Read Ebook: The Buccaneer Farmer Published in England under the Title Askew's Victory by Bindloss Harold

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Ebook has 2282 lines and 99046 words, and 46 pages

"I don't know," said Osborn, "I had thought of advertising the yard and store."

"You'll get nobody to pay what I'm offering," Bell replied. "A stranger would want to see Harkness' books and there's nowt in them as would tempt him to pay a decent rent. Then, with trailer going back from station, I could beat him on the haulage up the dale. He'd niver get his money back if he bowt an engine like mine."

This was plausible, but Osborn hesitated. He saw that Bell wanted a monopoly and had a vague notion that he ought to protect his tenants.

"It's sometimes an advantage to have two traders in a place," he remarked. "A certain amount of competition is healthy."

"I don't know if it would be an advantage to the estate, and imagine you would not get a tenant to pay what Bell offers," Hayes replied. "Besides, rival traders sometimes agree to keep up prices, and competition does not always make things cheap."

"That's one of the ridiculous arguments people who want the Government to manage everything sometimes use," said Osborn with a scornful gesture.

Hayes smiled, "It is very well known that I am not an advocate of State ownership. All the same, unnecessary competition would be wasteful in the dale. For example, if you have two tenants at the station, the farmers who deal with the new man must use their carts, each coming separately for the small load a horse can take up Redmire bank, while Bell's trailer, after bringing down the slate, would go back empty. Then I hear some talk about a fresh appeal to the council to make the loop road round the hill."

For a moment or two Osborn did not answer. Redmire bank was an obstacle to horse traffic, and the road surveyor had plans for easing the gradient that would necessitate cutting down a wood where Osborn's pheasants found shelter. He had refused permission, and the matter had been dropped; but, if the farmers insisted, the council might be forced to use their powers. He was obstinate, and did not mean to let them have the wood unless he could get his price.

"You know my opinion about that?" he said.

"Yes," said Hayes; "I imagine it would be prudent not to have the matter brought up. However, if Bell can send back his lurry full, the economy is plain. It will enable him to sell his coal and seed at a moderate price and pay a higher rent."

"That's so," Osborn agreed, and knitted his brows.

He doubted if Bell would give his customers the benefit of the cheaper haulage, but the advantage of getting a higher rent was obvious. Osborn knew he was being persuaded to do a shabby thing and hesitated. Money, however, was needed and must be got.

"Very well," he said, "Mr. Bell can have the lease."

They talked about something else, and when Osborn went fishing after the others left the wind had dropped, the sun was bright, and the trout would not rise. He felt rather injured, because he had paid for his attention to duty, when he joined his wife and daughter at tea on the lawn.

A copper beech threw a cool shadow across the small table and basket chairs; the china and silver were old and good. Beyond the belt of wavering shade, the recently mown grass gave out a moist smell in the hot sun. The grass grew fine and close, for the turf was old, but there were patches of ugly weeds. The borders by the house were thinly planted and the color plan was rude, but one could not do much with a rheumatic gardener and a boy. There used to be two men, but Mrs. Osborn had insisted on cutting wages down.

Across the yew hedge, the tarn sparkled like a mirror and on its farther side, where a clump of dark pines overhung a beach of silver sand, the hillslopes shone with yellow grass, relieved by the green of fern and belts of moss. The spot was picturesque; the old house, with its low, straight front and mullioned windows, round which creepers grew, had a touch of quiet beauty. Osborn was proud of Tarnside, although he sometimes chafed because he had not enough money to care for it as he ought.

Grace, who sat opposite, had recently come home from school, and was marked by an independence somewhat unusual at Tarnside. She argued with Osborn and was firm when he got angry. Then she had a fresh enthusiasm for change and improvement and a generous faith in what she thought was good. Since Osborn was obstinately conventional, this sometimes led to jars.

"After all, I'm going to have the terrace made," he remarked, and waited for his wife's approval.

"Is it prudent?" she asked hesitatingly. "If I remember, you thought the work would cost too much when we talked about it last."

"It will cost very little. In fact, I imagine the haulage of the gravel and the slabs for the wall will cost nothing," Osborn replied. "Bell has promised to bring me all the stuff we'll need with his new trailer."

"Oh," said Grace, rather sharply, "I suppose this means you have given him the lease of the station coal yard? No doubt he offered to bring the gravel before you agreed. He's cunning and knew you wanted the terrace."

"I can't remember if he offered before or afterwards," Osborn replied, with a touch of embarrassment. "Anyhow, I don't think it's important, because I did not allow his offer to persuade me. For all that, it's some satisfaction to get the work done cheap."

Grace pondered. She was intelligent; contact with her school companions had developed her character, and she had begun to understand Osborn since she came home. She knew he was easily deceived and sometimes half-consciously deceived himself.

"No," she said, "I don't think the work will really be cheap. It's often expensive to take a favor from a man like Bell. He will find a means of making you pay."

"Ridiculous! Bell can't make me pay."

"Then he will make somebody else pay for what he does for you, and it's hardly honest to let him," Grace insisted.

Mrs. Osborn gave her a warning glance and Osborn's face got red.

"It's a new thing for a young girl to criticize her father. This is what comes of indulging your mother and making some sacrifice to send you to an expensive modern school! If I'd had my way, you would have gone to another, where they teach the old-fashioned virtues: modesty, obedience, and respect for parents."

Grace smiled, because she knew the school Osborn meant and the type it produced. She was grateful to her mother for a better start.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, but with a hint of resolution. "I don't want to criticize, but Bell is greedy and cunning, and now he has got both coal yards will charge the farmers more than he ought. He has already got too large a share of all the business that is done in the dale."

