The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) (27 page)

“You will, Mrs Williams, next Quarter Day, my word
on it. What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Goose, sir, and roastie taters and spring greens
and parsmit; pea and ‘am soup. I didn’t know what you fancies in the way of
sweet stuff, so I’m just puttin’ up meringues wi’ cream and they old macaroons
– old Mr Rockingham did love they almond things.”

“It sounds very good, Mrs Williams.”

“I does what I can, but it ain’t easy eatin’ proper
‘ereabouts. Fish be the problem – if you gets sea-fish, well, they’s goin’ to
be two day old, at least, afore they gets ‘ere, and I ain’t ‘avin’ that in my
kitchen, sir – like as not you eats they and you ends up shittin’ through the
eye of a needle!”

Tom had not heard that expression before, exploded
with laughter.

“Quite, Mrs Williams – not what we want!”

“Noways it ain’t, sir. So it be perch and carp and
pike and trout in season, and a feed of crays when us can get ‘em, and eels
from the pond, but it ain’t the way it oughter be, not like what I was told
when I were learnin’.”

“You must just do the best you can, Mrs Williams –
there is simply no way to eat proper fish here.”

“Right, sir, that’s what I always did say. Anything
you particularly likes, sir, you just pass the word to that man of yours and
I’ll see to it. Cakes and tarts and puddin’ and that sort of thing, sir.”

She left, Tom feeling that he might well have gained
an ally – there was nothing he could do about her fish, though he would have
liked to because she seemed genuinely upset that she could not do her job
properly, in her own opinion, but it was the better part of seventy miles to
the nearest fishing port, and that was two days at least, as she had said.

The head gamekeeper made his appearance, a man of
forty or so, small and quiet in his ways, light on his feet, informed him that
his name was Jackson and that he had no game to keep this year - he seemed
depressed, downtrodden, without hope.

“Mr Rockingham, sir, ‘e wanted cocks at walk and a
driving shoot, like the gentry do, but ‘e never got round to getting they old
birds in, or paying for breeding coops and pens. There’s me and three lads and
bugger-all for us to do like, except for keeping the varmints down.”

“Get rid of the lads, Jackson – I shall not be
shooting pheasants.”

“Don’t make bugger-all sense to do it ‘ere, sir, not
on this land. You shoots pheasants on rough ground, moors and waste and that,
not on good wheat land.”

“Right! What can you do that will be useful,
Jackson?”

Jackson looked more hopeful, the air of gloom
leaving him as he was consulted rather than given silly orders.

“Keep the rabbits down, sir. Mind the ‘edges and
keep the trees up what Mr Rockingham planted and left to get on wi’ it. No
idea, that man, none at all, sir! There’s a few deer what wanders wild, sir,
and they might as well be looked after. Be you much for fishing, sir?”

“Not at all, Jackson – I had enough of that as a
boy!”

“Good – there be a family of otters what I ought to
‘ave shot but didn’t like to. They can stay – they’ll eat a few fish, sir, but
not many. I can keep the river clean of weed and flowing free.”

“Right, keep yourself busy and useful, come direct
to me if you need to spend money.” Tom hesitated, added, “I’ve never seen an
otter that I can remember.”

“I’ll take thee down to see ‘em play of a morning,
when the young is out, end of next month, sir.”

“I’ll look forward to that, Jackson. Thank you!”

Another man who would talk, could pass on the
information he would need; he hoped he was better than the last Jackson he had
come across.

Smythe collected Tom at twenty past two and led him
to the estate offices, quickly showing the various rooms they passed on their
way through the house, commenting very condescendingly that it was, no doubt,
larger than he was used to but the country was somewhat more civilised than one
might look for in coal mines and such - he would soon get to know his way
round. He entered the office, oak furnished, west-facing at the back of the
house, nearly twenty feet square, two walls shelved from floor to ceiling and
full of leather bound folders, some obviously dating back to the earliest days
of the house.

“Estate records, sir, all written down – very useful
when it came to the enclosure, of course.”

“Ah, yes – claims of ancient use for manorial rights
which translate into grants of land at enclosure – I understand that all
contracts in real estate must be written and therefore any claim at enclosure
must have written evidence to back it. Most Commoners are illiterate, I am
told, and rely on oral tradition for their rights – which leaves them landless
on enclosure.”

Smythe did not look pleased to discover this degree
of understanding in his new master. He took up a commanding position in the
centre of the room, ushering Tom to the single easy chair in the corner.

“As agent for the Manor of Thingdon, Mr Andrews, I
alone am responsible for the new enclosed lands and the old tenancies and Home
Farm, assisted by the bailiff in the day-to-day routine, of course. I do not
propose to bother you with unnecessary detail, sir, suffice it to say that we
now total seven thousand two hundred and thirty acres, of which the new lands
amount to some four thousands, to be let in five large farms to new tenants,
all of whom have been selected.”

“How?”

“In the normal way, sir – I have put many hours of
work into finding the best and you may safely leave that in my hands. I decided
after much thought that it would be better to have a few large tenants rather
than a dozen or so smaller – big farmers are better off, in the nature of
things, and become a force for stability in the countryside.”

“Mr Quillerson, as bailiff you will be in regular
contact with the new tenants – are you happy with them?”

Tom was not prepared to be bullied into silence by
Smythe and in any case had decided that he did not trust or like the man and
was not going to work with him; better he should be encouraged to dig his own
grave and as soon as possible.

“I know three of them to be good farmers, sir, but…”

Smythe overrode Quillerson’s words, interrupting
angrily.

“And I have told you not to interfere in things you
don’t understand, boy! Keep your mouth shut!”

