THE first thing that struck Sir Moses Mainchance after he became
a “laird” was that he got very little interest for his money.
Here he was he who had always looked down with scorn upon any
thing that would not pay ten per cent., scarcely netting three by
his acres. He couldn’t understand it—dom’d if he could. How could
people live who had nothing but land? Certainly Mr. Plantagenet
Smith had left the estate in as forlorn a condition as could well
be imagined. Latterly his agent, Mr. Tom Teaser, had directed his
attention solely to the extraction of rent, regardless of
maintenance, to say nothing of improvements, consequently the
farm buildings were dilapidated, and the land impoverished in
every shape and way. Old pasture-field after old pasture-field
had gradually succumbed to the plough, and the last ounce of
freshness being extracted, the fields were left to lay themselves
down to weeds or any thing they liked. As this sort of work never
has but one ending, the time soon arrived when the rent was not
raiseable. Indeed it was the inability to make “both ends meet,”
as Paul Pry used to say, which caused Mr. Plantagenet Smith to
retire from Burke’s landed gentry, which he did to his own
advantage, land being sometimes like family plate, valuable to
sell, but unprofitable to keep.
Sir Moses, flushed with his reception and the consequence he had
acquired, met his tenants gallantly the first rent-day, expecting
to find everything as smooth and pleasant as a London house-rent
audit. Great was his surprise and disgust at the pauperised
wretches he encountered, creatures that really appeared to be but
little raised above the brute creation, were it not for the
uncommon keenness they showed at a “catch.” First came our old
friend Henerey Brown & Co., who, foiled in their attempt to
establish themselves on Major Yammerton’s farm at Bonnyrigs, and
also upon several other farms in different parts of the county,
had at length “wheas we have considered” Mr. Teaser to some
better purpose for one on the Pangburn Park Estate.
This was Doblington farm, consisting of a hundred and sixty of
undrained obdurate clay, as sticky as bird-lime in wet, and as
hard as iron in dry weather, and therefore requiring extra
strength to take advantage of a favourable season. Now Henerey
Brown & Co. had farmed, or rather starved, a light sandy soil of
some two-thirds the extent of Doblington, and their half-fed pony
horses and wretched implements were quite unable to cope with the
intractable stubborn stuff they had selected. Perhaps we can
hardly say they selected it, for it was a case of Hobson’s choice
with them, and as they offered more rent than the outgoing
tenant, who had farmed himself to the door, had paid, Mr. Teaser
installed them in it. And now at the end of the year, (the farms
being let on that beggarly pauper-encouraging system of a running
half year) Henerey & Humphrey came dragging their legs to the
Park with a quarter of a year’s rent between them, Henerey who
was the orator undertaking to appear, Humphrey paying his
respects only to the cheer. Sir Moses and Mr. Teaser were sitting
in state in the side entrance-hall, surrounded by the usual
paraphernalia of pens, ink, and paper, when Henerey’s short,
square turnip-headed, vacant-countenanced figure loomed in the
distance. Mr. Teaser trembled when he saw him, for he knew that
the increased rent obtained for Henerey’s farm had been much
dwelt upon by the auctioneer, and insisted upon by the vendor as
conducive evidence of the improving nature of the whole estate.
Teaser, like the schoolboy in the poem, now traced the day’s
disaster in Henerey’s morning face. However, Teaser put a good
face on the matter, saying, as Henerey came diverging up to the
table, “This is Mr. Brown, Sir Moses, the new tenant of
Doblington—the farm on the Hill.” he was going to add “with the
bad out-buildings,” but he thought he had better keep that to
himself. _Humph_ sniffed the eager baronet, looking the new
tenant over.
“Your sarvent, Sir Moses,” ducked the farmer, seating himself in
the dread cash-extracting chair.
“Well, my man, and how dy’e do? I hope you’re well—How’s your
wife? I hope she’s well,” continued the Baronet, watching
Henerey’s protracted dive into his corduroy breeches-pockets, and
his fish up of the dirty canvas money-bag. Having deliberately
untied the string, Henerey, without noticing the Baronet’s polite
enquiries, shook out a few local five pound notes, along with
some sovereigns, shillings, and sixpence upon the table, and
heaving a deep sigh, pushed them over towards Mr. Teaser. That
worthy having wet his thumb at his mouth proceeded to count the
dirty old notes, and finding them as he expected, even with the
aid of the change, very short of the right amount, he asked
Henerey if he had any bills against them?
