A Killing Too Far

by Andrew Wareham

  Young Mr Rowlands saw his father to be nodding in satisfaction, realised that he could procrastinate no longer. He had been able to put off the evil day, to avoid having to work for his living, for a year now since ending his schooling; he could do so no longer. His elder brother made a great show, when he was actually at home, of busying himself on the estate, learning the acres he would inherit and repeatedly informing his junior that he would have nothing when the day came that his father passed away, that he must work for his living. Now, the time had come; he must actually bestir himself.

  There was still a choice. His father had more than once offered him a hundred pounds and a passage to the Virginias to make his own way in the New World. He could still take that offer… It sounded unpleasantly like a hard life, was no more welcome to him than it ever had been.

  “I must offer my thanks, Mr Heythorne. Yours is a most interesting offer, sir, and I am pleased to accept it. When would you wish me to start, sir?”

  “Within reason soon, Mr Rowlands. A day or two to find a horse, perhaps? Then to come across to me on Monday next?”

  Father Rowlands closed on the offer, said that he would ensure his son was fully ready to start his new life on Monday.

  “At seven o’clock, Mr Heythorne?”

  “Yes, indeed, Mr Rowlands. I shall be waiting for Mr Richard on the dot, sir.”

  Richard gave a sickly smile, said how pleased he would be to conform.

  “Richard Rowlands seems to be what might be called a lazy little bugger, my dear.”

  “So he might, Mr H, but not in my bedchamber, I beg of you.”

  ‘Mr H’ was a sign that he had offended, Sam knew. He must take care to be genteel, he supposed, even when naked in his lady’s bed.

  “My apologies, my dear. I was about to comment that he had seemed sufficiently energetic in Miss Wenbury’s company. A pity that he cannot direct his energies elsewhere.”

  “I much suspect that she required very little effort on his part, sir! Is he to work for the firm, on the coal side?”

  “That is the intention. He is to ride the countryside in the first instance, seeking seams of coal that may be exploited. I have it in mind to attempt to buy up all he finds, convenient or not. In a few years the supply must run short, and then unused fields will be of much greater value.”

  “A sensible investment, Sam. You are quite right to do so. My father might well join you in the endeavour – it would give him an interest in his existence. I shall make the suggestion, rather strongly. Life is very flat for him, you know, Sam, now that he has no son.”

  “You might suggest a younger housekeeper to him, or a second maid, to give him something to do of the long, lonely nights.”

  She thought that to be a disgraceful suggestion, the more because he might be so foolish as to marry the unfortunate if she found herself in the family way.

  “We really do not wish the old gentleman to sire a replacement son and heir in his dotage, Sam!”

  That had not occurred to Sam; he agreed that his lady wife was certainly correct. Her inheritance was important to both.

  “The Banford land can be of little interest to you, Sam?”

  “Poor land and small profit – no. Not directly. But to be the possessor of the better part of eight square miles, around five thousand acres, is very impressive, especially to the uninitiated. Most of those acres, you tell me, would not rent for two shillings a year – no more than five hundred of them even respectable arable, and the bulk of them not ideal for wheat. The rest, where not bare rock, are no more than sheep fells, and carrying one animal to eight acres at that! Was the whole estate rented to tenants then one might look at five hundred pounds a year as the income. But, viewed on a map of the county, the acreage seems impressive, dignified, able to support a knight or baronet even. Not me – I shall never rise in the world, and you know why. A son of ours, however, might do so.”

  “Provided there is a son, Sam…”

  “We can but try, my dear.”

  He proceeded to put words into action, with her enthusiastic cooperation. It was a successful marriage, he thought, when he had time and energy to consider the matter in the abstract.

  Mr Richard Rowlands appeared to the dot of his time. He was dressed as a man of business rather than a gentleman of leisure, all in drab, subdued browns, only his neckcloth showing a contrast, and that a dark green. His tie-pin was almost invisible – no showing away with pearls or gold. His boots shone properly, as was to be expected of any man who could afford to ride a horse. His hat was low-crowned, in no way flamboyant.

