by R S Surtees
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 selfsufficient, 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 east 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 nouton’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:
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.
CHAPTER XXX. COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE.
ONE of the most distinguishing features between commerce and agriculture and agriculture undoubtedly is the marked indifference shown to the value of time by the small followers of the latter, compa
red to the respectful treatment it receives at the hands of the members of the commercial world. To look at their relative movements one would think that the farmer was the man who carried on his business under cover, instead of being the one who exposes all his capital to the weather. It is a rare thing to see a farmer — even in hay time — in a hurry. If the returns could be obtained we dare say it would be found that three-fourths of the people who are late for railway trains are farmers.
In these accelerated days, when even the very street waggon horses trot, they are the only beings whose pace has not been improved. The small farmer is just the same slowly moving dawdling creature that he was before the perfection of steam. Never punctual, never ready, never able to give a direct answer to a question; a pitchfork at their backs would fail to push some of these fellows into prosperity. They seem wholly lost to that emulative spirit which actuates the trader to endeavour to make each succeeding year leave him better than the last. A farmer will be forty years on a farm without having benefited himself, his family, his landlord, or any human being whatever. The last year’s tenancy will find him as poor as the first, with, in all probability, his land a great deal poorer. In dealing, a small farmer is never happy without a haggle. Even if he gets his own price he reproaches hiself when he returns home with not having asked a little more, and so got a wrangle. Very often, however, they outwit themselves entirely by asking so much more than a thing is really worth, that a man who knows what he is about, and has no hopes of being able to get the sun to stand still, declines entering upon an apparently endless negotiation.
See lawyer Hindmarch coming up the High Street at Halterley fair, leading his great grey colt, with his landlord Sir Moses hailing him with his usual “Well my man, how d’ye do? I hope you’re well, how much for the colt?”
The lawyer’s keen intellect — seeing that it is his landlord, with whom he is well over the left — springs a few pounds upon an already exorbitant price, and Sir Moses, who can as he says, measure the horse out to ninepence, turns round on his heel with a chuck of his chin, as much as to say, “you may go on.” Then the lawyer relenting says, “w — h — o — y, but there’ll be summit to return upon that, you know, Sir Moses, Sir.”
“I should think so,” replies the Baronet, walking away, to “Well my man — how d’ye do? I hope you’re well,” somebody else.
A sale by auction of agricultural stock illustrates our position still further, and one remarkable feature is that the smaller the sale the more unpunctual people are. They seldom get begun under a couple of hours after the advertised time, and then the dwelling, the coaxing, the wrangling, the “puttings-up” again, the ponderous attempts at wit are painful and oppressive to any one accustomed to the easy gliding celerity of town auctioneers. A conference with a farmer is worse, especially if the party is indiscreet enough to let the farmer come to him instead of his going to the farmer.
The chances, then, are, that he is saddled with a sort of old man of the sea; as a certain ambassador once was with a gowk of an Englishman, who gained an audience under a mistaken notion, and kept sitting and sitting long after his business was discussed, in spite of his Excellency’s repeated bows and intimations that he might retire.
Gowk seemed quite insensible to a hint. In vain his Excellency stood bowing and bowing — hoping to see him rise. No such luck. At length his Excellency asked him if there was anything else he could do for him?
“Why, noa.” replied Gowk drily; adding after a pause, “but you haven’t asked me to dine.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” replied his Excellency, “I wasn’t aware that it was in my instructions, but I’ll refer to them and see,” added he, backing out of the room.
Let us fancy old Heavyheels approaching his landlord, to ask if he thinks they are gannin to get a new barrun, or anything else he may happen to want, for these worthies have not discovered the use of the penny-post, and will trudge any distance to deliver their own messages. Having got rolled into the room, the first thing Heels does is to look out for a seat, upon which he squats like one of Major Yammerton’s hares, and from which he is about as difficult to raise. Instead of coming out with his question as a trader would, “What’s rum? what’s sugar? what’s indigo?” he fixes his unmeaning eyes on his landlord, and with a heavy aspiration, and propping his chin up with a baggy umbrella, ejaculates— “N-0-0,” just as if his landlord had sent for him instead of his having come of his own accord.