Tom stood, stepped a pace forward, drawing himself
up to his full height, bigger than Smythe and without his soft edge.

“I instructed Mr Quillerson to speak, Smythe. Any
man obeying
my
orders on
my
estate is not interfering. Do I make
myself clear?”

Smythe stared him in the eye, stayed silent.

“I asked if you understood me, Smythe.”

“I am the agent. I run this estate!”

“Not any more! You are dismissed from your post with
immediate effect and will leave these lands today. Hand your keys across to
Quillerson. Where do you live?”

“In my rooms in this house – and I cannot be
expected to clear them today, not so that some Papist bastard dropped by a
village whore can move in!”

“It is three o’clock, Smythe, and you will be gone
by five or I shall have you taken, forcibly, to the lock-up. Anything you leave
behind will be parcelled up and delivered to you in Kettering; if you have no
direction there you will find your chattels care of Mr Telford.”

“You can’t do it, you need me – the bastard can’t
read a set of accounts, or write them sensibly, and he doesn’t know the half of
the estate’s business – and you know nothing of the land. A month and you will
be at a stand, and it will be no good coming running to me for help!”

“I have
run
businesses twice as large as
this, Smythe, and I can learn agriculture and I can read accounts. I will read
yours, line-by-line, for the last five years, and if I find so much as a penny
has strayed from the estate’s funds into your pocket then I will see you stood
before an Assize judge – and, Smythe, I shall beg him for mercy, so that you
will not be hanged but will go for convict labour on the Gibraltar docks
instead!”

Smythe was silent, white-faced suddenly – a hanging
commonly involved fifteen minutes of slow strangulation while convicts on
forced labour sometimes lasted for eighteen months of flogging and
near-starvation before their almost equally inevitable death. If he was charged
by a local landholder then any jury would find against him – they would all be
tenants of the large estates or tradesmen from Kettering needing their
business. He turned and left the room, almost running.

“Mr Quillerson, will you require the services of a
secretary in your role of agent and bailiff?”

“No, sir, I believe Mr Smythe’s cousin should leave
with him.”

“So he should. Have a pony and trap ready for five
o’clock, please, and a man to take them both into Kettering. Ask Jackson to be
present with a fowling piece, two or three men besides, in case we have need to
haul either or both off to the lock-up instead.”

Quillerson nodded happily, trotted off to the
stables.

“Daniel! Your wages will be paid at June Quarter
Day, in full, if you come and collect them, in person. Smythe’s as well, on the
same terms. You may tell your cousin that it will take me two weeks to check
the accounts.”

If Smythe had any sense he would disappear within
the day – a change of name and a move of fifty miles and he would never be
traced other than by the worst of bad luck, and a trial would not be a good
start to Tom’s residence in the area.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Quillerson returned, confirmed all would be ready.

“Can you handle the work as agent and bailiff,
Quillerson? It will, obviously, involve you in creating and checking all of the
accounts for the estate and the house, as well as keeping all of the other
records.”

“I was educated at the grammar school in Kettering
until I was eighteen, sir. I can keep a set of accounts clearly and honestly,
and I know more about the new agriculture than he did. The only question, sir,
is whether you want a Papist bastard on your land.”

Tom thought quickly – he liked the look of the man
and it sounded as if he might be a loner, a man with few friends and hence no
favourites or allies, liable to give good, unbiased service.

“’Papist’ is your choice – you might wish to deal
with that, it is your business, none of mine, though it will, I suspect, give
troublemakers a handle, a way of attacking you. ‘Bastard’ is none of your
seeking and I would not let it worry you – it does not concern me. What of
these new tenancies?”

“Five blocks of land, sir, almost equal in size,
most of the Great Field, the old Common and waste, including some boggy bottom
land, all to the south and west sides of the manor. The drier lands on the east
and north were enclosed in Elizabethan times, when the house was built, for
sheepwalks and the Home Farm. Eakins, Bass and Briggs are local men who had a
few acres and a bit of spare cash from working the iron and leather and have
saved up enough to take on a large tenancy. I know of them and their families,
from years back – all three understand the new way of doing things. Briggs has
the River Farm and we will be spending some money there on his drainage – the
landlord’s responsibility in the first instance. Mudge is a southcountryman, he
inherited a small acreage from his father and sold it to the local lord – it
rounded out his estate nicely, I believe, and he paid over the odds for it –
and has the funds to be a very successful farmer; he has some of the best land,
close to the village and the road; the only problem is that I know nothing of
him, have met him once only, am not even certain I would recognise his face.”

“Common name in Hampshire and Dorset, Mudge.”

“I did not know that, sir – he comes from Hampshire,
in fact, near a town called Wickham.”

“Don’t know it.”

“Nor me, sir.”

“Keep an eye on him, make sure he behaves himself;
not a lot we can do for the next seven years, is there?”

“Very little, sir – he must keep his tenancy for the
whole of the first lease unless waste can be proved against him, and he would
expect at least another seven – his first years will involve him in
considerable expense starting up.”

“So be it. What of your fifth man?”

“Barney. The word is that he is a horse thief, sir.
He had a small acreage and bred riding horses – nothing out of the ordinary,
cobs was all, cocktails not pure-bloods but very reliable horses – we have a
couple of his in our stables. The thing is, sir, that his mares must have
thrown an awful lot of foals to account for the number of beasts he took to
market. He has said that his grandmother was Romany - his wife is said to be as
well, and that his uncles and cousins and his wife’s people regularly sell young
stock to him, which is not impossible, and there has never been any direct
accusation made, even so…”

“He must have the benefit of the doubt, Mr
Quillerson – we cannot condemn the man on the basis of rumour and supposition.
Will he continue his trade on his new farm?”