“W-h-o-y no-a ar think not,” replied Henerey, scratching his
straggling-haired head, apparently conning the matter over in his
mind. “W-h-o-y, yeas, there’s the Income Tax, and there’s the
lime to ‘loo off.”
“Lime!” exclaimed the Baronet, “What have I to do with lime?”
“W-h-o-y, yeas, you know you promised to ‘loo the lime,” replied
Hererey, appealing to Mr. Teaser, who frowned and bit his lip at
the over-true assertion.
“Never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed Sir Moses, seeing
through the deceit at a glance. “Never heard of such a thing,”
repeated he. “That’s the way you keep up your rents is it?” asked
he: “Deceive yourselves by pretending to get more money than you
do, and pay rates and taxes upon your deceit as a punishment.
That ‘ill not do! dom’d if it will,” continued the Baronet,
waxing warm.
“Well, but the income tax won’t bring your money up to anything
like the right amount,” observed Mr. Teaser to Henerey, anxious
to get rid of the lime question.
“W-h-o-y n-o-a,” replied Henerey, again scratching his pate, “but
it’s as much as I can bring ye to-day.”
“To-day, man!” retorted Sir Moses, “Why, don’t you know that this
is the rent-day! the day on which the entire monetary
transactions on the whole estate are expected to be settled.”
_Henerey_—“O, w-h-o-y it ‘ill make ne odds to ye, Sir Moses.”
_Sir Moses_—“Ne odds to me! How do you know that?”
_Henerey_—(apologetically) “Oh, Sir Moses, you have plenty, Sir
Moses.”
_Sir Moses_—“Me plenty! me plenty! I’m the poorest crittur
alive!” which was true enough, only not in the sense Sir Moses
intended it.
_Henerey_—“Why, why, Sir Moses, ar’ll bring ye some more after a
bit; but ar tell ye,” appealing to Teaser, “_Ye mun ‘loo for the
lime._”
“The lime be hanged,” exclaimed Sir Moses. “Dy’e sp’ose I’m such
a fool as to let you the land, and farm ye the land, and pay
income tax on rent that I never receive? That won’t do—dom’d if
it will.”
_Henerey_—(boiling up) “Well, but Sir Moses, wor farm’s far o’er
dear.”
_Sir Moses_—(turning flesh-colour with fury) “O’er dear! Why,
isn’t it the rent you yourself offered for it?”
_Henerey_—“Why, why, but we hadn’t looked her carefully over.”
“Bigger fool you,” ejaculated the Jew.
“The land’s far worse nor we took it for—some of the plough’s a
shem to be seen—wor stable rains in desprate—there isn’t a dry
place for a coo—the back wall of the barn’s all bulgin oot—the
pigs get into wor garden for want of a gate—there isn’t a fence
‘ill turn a foal—the hars eat all wor tormots—we’re perfectly
ruined wi’ rats,” and altogether Henerey opened such a battery of
grievances as completely drove Sir Moses, who hated anyone to
talk but himself, from his seat, and made him leave the finish of
his friend to Mr. Teaser.
As the Baronet went swinging out of the room he mentally
exclaimed, “Never saw such a man as that in my life—dom’d if ever
I did!”
Mr. Teaser then proceeded with the wretched audit, each
succeeding tenant being a repetition of the
first—excuses—drawbacks—allowances for lime—money no matter to
Sir Moses—and this with a whole year’s rent due, to say nothing
of hopeless arrears.
“How the deuce,” as Sir Moses asked, “do people live who have
nothing but land?”
When Sir Moses returned, at the end of an hour or so, he found
one of the old tenants of the estate, Jacky Hindmarch, in the
chair. Jacky was one of the real scratching order of farmers, and
ought to be preserved at Madame Tussaud’s or the British Museum,
for the information of future ages. To see him in the fields,
with his crownless hat and tattered clothes, he was more like a
scare-crow than a farmer; though, thanks to the influence of
cheap finery, he turned out very shiney and satiney on a Sunday.