  Sam was pleasantly surprised; his father must have worked hard.

  “What is your plan, Mr Rowlands?”

  “I shall ride to the north and west of Stoke initially, sir. We know that coal has been found from Leek across to the west. There has been little discovered immediately to the south, although there are people in plenty there to stumble across it. East of us, the land rises and would be difficult country for a trackway, and, obviously, impossible for water transport. The sensible, logical course, therefore, is to look north initially.”

  Sam wondered just how much of that sensible logic derived from the young man’s father; it seemed suspicious to him that an idle youth should have devised such a scheme from his own untutored ignorance.

  “I bow to your wisdom, Mr Rowlands. I have not spent time considering the question, but I am sure you have, and the plan sounds wise to me. I shall not delay you with idle chatter, sir – off you go to commence the acquisition of your fortune.”

  Sam planned to ride out himself that morning, in Josie’s company and inspecting her father’s land. He had seen little of it other than the few acres surrounding his first distillery and the area about the little coal mine.

  “The arable lays almost wholly in the valley leading east, Sam. Because of its fortunate direction there is a south facing side for nearly two miles, catching the warmth of the sun and enabling crops to grow strongly. Two hundred acres and more of good barley land with as much down to a thinner crop of oats immediately higher up the moorside. Of course, it cannot grow cereal crops every year. There is a rotation. My father has farmed the land for himself rather than renting to a tenant. That is not to say that he has actually turned his hand to the labour, but he has taken the running of the acres on his own shoulders. He normally puts one field in three down to cereals in any year, the rest going to peas and beans. He says that the land is not really rich enough for wheat, although he grows a little, and is steeper than he might like for grazing cattle on a fallow. For the rest of the valley, the north-facing land – it is naturally less fertile and he has permitted cottagers to take it for pennies in rent. They grow their cabbages and he has encouraged potatoes as well; they feed themselves and keep a few pigs and chicken. The great gain is at harvest time and spring ploughing and sowing when they work the fields for him. They earn a wage then and he has labour to hand.”

  It seemed a very clever plan to Sam. Mr Banford did not have the expense of idle hands for much of the year but had access to labour when he needed it.

  “What of the sheep, Josie?”

  “A tenant rents the sheepwalk and has the work of lambing and shearing. Where he finds his hands is his affair. He does not pay for the tops of the moorland, but the sheep are to be found there when the weather is favourable. My father has often said that he wished a crop could be discovered rather than let the land go almost to waste, but he can think of nothing.”

  Sam had grown up on a farm in almost identical land; he was sure there was nothing.

  “Barren land, Josie. Its sole value will lie in anything found underneath it. The pit is far the most valuable part of these acres. A pity, but there it is. It might be possible to plant trees in some of the more sheltered parts off the tops, but they would be long-growing, even the softwoods needing thirty and more years before they could be harvested. What are those little wicker boxes over there?”

  “Bee skeps. The
heather makes a very sweet honey, it seems. Two of the tenants have their skeps out and make a few shillings each year from their honey.”

  There was nothing more to be done there – if it could be taken into town, perhaps, there would be a little money in the honey, but the tracks were so poor that the jars would more likely than not break in the carts transporting them.

  “The moors are too stony and rough underfoot for horses to graze in safety… Cattle need flatter land… goats perhaps?”

  “People do not like their meat, Sam, and the milk is very strong-tasting.”

  Sam gave up. Farmers had been trying for centuries to make a living from these lands – he was not about to come up with some brilliant idea that had not occurred to them already.

  “Well, the acres seem impressive, Josie. Let us hope that people look no further into them.”

  They rode up to the little pit and the trackway leading down the long slope, replied to the greetings from the family busy there, doffing caps and bonnets properly.