“Well!” says the landlord briskly, in hopes of getting him on.
“It’s a foine day,” observes Heavyheels, as if he had nothing whatever on his mind, and so he goes maundering and sauntering on, wasting his own and his landlord’s time, most likely ending with some such preposterous proposition as would stamp any man for a fool if it wasn’t so decidedly in old Heavyheel’s own favour.
To give them their due, they are never shy about asking, and have always a host of grievances to bait a landlord with who gives them an opportunity. Some of the women — we beg their pardon — ladies of the establishments, seem to think that a landlord rides out for the sake of being worried, and rush at him as he passes like a cur dog at a beggar.
Altogether they are a wonderful breed! It will hardly be credited hereafter, when the last of these grubbing old earthworms is extinct, that in this anxious, commercial, money-striving country, where every man is treading on his neighbour’s heels for cash, that there should ever have been a race of men who required all the coaxing and urging and patting on the back to induce them to benefit themselves that these slugs of small tenant farmers have done. And the bulk of them not a bit better for it. They say “y-e-a-s,” and go and do the reverse directly.
Fancy our friend Goodbeer, the brewer, assembling his tied Bonnifaces at a banquet consisting of all the delicacies of the season — beef, mutton, and cheese, as the sailor said — and after giving the usual loyal and patriotic toasts, introducing his calling in the urgent way some landlords do theirs — pointing out that the more swipes they sell the greater will be their profit, recommending them to water judiciously, keeping the capsicum out of sight, and, in lieu of some new implement of husbandry, telling them that a good, strong, salt Dutch cheese, is found 10 be a great promoter of thirst, and recommending each man to try a cheese on himself — perhaps ending by bowling one at each of them by way of a start.
But some will, perhaps, say that the interests of the landlord and tenant-farmer are identical, and that you cannot injure the latter without hurting the former.
Not more identical, we submit, than the interests of Goodbeer with the Bonnifaces; the land is let upon a calculation what each acre will produce, just as Goodbeer lets a public-house on a calculation founded on its then consumption of malt liquor; and whatever either party makes beyond that amount, either through the aid of guano, Dutch cheese, or what not, is the tenant’s. The only difference we know between them is, that Goodbeer, being a trader, will have his money to the day; while in course of time the too easy landlord’s rent has become postponed to every other person’s claim. It is, “O, it will make ne matter to you, Sir Moses,” with too many of them.
Then, if that convenient view is acquiesced in, the party submitting is called a “good landlord” (which in too many instances only means a great fool), until some other favour is refused, when the hundredth one denied obliterates the recollection of the ninety-nine conferred, and he sinks into a “rank bad un.” The best landlord, we imagine, is he who lets his land on fair terms, and keeps his tenants well up to the mark both with their farming and their payments. At present the landlords are too often a sort of sleeping partners with their tenants, sharing with them the losses of the bad years without partaking with them in the advantages of the good ones.
“Ah, it’s all dom’d well,” we fancy we hear Sir Moses Main-chance exclaim, “saying, ‘keep them up to the mark,’ but how d’ye do it? how d’ye do it? can you bind a weasel? No man’s tried harder than I have!”
We grant t
hat it is difficult, but agriculture never had such opportunities as it has now. The thing is to get rid of the weasels, and with public companies framed for draining, building, doing everything that is required without that terrible investigation of title, no one is justified in keeping his property in an unproductive state. The fact is that no man of capital will live in a cottage, the thing therefore is to lay a certain number of these small holdings together, making one good farm of them all, with suitable buildings, and, as the saying is, let the weasels go to the wall. They will be far happier and more at home with spades or hoes in their hands, than in acting a part for which they have neither capital, courage, nor capacity. Fellows take a hundred acres who should only have five, and haven’t the wit to find out that it is cheaper to buy manure than to rent land.