Jacky had seventy acres of land,—fifty acres of arable and twenty
acres of grass, which latter he complimented with an annual
mowing without giving it any manure in return, thus robbing his
pastures to feed his fallows,—if, indeed, he did not rob both by
selling the manure off his farm altogether. Still Jacky was
reckoned a cute fellow among his compatriots. He had graduated in
the Insolvent Debtors’ Court to evade his former landlord’s
claims, and emerged from gaol with a good stock of bad law
engrafted on his innate knavery. In addition to this, Jacky, when
a hind, had nearly had to hold up his hand at Quarter Sessions
for stealing his master’s corn, which he effected in a very
ingenious way:—The granary being above Jacky’s stable, he bored a
hole through the floor, to which he affixed a stocking; and,
having drawn as much corn as he required, he stopped the hole up
with a plug until he wanted a fresh supply. The farmer—one Mr.
Podmore—at length smelt a rat; but giving Jacky in charge rather
prematurely, he failed in substantiating the accusation, when the
latter, acting “under advice,” brought an action against Podmore,
which ended in a compromise, Podmore having to pay Jacky twenty
pounds for robbing him! This money, coupled with the savings of a
virtuous young woman he presently espoused, and who had made free
with the produce of her master’s dairy, enabled Jacky to take the
farm off which he passed through the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, on
to the Pangburn Park estate, where he was generally known by the
name of Lawyer Hindmarch.
Jacky and his excellent wife attempted to farm the whole seventy
acres themselves; to plough, harrow, clean, sow, reap, mow, milk,
churn,—do everything, in fact; consequently they were always well
in arrear with their work, and had many a fine run after the
seasons. If Jacky got his turnips in by the time other people
were singling theirs, he was thought to do extremely well. To see
him raising the seed-furrow in the autumn, a stranger would think
he was ploughing in a green crop for manure, so luxuriant were
the weeds. But Jacky Hindmarch would defend his system against
Mr. Mechi himself; there being no creature so obstinate or
intractable as a pig-headed farmer. A landlord had better let his
land to a cheesemonger, a greengrocer, a draper, anybody with
energy and capital, rather than to one of these self-sufficient,
dawdling nincompoops. To be sure, Jacky farmed as if each year
was to be his last, but he wouldn’t have been a bit better if he
had had a one-and-twenty years’ lease before him. “Take all out
and put nothing in,” was his motto. This was the genius who was
shuffling, and haggling, and prevaricating with Mr. Teaser when
Sir Moses returned, and who now gladly skulked off: Henerey Brown
not having reported very favourably of the great man’s temper.
The next to come was a woman,—a great, mountainous woman—one Mrs.
Peggy Turnbull, wife of little Billy Turnbull of Lowfield Farm,
who, she politely said, was not fit to be trusted from home by
hisself.—Mrs. Turnbull was, though, being quite a match for any
man in the country, either with her tongue or her fists. She was
a great masculine knock-me-down woman, round as a sugar-barrel,
with a most extravagant stomach, wholly absorbing her neck, and
reaching quite up to her chin. Above the barrel was a round,
swarthy, sunburnt face, lit up with a pair of keen little
twinkling beady black eyes. She paused in her roll as she neared
the chair, at which she now cast a contemptuous look, as much as
to say, “How can I ever get into such a thing as that?”
Mr. Teaser saw her dilemma and kindly gave her the roomier one on
which he was sitting—while Sir Moses inwardly prepared a little
dose of politeness for her.
“Well, my good woman,” said he as soon as she got soused on to
the seat. “Well, my good woman, how dy’e do? I hope you’re well.
How’s your husband? I hope he’s well;” and was proceeding in a
similar strain when the monster interrupted his dialogue by
thumping the table with her fist, and exclaiming at the top of
her voice, as she fixed her little beady black eyes full upon
him—
“_D’ye think we’re ganninn to get a new B-a-r-r-u-n?_”
“Dom you and your b-a-r-r-n!” exclaimed the Baronet, boiling up.
“Why don’t you leave those things to your husband?”
“_He’s see shy!_” roared the monster.
“You’re not shy, however!” replied Sir Moses, again jumping up
and running away.
And thus what with one and another of them, Sir Moses was so put
out, that dearly as he loved a let off for his tongue, he
couldn’t bring himself to face his friends again at dinner. So
the agreeable duty devolved upon Mr. Teaser, of taking the chair,
and proposing in a bumper toast, with all the honours and one
cheer more, the health of a landlord who, it was clear, meant to
extract the uttermost farthing he could from his tenants.
