CHAPTER III

A COUNCIL OF DEFENCE

The sun had sunk behind the moors when Peter Askew sat by an open window in his big, slate-flagged kitchen at Ashness. All was quiet outside, except for the hoa.r.s.e turmoil of the force and a distant bleating of sheep. In front, across a stony pasture, the fellside ran up abruptly; its summit, edged with purple heath, cut against a belt of yellow sky.

The long, green slope was broken by rocky scars and dotted by small Herdwick sheep that looked like scattered stones until they moved.

The kitchen was shadowy, because the house was old and built with low, mullioned windows to keep out snow and storm, and a clump of stunted ash trees grew outside the courtyard wall. A fire of roots and peat, however, burned in the deep hearth, and now and then a flickering glow touched old copper and dark oak with red reflections. Collectors had sometimes offered to buy the tall clock and ponderous meal chest, but Askew would not sell. The most part of his furniture had been brought to Ashness by his great-grandfather.

Peter's face was brown and deeply lined, and his shoulders were bent, for he had led a life of steady toil. This was rather from choice than stern necessity, because he owned the farm and had money enough to cultivate it well. As a rule, he was reserved and thoughtful, but his neighbors trusted him. They knew he was clever, although he used their homely dialect and lived as frugally as themselves. In the dale, one worked hard and spent no more than one need. Yet Peter had broken the latter rule when he resolved to give his son a wider outlook than he had had.

Kit had gone from the lonely farm to a good school where he had beaten, by brains and resolution, the sons of professional and business men. His teachers said he had talent, and although Peter was often lonely since his wife died, he meant to give the lad his chance. Somewhat to his relief, Kit decided to return to the soil, and Peter sent him to an agricultural college. Since Kit meant to farm he should be armed by such advantages as modern science could give. It was obvious that he would need them all in the struggle against low prices and the inclement weather that vexed the dale. Now he had come home, in a sense not much changed, and Peter was satisfied. Kit and he seldom jarred, and the dalesfolk, who did not know how like they were under the surface, sometimes thought it strange.

Four or five of their neighbors sat in the kitchen, for the most part smoking quietly, but now and then grumbling about the recent heavy rain.

This was not what they had come to talk about, and Peter waited. He knew their cautious reserve; they were obstinate and slow to move, and if he tried to hurry them might take alarm. By and by one knocked out his pipe.

"How are you getting forrad with t' peat-cutting?" he asked.

"We have cut enough to last for three or four months."

"You'll need it aw. Coal's a terrible price," another remarked.

"It will be dearer soon," said Peter. "Since Bell has t' lease o' both coal yards, he can charge what he likes."

"A grasping man! Yan canna get feeding stuff for stock, seed, an' lime, unless yan pays his price. Noo he has t' traction-engine, kilns, and mill, he'll own aw t' dale before lang."

"It's very possible, unless you stop him," Kit interposed.

"Landlord ought to stop him," one rejoined.

Kit smiled. "That's too much to expect; it's your business to help yourselves. Mr. Osborn takes the highest rent that's offered, and you missed your chance when you let Bell get Allerby mill."

"Neabody else had t' money," another grumbled.

"Two or three of us could have clubbed together and made a profit after selling feeding stuff at a moderate price."

The others were silent for a minute of two and Kit let them ponder. He had learned something about the wastefulness of individual effort, and on his return to Ashness had urged the farmers to join in bidding for a lease of the mill. They had refused, and would need careful handling now, for the old cooperative customs that had ruled in the dale before the railway came had gone.

"Poor folks willunt have much left for groceries when they have paid Bell's price for coal," said one. "Since he gets his money for hauling in t' slate, it costs him nowt to tak' a big load back on t' lurry; but, with Redmire bank to clim', it's a terrible loss o' time carting half a ton up dale."

"You won't be able to buy the half-ton unless you deal with Bell. I think you'll find he has a contract for all the coal that comes down the line."

They pondered this and another remarked, "Peat's terrible messy stuff and bad to dry at back end o' year."

"It can be dried," said an old man. "I mind the time when iver a load o'

coals went past Allerby. Aw t' folk clubbed togedder to cut and haul t'

peat from Malton. Browt it doon on stane-boats by the oad green road.

Howiver, I reckon it cost them summat, counting their time"

Kit gave him a paper. "This is what our peat has cost us; I've charged our labor and what the horses would have earned if we had been paid for plowing."

They studied the figures, pa.s.sing the paper around, and then one said, "But peat costs you nowt. Malton moor is yours and I ken nea ither peat worth cutting. Mayhappen yan could find some soft trash on the back moor, but I doot if Osborn would let yan bring it doon."