  “A man, three boys, two of them grown; four daughters of various size. All of them busy around the place and the mother indoors at the cooking hearth and baking oven. A fine example of industry, Josie!”

  They watched, saw the man to be cutting along the coal seam, the largest of the boys to be shovelling back to the loading bay where the other two were loading a tub. Sam approved – an effective use of their various strengths. He turned to the girls, saw two working the garden that surrounded the little cottage, busily weeding and hoeing. The smallest was picking beans for the cooked meal of the day, doing her little share of the labour. The biggest of the four was minding a small, covered fire off to one side; he wondered what she was doing.

  “Charry-bake, master. Hot fire, as is, from dry sticks, in a proper place where there ain’t too much of wind. Thou must then set clumps of dry grass pulled up from the waste with dirt to their roots, upside-down on the flames, not letting they to smother the fire, and to cook down slow like. On top goes all the weeds pulled from the garden. Keep ‘un burning all day, and bank ‘un for the night, and she burns down to proper ash, like, what is good for the garden when dug in. Don’t let the rain fall on before it be dug in to the ground, or it be wasted, like.”

  Sam was fascinated, asked where the dry sticks came from.

  “Under the gorse, master, and down along the sloe bushes, where they grow, what ain’t over the whole of the hill by no means. Goes out two and three times a week picking they up. Keeps ‘em dry under the eaves, so we do.”

  “Do you collect the sloes themselves, to eat?”

  “Some, master, but too many of they does your belly no good, you might say; acid sharp they be, except when picked after frost. My old Nan, she was used to put they down in a drop of gin, what was used to taste something special, so Da said, but she upped and died and he don’t know just ‘ow to make it. Don’t want gin in the cott, neither.”

  “Sensible man.”

  Josie raised an eyebrow at Sam; he nodded, the same thought occurring to him.

  “Are there many sloe bushes on the moors, do you know?”

  “Bloody ‘undreds, I reckon, master, lower down where they ain’t blowed about too much by the old winds.”

  “Pick all you can this year, girl. Put them in the tub and send them down and I shall pay thee for them. I can make use of them.”

  Sam turned to his wife, nodding her approval.

  “I have heard of sloe gin, Josie. Don’t know how to make it myself, but it won’t be hard to find a goodwife who does. I shall ask Rowlands if it is to be found in his people. They say it has a sweeter flavour, kinder on the tongue than ordinary gin. It could be placed in the bigger stores in the town centre, where the middle sort of people and the gentry buy each month. An extra penny or two a pint, I suspect.”

  “Sold in glass bottles, with a label. Very respectable!”

  Sam had noticed that Josie was much taken with respectability. He suspected that she was not much in love with the idea of making her way up in the world on the back of gin.

  “Sloes are the fruit of the blackthorn, are they not, Josie? Where does it grow best? Could trees be planted on the waste of the moors?”

  It seemed likely and would cost very little – a labourer’s services for a year, planting seedlings from a little nursery. The possibility of a bottle that could be sold to the better-off, at a higher profit, was worth the risk of spending fifty pounds or thereabouts.

  They rode back to the stable yard satisfied with their outing – both health giving and very likely adding to their wealth, the ideal use of a day.

  “I must spend tomorrow in town, Josie. My uncle tells me that it is as well to be seen where people can easily speak to me.”

  She did not quite comprehend why that should be so. If a matter was important to the lesser folks then they could go to the effort of finding him out, surely. Sam was much inclined to agree with her but felt he must obey his uncle, who possibly knew more about people than he did.

  “He is well-liked, you know, Josie. People trust him and listen to his advice – quite why, I know not. I am not convinced that he is a wiser man than many, but he is one to be heeded, so I am often told. I suspect that folk believe him to be of good character, and therefore a fount of wisdom.”

  That puzzled her.

