."
"You'll need it aw. Coal's a terrible price," another remarked.
"It will be dearer soon," said Peter. "Since Bell has t' lease o' both
coal yards, he can charge what he likes."
"A grasping man! Yan canna get feeding stuff for stock, seed, an' lime,
unless yan pays his price. Noo he has t' traction-engine, kilns, and
mill, he'll own aw t' dale before lang."
"It's very possible, unless you stop him," Kit interposed.
"Landlord ought to stop him," one rejoined.
Kit smiled. "That's too much to expect; it's your business to help
yourselves. Mr. Osborn takes the highest rent that's offered, and you
missed your chance when you let Bell get Allerby mill."
"Neabody else had t' money," another grumbled.
"Two or three of us could have clubbed together and made a profit after
selling feeding stuff at a moderate price."
The others were silent for a minute of two and Kit let them ponder. He
had learned something about the wastefulness of individual effort, and on
his return to Ashness had urged the farmers to join in bidding for a
lease of the mill. They had refused, and would need careful handling now,
for the old cooperative customs that had ruled in the dale before the
railway came had gone.
"Poor folks willunt have much left for groceries when they have paid
Bell's price for coal," said one. "Since he gets his money for hauling in
t' slate, it costs him nowt to tak' a big load back on t' lurry; but,
with Redmire bank to clim', it's a terrible loss o' time carting half a
ton up dale."
"You won't be able to buy the half-ton unless you deal with Bell. I think
you'll find he has a contract for all the coal that comes down the line."
They pondered this and another remarked, "Peat's terrible messy stuff and
bad to dry at back end o' year."
"It can be dried," said an old man. "I mind the time when iver a load o'
coals went past Allerby. Aw t' folk clubbed togedder to cut and haul t'
peat from Malton. Browt it doon on stane-boats by the oad green road.
Howiver, I reckon it cost them summat, counting their time"
Kit gave him a paper. "This is what our peat has cost us; I've charged
our labor and what the horses would have earned if we had been paid
for plowing."
They studied the figures, passing the paper around, and then one said,
"But peat costs you nowt. Malton moor is yours and I ken nea ither peat
worth cutting. Mayhappen yan could find some soft trash on the back moor,
but I doot if Osborn would let yan bring it doon."
"Osborn does what his agent says, and it's weel kent Hayes is a friend o'
Bell's," another agreed.
Peter smiled and gave Kit a warning glance. He suspected the agent had a
private understanding that was not to his employer's benefit with Bell;
but this was another matter. Peter had taught his son to concentrate on
the business in hand.
"Weel," he said, "you can have aw t' peat you want and we willunt fratch
if you pay me nowt. There's acres o' good stuff on Malton moor, and the
value o' peat t' labor it costs to cut. Aw t' same, it willunt pay to
send a man or two noo and then. You must work in a gang; ivery man at his
proper job."
"It was done like that in oad days," said one.
Peter looked at Kit, who did not speak, for both knew when enough was
said. Indeed, although he was hardly conscious of it yet, Kit had
something of a leader's talent. For a few minutes the others smoked and
thought. They were independent and suspicious about new plans, but it
was obvious that the best defense against a monopoly was a combine. In
fact, they began to see it was the only defense they had. Then one
turned to Peter.
"If you're for stopping Bell robbing us and starving poor folk at
Allerby, I'm with you."
One after another promised his support, a plan was agreed upon, and Peter
was satisfied when his neighbors went away. They were patient, cautious,
and hard to move; but he knew their obstinacy when they were roused. Now
they had started, they would go on, stubbornly taking a road that was new
to them. Bell, of course, would make a cunning fight, but Peter doubted
if he would win.
"I reckon your plan will work," he said to Kit, with a nod of
satisfaction.
Kit nodded and picking up his hat and some letters went out. As he walked
down the dale the moon rose above a shadowy fell, touching the opposite
hillside with silver light that reached the fields at the bottom farther
on. Tall pikes of wet hay threw dark shadows across a meadow, and he
heard the roar of a swollen beck. There was too much water in the dale,
but Kit knew something might be done to make farming pay in spite of the
weather. Land that had gone sour might be recovered by draining, and a
bank could be built where the river now and then washed away the crops.
Osborn, however, was poor and extravagant, and his agent's talents were
rather applied to raising rents than improving the soil.
Kit stopped when he got near Allerby, where the dale widens and a cluster
of low white houses stands among old trees. The village glimmered in the
moonlight and beyond it rolling country, dotted by dark woods, ran back
to the sea. A beck plunged down the hillside with a muffled roar, and a
building, half in light and half in shadow, occupied the hollow of the
ghyll. Kit, leaning on the bridge, watched the glistening thread of water
that trickled over the new iron wheel, and noted the raw slate slabs that
had been recently built into the mossy wall. A big traction engine,
neatly covered by a tarpaulin, and a trailer lurry stood in front of the
sliding door.