"It's obvious that you have learned less than you think," Osborn rejoined, feeling that he was on safer ground. "You don't seem to understand that concentration means economy. Bell, for example, buys and stores his goods in large quantities, instead of handling a number of small lots at different times, which would cost him more."

"I can see that," Grace admitted, "But I imagine he will keep all he saves. You know the farmers are grumbling about his charges."

Osborn frowned. "You talk too much to the farm people; I don't like it. You can be polite, but I want you to remember they are my tenants, and not to sympathize with their imaginary grievances. They're a grumbling lot, but will keep their places if you leave them alone."

He got up abruptly and when he went off across the lawn Mrs. Osborn gave the girl a reproachful glance.

"You are very rash, my dear. On the whole, your father was remarkably patient."

Grace laughed, a rather strained laugh, as Osborn's angry voice rose from behind a shrubbery.

"He isn't patient now, and I'm afraid Jackson is paying for my fault. However, I really think I was patient, too. To talk about people keeping their places is ridiculous; in fact, it's piffle! Father's notions are horribly out of date. One wonders he doesn't know."

"Things change. Perhaps we don't quite realize this when we are getting old. But you mustn't argue with your father. He doesn't like it, and when he's annoyed everybody suffers."

"It's true; but how illogical!" Grace remarked, and mused while she looked dreamily across the grass.

She was romantic and generous, and had learned something about social economy at the famous school; in fact, Osborn would have been startled had he suspected how much she knew. Nevertheless, she was young; her studies were half digested, and her theories crude. She had come home with a vague notion of playing the part of Lady Bountiful and putting things right, but had got a jar soon after she began. Her father's idea of justice was elementary: he resented her meddling, and was sometimes tyrannical. When it was obvious that he had taken an improper line he blamed his agent; but perhaps the worst was he seldom knew when he was wrong. Then the agent's main object was to extort as much money from the tenants as possible.

Grace did not see what she could do, although she felt that something ought to be done. She had a raw, undisciplined enthusiasm, and imagined that she was somehow responsible. Yet when she tried to use some influence her father got savage and she felt hurt. Well, she must try to be patient and tactful. While she meditated, Mrs. Osborn got up, and they went back to the house.

THE OTTER HOUNDS

Grace's tweed dress was wet and rather muddy when she stood with Gerald on a gravel bank at the head of a pool, where the beck from the tarn joined a larger stream that flowed through a neighboring dale. There had been some rain and the water was stained a warm claret-color by the peat. Bright sunshine pierced the tossing alder branches, and the rapid close by sparkled between belts of moving shade. Large white dogs with black and yellow spots swam uncertainly about the pool and searched the bank; a group of men stood in the rapid, while another group watched the tail of the pool. Somewhere between them a hard-pressed otter hid.

A few of the men wore red coats and belonged to the hunt; the rest were shepherds and farmers whom custom entitled to join in the sport. All carried long iron-pointed poles and waited with keen expectation the reappearance of the otter. Grace was perhaps the only one to feel a touch of pity for the exhausted animal and she wondered whether this was not a sentimental weakness. There was not much to be said for the otter's right to live; it was stealthy, cruel, and horribly destructive, killing many more fish and moorhens than it could eat. Indeed, before she went to school, she had followed the hunt with pleasant excitement, and was now rather surprised to find the sport had lost its zest.

The odds against the otter were too great, although it had for some hours baffled men who knew the river, and well-trained dogs. It had stolen up shallow rapids, slipping between the watchers' legs, dived under swimming dogs, made bold dashes along the bank, and hidden in belts of reeds. Its capture had often looked certain and yet it had escaped. At first Grace had noticed the animal's confidence, beauty of form, and strength; but it had gradually got slack, hesitating, and limp. Now, when it lurked, half-drowned, in the depths of the pool while its pitiless enemies waited for it to come up to breathe, she began to wish it would get away.

Thorn, the master of the hounds, was talking to his huntsman not far off. He was a friend of Osborn's, and Grace had once thought him a dashing and accomplished man of the world, but had recently, for no obvious reason, felt antagonistic. Alan was not as clever as she had imagined; he was smart, sometimes cheaply smart, which was another thing. Then he was beginning to get fat, and she vaguely shrank from the way he now and then looked at her. On the whole, it was a relief to note that he was occupied.

For a few moments Grace let her eyes wander up the dale to the crags where the force leaped down from the red moor at Malton Head. Belts of dry bent-grass shone like gold and mossy patches glimmered luminously green. The fall looked like white lace drawn across the stones. A streak of mist touched the lofty crag, and above it a soft white cloud trailed across the sky. Then she turned as her brother spoke.

"Alan has given us a good hunt and means to make a kill. He's rather a selfish beast and a bit too sure of himself; but he runs the pack well and knows how to get the best out of life. No Woolwich and sweating as a snubbed subaltern for him! He stopped at home, saw his tenants farmed well, and shot his game. That's my notion of a country gentleman!"

"Father can look after Tarnside and a duty goes with owning land," Grace remarked. "A landlord who need not work ought to serve the State. That idea was perhaps the best thing in the feudal system and it's not altogether forgotten yet. Father was right when he decided to make you a soldier."

"He can send me to Woolwich, but after all that's as far as he can go. You're not at your best when you're improving," Gerald rejoined; and added with a grin, "You don't like old Alan, do you? I thought you snubbed him half an hour since."

Grace colored, but did not answer. She had hurt her foot by falling from a mossy boulder and Thorn had come to help as she floundered across a shallow pool. She was draggled and her hair was loose, and Thorn's faint amusement annoyed her. Somehow it hinted at familiarity. She would not have resented it once, for they had been friends; but when she came home and he had tried to renew the friendship she had noted a subtle difference. Alan was forty, but now she had left school the disparity of their ages was, in a sense, much less marked. Then a shout roused her and she looked round.

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