  “My mother’s brother Edward, who died two years ago, was a kindly man and a friend to all, one who never said an unkind word or performed an uncharitable act in his whole existence. Yet he was as stupid as a stump and any man who took his advice was setting himself at considerable risk!”

  “Exactly – goodness and wisdom are not one and the same, my dear.”

  Sam was quite pleased to offer that conclusion, for he knew that he was wise – he must be for making himself well-off from nothing – but he had doubts of his own fundamental goodness. There were those, he had no doubt, who might disparage his occasional killing as wickedness, failing to understand that he had done no more than was necessary and appropriate at the particular time. It was, he considered, unfortunate that few people had the resolution to do what was correct in the given circumstances. He wondered whether one day he might not talk to the vicar and persuade him to give a sermon or two explaining the virtues of necessity; not yet perhaps.

  “Be that as it may, Josie, my uncle is my senior and I am to follow his advice for the while; probably for some several years, in fact, until he takes his retirement from the active life.”

  “And then, Sam, will you stand second to his son and heir?”

  “Will I buggery!”

  He apologised for his vulgarity, having reacted in shock and horror rather than in reasoned thought, he said.

  “What will be done with the young man?”

  “Nothing. He will inherit the inn and the big house, and no doubt an amount of cash that will make his life far more comfortable. But that will be all. He will have no part in our other endeavours.”

  Josie was not at all sure what those other activities comprehended. She had a suspicion that she might be wiser not to find out.

  “Let us speak to father about the sloes, Sam. He will be pleased to discover some use for the moorland.”

  Josh Banford was in fact delighted that they had found something valuable in the great wilderness he had mostly inherited.

  “I bought nearly a thousand acres some fifteen years back, Sam.” They had come onto first name terms early in the marriage, neither being comfortable with excessive formality. “You won’t know the family, for they are no longer to be found locally, in the nature of things. He was little more than a yeoman farmer, Oliver Paxton, and known to me since boyhood. He had inherited his acres young, his father and mother both caught in the scarlet fever when it came through the locality. His one sister had wed and was gone miles away, too far to give him advice. He used the little cash his father left to buy into a partnership in a pottery kiln and made a few pounds a year for a while. Then there was a downturn in trade
and he discovered that all partners are wholly liable for the debts of the partnership. He had bought into one tenth of the profits but when his partner was found to be penniless he was dunned for all that the firm owed.”

  Sam shook his head. He was new to the world of business, but he knew far better than to buy in as a partner. The man who did that was asking for trouble, unless he had daily management of the firm as well.

  “To cut a long story short, I had five hundred pounds in hand and he had nine hundred and eighty acres and no wife to tie him down. He sold out to me and I placed the cash in his attorney’s hand. Oliver Paxton left the county that day, the money now in his pocket. He had drawn it from his attorney to take to his creditors to pay them off, so he said. All legal and proper. He was seen on the road north and might have reached the port of Liverpool, so it was thought…”

  Sam laughed.

  “Ten of those pounds would have bought him a ticket in a comfortable cabin to the Americas, Josh. No doubt he has bought himself a farm there. They say that land costs a penny an acre there, Josh.”

  “Less than that in places, Sam. A man is free to sit down and make a claim on lands in the unsettled parts and, as long as he builds his house and tills the soil, it becomes his.”

  The prospects for a man with even a little money were obviously good.

  “We are, my uncle and I, looking at the possibility of helping local men to go out to the Americas, Josh. We are to ride up to Liverpool in a few weeks in pursuance of the aim. There are many youngsters on local farms who have no work, nothing to do other than wander into the towns and hope to find something. The chance to go west will give them hope, I trust.”

  “And cut the numbers of drifting vagabonds in the towns, Sam. A noble suggestion, sir. As we discussed, in fact. You will be a local benefactor indeed, Sam!”

  That he would make a pretty penny as well went unspoken. Josie did not see the opportunities for profit, was proud of her kind-hearted Sam. She wondered how good their title was to the acres bought from Mr Paxton.