Osborn had spent some money here, for Allerby mill, with its seed and
chemical manure stores, paid him a higher rent than the best of his small
farms. It was obviously well managed by the tenant, and Kit approved.
Modern machines and methods, although expensive, were good and were
needed in the dale. The trouble was, they sometimes gave the man who
could use them power to rob his poorer neighbors. Kit saw that
concentrated power was often dangerous, and since unorganized, individual
effort was no longer profitable, he knew no cure but cooperation.
Although young, he was seldom rash. Enthusiasm is not common in the bleak
northern dales, whose inhabitants are, for the most part, conservative
and slow. Wind and rain had hardened him and he had inherited a reserved
strength and quietness from ancestors who had braved the storms that
raged about Ashness. Yet the north is not always stern, for now and then
the gray sky breaks, and fell and dale shine in dazzling light and melt
with mystic beauty into passing shade. Kit, like his country, varied in
his moods; sometimes he forgot to be practical and his caution vanished,
leaving him romantic and imaginative.
He went on, and as he reached the first of the white houses a girl came
out of a gate and stopped where the moonlight fell across the road. She
had some beauty and her pose was graceful.
"Oh," she exclaimed, with rather exaggerated surprise, "it's Kit! I
suppose you'll take this letter? I was going to the post."
Kit did not know much about young women, but hesitated, because he
doubted if she wanted him to post the letter.
"If you like," he said. "I expect the causeway at the water-splash
will be wet."
She gave him a curious smile. "Oh, well; here's the letter. Jim Nixon had
to help me across the water when I went last night, and I don't suppose
you're afraid of wetting your feet. You are used to it at Ashness."
"Yes," said Kit. "My boots are stronger than yours."
"Canny lad!" she answered, with a mocking laugh. Kit felt
embarrassed, for he thought he saw what she meant. Janet Bell was
something of a coquette.
"I heard people coming down the road not long since," she resumed. "Have
you had a supper party? Tell your father I think he's shabby because he
left me out."
"It wasn't a supper party and there were no women. Three or four
neighbors came in."
"To grumble about the weather or argue about the sheep?"
"They did grumble about the weather," Kit replied.
Janet looked amused. "You're very cautious, my lad; but you needn't take
it for granted I'm always on father's side. Do you think I don't know why
your neighbors came?"
"You don't know altogether."
The moonlight was clear enough to show that Janet colored. "And you think
I stopped you to find out?"
"I don't," said Kit, rather awkwardly. "Still, perhaps it's better that
you shouldn't know."
"Oh," said she, with some emotion, "I can't tell if you mean to be nice
or not. It's the lazy, feckless people who dislike father, because
they're jealous; and they try to make things hard for me. Why should I
suffer because he's cleverer than them?"
"You oughn't to suffer. I really don't think people blame you."
"They do blame me," Janet insisted. "You doubted if you could trust me
just now."
This was true enough to embarrass Kit, but he said, "I didn't see why I
should talk to you about our business; that was all. In fact, I don't
mean to talk about it to anybody."
"Now you're nicer. I didn't like to feel you were taking particular
care not to let me know. Well, of course, father's no friend of
yours and perhaps he'll like you worse by and by. But, after all,
does that matter?"
"Not in a way," said Kit, pretending to be dull. "You have nothing to do
with the dispute and we don't want to quarrel with your father, although
we mean to carry out our plans."
Janet looked rather hard at him and there was some color in her face, but
she forced a smile.
"Oh, well! Good-night! I've stopped you, and expect you want to
get home."
She went back through the gate and Kit resumed his walk, struggling with
an annoyance he felt was illogical. He knew something about Bell's
household and imagined that Janet's life was not smooth. He was sorry for
her, and it was, of course, unjust to blame her for her father's deeds.
All the same, the favor she had sometimes shown him was embarrassing. He
was not a philanderer, but he was young and she had made him feel that he
had played an ungallant part. Jane was a flirt, but, after all, it would
not have cost him much, so to speak, to play up to her. Perhaps he had
acted like a prig. This made him angry, although he knew he had taken the
proper line.
By and by he came to the water-splash, where a beck crossed the road. Its
channel was paved, so that one could drive across, and at the side a
stone causeway had been made for foot passengers. Sometimes, when the
beck was unusually swollen, shallow water covered the stones, and Kit saw
the significance of a statement of Janet's as he noted the width of the
submerged spot. It looked as if Jim Nixon had carried her across. Then
his annoyance vanished and he laughed. Gallant or not, he was satisfied
to carry Janet's letter.
As he went on in the moonlight he began to see that there were some
grounds for his reluctance to indulge the girl. He had thought about
Miss Osborn often since he helped her across the stepping stones. He had
not hesitated then, and although the things were different, to dwell
upon the incident was perhaps rasher than indulging Janet. Miss Osborn
had, no doubt, forgotten, but he had not. The trouble was, he could not
forget; his imagination pictured her vividly, sitting beneath the alders
talking to him.