THE PEAT CUTTERS
Osborn was dissatisfied and moody when, one afternoon, he stood, waiting
for the grouse, behind a bank of turf on Malton moor. To begin with, he
had played cards until the early morning with some of his guests and had
been unlucky. Then he got up with a headache for which he held his wife
accountable; Alice was getting horribly parsimonious, and had bothered
him until he tried to cut down his wine merchant's bill by experimenting
with cheaper liquor. His headache was the consequence. The whisky he had
formerly kept never troubled him like that.
Moreover, it was perhaps a mistake to invite Jardine, although he
sometimes gave one a useful hint about speculations on the Stock
Exchange. The fellow went to bigger shoots and looked bored when Osborn's
partridges were scarce and wild; besides, he had broken rules in order to
get a shot when they walked the turnip fields in line. Osborn imagined
Jardine would not have done so had he been a guest at one of the houses
he boasted about visiting.
As they climbed Malton Head another of the party had broken Dowthwaite's
drystone wall and the farmer had said more about the accident than the
damage justified. In fact, Dowthwaite was rather aggressive, and now
Osborn came to think of it, one or two others had recently grumbled about
things they had hitherto borne without complaint.
In the meantime, Osborn and Thorn, who shared his butt, looked about
while they waited for the beaters. The row of turf banks, regularly
spaced, ran back to the Force Crags at the head of the dale. The red
bloom of the ling was fading from the moor, which had begun to get brown.
Sunshine and shadow swept across it, and the blue sky was dotted by
flying, white-edged clouds. A keen wind swept the high tableland, and the
grouse, flying before it, would come over the butts very fast.
In the distance, one could distinguish a row of figures that were
presently lost in a hollow and got larger when they reappeared. They were
beaters, driving the grouse, and by and by Osborn, picking up his
glasses, saw clusters of small dark objects that skimmed and then dropped
into the heath. It was satisfactory to note that they were numerous.
Although the birds were rather wild, he could now give his friends some
sport. After a time, however, the clusters of dark dots were seen first
to scatter and then vanish. Osborn frowned as he gave Thorn the glasses.
"What does that mean? Looks as if the birds had broken back."
"Some have broken back," said Thorn. "If they've flown over the beaters,
we have lost them for the afternoon." He paused and resumed: "I think the
first lot are dropping. No; they're coming on."
Picking up his gun, he watched the advancing grouse. They flew low but
very fast, making a few strokes at intervals and then sailing on
stretched wings down the wind. In a few moments they were large and
distinct, but there were not enough to cross more than the first two
butts. When they were fifty yards off Thorn threw up his gun and two pale
flashes leaped out. Osborn was slower and swung his barrel. The sharp
reports were echoed from the next butt and a thin streak of smoke that
looked gray in the sunshine drifted across the bank of turf. Two brown
objects, spinning round, struck the heath and a few light feathers
followed. The grouse that had escaped went on and got small again.
"Missed with my right," said Osborn. "Had to shoot on the swing. Don't
know about the other barrel."
Thorn did know, but used some tact. "I may have been a trifle slow; my
last bird was going very fast."
"I expect you saw whose bird it was," Osborn said to the lad who took
their guns.
"Yes, sir; Mr. Thorn's, sir."
"Oh, well," said Osborn, forcing a smile as he turned to Thorn, "you have
youth upon your side. Anyhow, I don't imagine the others have done much
better, and it looks as if we might as well go home. When the birds broke
back we lost the best chance we'll get. I wonder what spoiled the drive?"
"Something on the old green road, I think. The grouse turned as they
crossed the hollow."
A short distance off there was a fold in the moor, and while Osborn
wondered whether he would walk to the top a man came over the brow,
leading two horses that hauled a clumsy sledge. Another team followed and
presently four advanced across the heath.
"Now you know what spoiled the drive," Thorn remarked with some dryness.
"You can't expect a good shoot on the day your tenants move their peat."
Osborn, who was very angry, picked up the glasses. "The first two are not
my tenants. They're the Askews, and the boundary of their sheepwalk runs
on this side of the green road."
"Then I suppose there's nothing to be said!"
In the meantime, Osborn's friends had left the other butts and come up,
with Jardine in front. He was a fat, red-faced man, and as he got nearer
remarked to his companions: "I call it wretched bad management! Somebody
ought to have turned the fellows off the moor."
Osborn heard and glanced at Thorn as he left the butt. "There is
something to be said; I'm going to relieve my mind."
He went off and signaled the farmers to stop. They waited, standing
quietly by their horses. On the open moor, their powerful figures had a
touch of grace, and their clothes, faded by sun and rain, harmonized with
the color of the heath. Peter Askew's brown face was inscrutable when he
fixed his steady eyes on Osborn.
"You turned back the grouse and spoiled the beat. Do you call that
sporting?" Osborn asked.
"I'm sorry," Peter replied. "If I'd kenned you were shooting, mayhappen
we could have put off loading the peat."
"You knew we were shooting when you saw the beaters."
"Aw, yis," said Peter. "It was over late then. I wadn't willingly
spoil any man's sport, but we had browt up eight horses and had to
get to work."
"You have plenty of work at Ashness."
"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
butts. 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 nobbut fifteen shilling--"
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 grass 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 attitude! 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 embarrassed. 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.
"I daresay I am a raw sentimentalist, but I'm glad I'm not up to date,"
she said. "I hate your modern smartness!"
Thorn, noting the hardness of her voice, stopped with an apologetic
gesture and let her go.