Luckpenny Land (11 page)

‘Nay, gentlemen - that price won’t do. People are trying to make a living here. Put your hands in your pockets and dust off your money.’

Laughter rippled among the throng of farmers who crowded the auction ring viewing the crop of ewes on sale. Some sat on planks, others leaned on the railing set up to prevent sheep from straying, though what chance they would have in that crowd was hard to reckon. Joe Turner was amongst them, standing next to his old friend and arch rival, Lanky Lawson.

The auctioneer’s jokes lightened the tension among the sharp eyed, tweed-clad farmers. Sometimes one would thrust out a horny hand to feel the hind quarters of a sheep, checking her fitness, or examine her teeth for age.

Hill farmers, known for their steady gait on the fells, were not men for unnecessary movement so stood like a still life, enveloped in their own fug of acrid blue smoke, hands on sticks or crooks, weather-beaten faces unsmiling, eyes alert for any sign of a sick or lame animal, the chanting rhythm and miming gestures of the auctioneer like some sort of comic opera carried out for their entertainment.

‘How’s thisself?’ Joe remarked.

‘Ah was better afore I met thee,’ replied Lanky, equally laconic.

They had commented upon the weather, the state of market prices, and then a silence had fallen between them as business began. Joe would not dream of asking Lanky what he was bidding for, or even how much stock he was hoping to sell himself. Nor would he give the small man any indication of his own bids. Only the auctioneer, from long experience of his clients, knew each farmer’s sign. It might be a rub upon a bristly chin or the stem of a pipe, a twitch of a bushy eyebrow or tug of a cap. The slightest gesture could signify a sale, so each would conduct their private business with the wily auctioneer out of eyeshot of each other.

The tension, at times, was palpable. The great heads of Europe might agonise over world peace but nothing was more serious to these men than the price they got for their stock, for upon that depended their very survival.

The room was damp and cold and Lanky succumbed to a fit of coughing.

Joe, his expression inscrutable, leaned on his stick and waited. ‘You want to get that cough seen to,’ he said, when the bout ended.

Lanky made no reply.

The auctioneer started a fresh lot of bidding and when it was done the conversation moved back to the price of stock, the favourite topic.

‘If thee were ever to think of selling, I might be willing to take a piece of land off your hands,’ Joe said, putting no particular emphasis upon the words.

‘Now why would I want to do that?’

Joe was not put off by the difficulty in obtaining information. He expected it, it being all part of the game. ‘Thee has too much, happen, for you and Jack to manage on your own.’

‘We get by.’

Joe decided he had gone far enough down this track. Unusually, Lanky owned his own land, and though he no longer put it to full use himself, would not contemplate letting it out to anyone else. Joe envied him since he still only rented Ashlea, despite his best efforts to buy. It was common knowledge that Lanky’s son and daughter weren’t interested in the farm, yet he persisted in saving it for them. A criminal waste in Joe’s opinion, and here he was with money set aside just waiting for a bargain, if there was one going. If Dan was growing restless, Joe could do with a bit more amenable land on which to increase the flock.

This wasn’t by any means the first time the subject had been broached between the two men and both knew it would not be the last. Joe’s only hope of success was entirely dependent upon Lanky’s stubborn pride.

What he didn’t know was that Lanky meant him to remain disappointed. Joe Turner wasn’t a bad farmer, not by a long chalk, but in Lanky’s opinion he was a mean-hearted man with no imagination or human feeling in him. He’d never give what the land was worth and Lanky would never take less.

The two men gave their full attention to the auction for a while, both feigning indifference.

When it was the turn of Broombank sheep to rush and jostle into the ring, seeking escape and companionship of their neighbours all at the same time, Lanky went in the ring with them. There was no question but that he needed a good price, this year more than ever if he was to keep his head above water. The ewes he didn’t need and some he did but couldn’t afford to keep were being sold off to lowland farms where they would have an easier time of it in their later years.

He knew each one of them individually. Their faces, voices, the shape of their horns, were as well known to him as his own family, better perhaps since he saw little enough of them these days.

‘That didn’t take long,’ said Joe, as a sale was quickly made, far short of Lanky’s expectations. And he still had the ‘luck money’ to find by way of discount to the new owner. But if he wanted the farmer’s custom again he had no choice but to pay it. Besides, it was bad luck not to.

‘Thee’s not thinking of retiring then?’ Joe laughed, making a joke of it.

‘I’ll retire when you do.’

Ashlea stock came next and it was Joe’s turn to give his full attention to business. Good stock, all of them, fetching a good price. The bidding went briskly and, satisfied with the result, Joe went so far as to offer to stand Lanky a brew of tea and an Eccles cake. Installed in a corner at a nearby cafe, he moved in for the kill.

‘You’ll be seeing your way clear to settling that other little matter between us quite soon, I hope?’

The ‘little matter’ in question was a sum of nearly one hundred and fifty pounds, loaned to Lanky over the last year or two to buy stock and attend to running repairs to the barn, in danger of collapse at one time.