"Osborn does what his agent says, and it's weel kent Hayes is a friend o'

Bell's," another agreed.

Peter smiled and gave Kit a warning glance. He suspected the agent had a private understanding that was not to his employer's benefit with Bell; but this was another matter. Peter had taught his son to concentrate on the business in hand.

"Weel," he said, "you can have aw t' peat you want and we willunt fratch if you pay me nowt. There's acres o' good stuff on Malton moor, and the value o' peat t' labor it costs to cut. Aw t' same, it willunt pay to send a man or two noo and then. You must work in a gang; ivery man at his proper job."

"It was done like that in oad days," said one.

Peter looked at Kit, who did not speak, for both knew when enough was said. Indeed, although he was hardly conscious of it yet, Kit had something of a leader's talent. For a few minutes the others smoked and thought. They were independent and suspicious about new plans, but it was obvious that the best defense against a monopoly was a combine. In fact, they began to see it was the only defense they had. Then one turned to Peter.

"If you're for stopping Bell robbing us and starving poor folk at Allerby, I'm with you."

One after another promised his support, a plan was agreed upon, and Peter was satisfied when his neighbors went away. They were patient, cautious, and hard to move; but he knew their obstinacy when they were roused. Now they had started, they would go on, stubbornly taking a road that was new to them. Bell, of course, would make a cunning fight, but Peter doubted if he would win.

"I reckon your plan will work," he said to Kit, with a nod of satisfaction.

Kit nodded and picking up his hat and some letters went out. As he walked down the dale the moon rose above a shadowy fell, touching the opposite hillside with silver light that reached the fields at the bottom farther on. Tall pikes of wet hay threw dark shadows across a meadow, and he heard the roar of a swollen beck. There was too much water in the dale, but Kit knew something might be done to make farming pay in spite of the weather. Land that had gone sour might be recovered by draining, and a bank could be built where the river now and then washed away the crops.

Osborn, however, was poor and extravagant, and his agent's talents were rather applied to raising rents than improving the soil.

Kit stopped when he got near Allerby, where the dale widens and a cl.u.s.ter of low white houses stands among old trees. The village glimmered in the moonlight and beyond it rolling country, dotted by dark woods, ran back to the sea. A beck plunged down the hillside with a m.u.f.fled roar, and a building, half in light and half in shadow, occupied the hollow of the ghyll. Kit, leaning on the bridge, watched the glistening thread of water that trickled over the new iron wheel, and noted the raw slate slabs that had been recently built into the mossy wall. A big traction engine, neatly covered by a tarpaulin, and a trailer lurry stood in front of the sliding door.

Osborn had spent some money here, for Allerby mill, with its seed and chemical manure stores, paid him a higher rent than the best of his small farms. It was obviously well managed by the tenant, and Kit approved.

Modern machines and methods, although expensive, were good and were needed in the dale. The trouble was, they sometimes gave the man who could use them power to rob his poorer neighbors. Kit saw that concentrated power was often dangerous, and since unorganized, individual effort was no longer profitable, he knew no cure but cooperation.

Although young, he was seldom rash. Enthusiasm is not common in the bleak northern dales, whose inhabitants are, for the most part, conservative and slow. Wind and rain had hardened him and he had inherited a reserved strength and quietness from ancestors who had braved the storms that raged about Ashness. Yet the north is not always stern, for now and then the gray sky breaks, and fell and dale shine in dazzling light and melt with mystic beauty into pa.s.sing shade. Kit, like his country, varied in his moods; sometimes he forgot to be practical and his caution vanished, leaving him romantic and imaginative.

He went on, and as he reached the first of the white houses a girl came out of a gate and stopped where the moonlight fell across the road. She had some beauty and her pose was graceful.

"Oh," she exclaimed, with rather exaggerated surprise, "it's Kit! I suppose you'll take this letter? I was going to the post."

Kit did not know much about young women, but hesitated, because he doubted if she wanted him to post the letter.

"If you like," he said. "I expect the causeway at the water-splash will be wet."

She gave him a curious smile. "Oh, well; here's the letter. Jim Nixon had to help me across the water when I went last night, and I don't suppose you're afraid of wetting your feet. You are used to it at Ashness."

"Yes," said Kit. "My boots are stronger than yours."

"Canny lad!" she answered, with a mocking laugh. Kit felt embarra.s.sed, for he thought he saw what she meant. Janet Bell was something of a coquette.

"I heard people coming down the road not long since," she resumed. "Have you had a supper party? Tell your father I think he's shabby because he left me out."

"It wasn't a supper party and there were no women. Three or four neighbors came in."

"To grumble about the weather or argue about the sheep?"