CHAPTER IV
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.