And that day’s proceedings furnished ample scope for a beginning,
for there was not one tenant on the estate who paid up; and Sir
Moses declared that of all the absurdities he had ever heard tell
of in the whole course of his life, that of paying income-tax on
money he didn’t receive was the greatest. “Dom’d if it wasn’t!”
said he.
In fact the estate had come to a stand still, and wanted nursing
instead of further exhaustion. If it had got into the hands of an
improving owner—a Major Yammerton, for instance,—there was
redemption enough in the land; these scratching fellows, only
exhausting the surface; and draining and subsoiling would soon
have put matters right, but Sir Moses declared he wouldn’t throw
good money after bad, that the rushes were meant to be there and
there they should stay. If the tenants couldn’t pay their rents
how could they pay any drainage interest? he asked. Altogether
Sir Moses declared it shouldn’t be a case of over shoes, over
boots, with him—that he wouldn’t go deeper into the mud than he
was, and he heartily wished he had the price of the estate back
in his pocket again, as many a man has wished, and many a one
will wish again—there being nothing so ticklish to deal with as
land. There is no reason though why it should be so; but we will
keep our generalities for another chapter.
Sir Moses’s property went rapidly back, and soon became a sort of
last refuge for the destitute, whither the ejected of all other
estates congregated prior to scattering their stock, on failing
to get farms in more favoured localities. As they never meant to
pay, of course they all offered high rents, and then having got
possession the Henerey Brown scene was enacted—the farm was “far
o’er dear”—they could “make nout on’t at that rent!” nor could
they have made aught on them if they had had them for nothing,
seeing that their capital consisted solely of their intense
stupidity. Then if Sir Moses wouldn’t reduce the rent, he might
just do his “warst,” meanwhile they pillaged the land both by day
and by night. The cropping of course corresponded with the
tenure, and may be described as just anything they could get off
the land. White crop succeeded white crop, if the weeds didn’t
smother the seeds, or if any of the slovens did “try for a few
turnips,” as they called it, they were sown on dry spots selected
here and there, with an implement resembling a dog’s-meat man’s
wheelbarrow—drawn by one ass and steered by another.
Meanwhile Mr. Teaser’s labours increased considerably, what with
the constant lettings and leavings and watchings for “slopings.”
There was always some one or other of the worthies on the wing,
and the more paper and words Mr. Teaser employed to bind them,
the more inefficient and futile he found the attempt. It soon
became a regular system to do the new landlord, in furtherance of
which the tenants formed themselves into a sort of mutual aid
association. Then when a seizure was effected, they combined not
to buy, so that the sufferer got his wretched stock back at
little or no loss.
Wretched indeed, was the spectacle of a sale; worn out horses,
innocent of corn; cows, on whose hips one could hang one’s hat;
implements that had been “fettled oop” and “fettled oop,” until
not a particle of the parent stock remained; carts and trappings
that seemed ready for a bonfire; pigs, that looked as if they
wanted food themselves instead of being likely to feed any one
else; and poultry that all seemed troubled with the pip.
The very bailiff’s followers were shocked at the emptiness of the
larders. A shank bone of salt meat dangling from the ceiling, a
few eggs on a shelf, a loaf of bread in a bowl, a pound of butter
in a pie-dish,—the whole thing looking as unlike the plentiful
profusion of a farm-house as could well be imagined.
The arduous duties of the office, combined with the difficulty of
pleasing Sir Moses, at length compelled Mr. Teaser to resign,
when our “laird,” considering the nature of the services required
concluded that there could be no one so fit to fulfil them as one
of the “peoplish.” Accordingly he went to town, and after
Consulting Levy this, and “Goodman” that, and Ephraim t’other, he
at length fixed upon that promising swell, young Mr. Mordecai
Nathan, of Cursitor-street, whose knowledge of the country
consisted in having assisted in the provincial department of his
father’s catchpoll business in the glorious days of writs and
sponging-houses.
In due time down came Mordecai, ringed and brooched and chained
and jewelled, and as Sir Moses was now the great man, hunting the
country, associating with Lord Oilcake, and so on, he gave
Mordecai a liberal salary, four-hundred a year made up in the
following clerical way:
230m
_Original Size_
Besides, which, Sir Moses promised him ten per cent, upon all
recovered arrears, which set Mordecai to work with all the
enthusiastic energy of his race.