‘I’ve not forgotten.’ Lanky replied with careful patience, as was his wont, but for the first time that day some of his confidence evaporated.

Joe noticed and he smiled to himself. ‘No hurry, mind. Some time this backend will do, and I’ll not raise the interest yet awhile.’ Knowing that if the money couldn’t be found now, after the sales, there wasn’t a hope of it later

 
Lanky only grunted.

‘Don’t see much of your Jack these days, not like when he was a nipper. What’s he doing with hissel these days? Is he still set on leaving the farm or has he sown all his wild oats?’

Lanky had no intention of telling Joe what he ought to be able to discover himself, so he made no reply to this either.

‘Time he was wed, don’t you reckon?’
 

The swift change of subject unnerved Lanky who was busily trying to work out where Joe was leading, while at the same time worrying over the huge sum of money that was no doubt mounting up in interest on top of the borrowed one hundred and fifty. He wished now that he’d let the barn fall down and not tried to keep his cows. ‘He’s only three and twenty. Plenty of time.’

Lanky’s voice, Joe noted, sounded positively tetchy - and fetched him another pint pot of tea, strong enough to stand a spoon in it. ‘Problem, aren’t they, Family?’

‘Aye,’ said Lanky, looking doleful.

‘I once thought summat might come of your Jack and our Meg, but they don’t seem to be shaping to it, do they?’

‘If you say not,’ came the careful reply. ‘You’d have to ask them about that. He tells me nowt.’ So that’s it, thought Lanky. If he can’t get my land one way, he’ll have it by another.

‘Pity. They’d make a good breeding pair. Happen they need a bit of a push like.’

In answer to this Lanky only smiled and said what a grand lass Meg was. ‘She’s got a good head on her shoulders, that one, for all she’s a bit quiet and shy. Come into her own proper one of these days, you see if she doesn’t.’

‘She’s nobbut a female. I have to keep a close watch over her.’

‘She’s bright. Runs rings round most chaps. You too, I shouldn’t wonder.’

At this attack on his authority, which was a mite too close to the truth for Joe’s comfort, he got up to go. ‘Right then, I’d best be on me way. Let me know if you change your mind about the land and find you can’t keep it on.’ When you finally admit you can’t find the money to pay me, he meant.

Joe pulled on his cap and tugged at the neb to his colleagues as he walked out of the cafe, well pleased with the day’s business. He’d made a good start. The idea was planted, now let it grow.

Dan Turner was likewise feeling pleased with himself as he strode out with his dogs. Sal Gilpin called regularly to pay the money her family owed, missing only twice in the last three months. Six shillings was a large sum to find each week, but then it wasn’t his problem, was it? If women weren’t capable of organising their lives better, was it his fault?

He’d just laid a trail of aniseed and paraffin over a short six-mile training run. Now he slipped the lead on Silver Lady and a new young bitch he’d bought at the last hound trailing day he’d attended. Both dogs, excited at not having run for a day or two, shot off across the field, their graceful bodies making light work of the distance, easily scaling walls, hills, ditches or whatever came in their path as they followed the scent.

‘Aren’t they lovely?’ Sally Ann said and Dan puffed his chest out, pleased by the compliment, then set off after them at an easy pace. ‘Come on, Sal, shape to. If we cut through Brockbarrow Wood we’ll be at the finishing post about the same time as them.’

‘Don’t go so fast then, I can’t keep up.’ She began to run alongside, puffing slightly from the effort but soon falling behind as Dan strode off on his long legs.

‘Aye, she’ll make a good ’un,’ he announced as he watched the tawny animal’s loose-limbed rhythm. ‘Bit of training up and she’ll do well.’

He was pleased with her. Not that he would ever hold her in any great affection. Dogs were dogs, kept for work and naught else. He’d feed her with good protein, best shin beef and egg, no yolks mind, and other secret ingredients he kept to himself. Warm bedding and regular exercise, and like a good woman, all she had to do then was exactly as he told her. And breed of course. Which brought him back to Sally Ann Gilpin.

He stood and waited for her to catch up. Fine looking woman she was. He liked a bit more flesh on his women than on his dogs, and game enough or she wouldn’t be here, helping him like this.

It had been a considerable stretching of the truth to say that Joe had handed all his financial affairs over to his son. Joe kept things very much under his own control, too much so in Dan’s opinion. But Dan was glad he’d been allowed to take on this customer, despite his father’s initial objections and Meg’s protests. Far too good an opinion of herself that one. Always too ready to criticise him, ever since she was a nipper.

One day he’d get his own back on her for treating him like he was a fool, just see if he didn’t.

Sally Ann reached him, and, pleased with this unexpected success with a woman, Dan grinned at her. ‘You’re all right, Sal,’ he said, and she was. Friendly and comfortable, with a good sense of humour. Always cheerful and ready for a bit of fun and a laugh. ‘You’re not always wanting to pick holes in what a chap says. Not like our Meg.’

‘Where is she?’ Sally Ann wanted to know. ‘Haven’t seen her in ages.’

‘Off on one of her walks. Quite a fetish she’s got for walking these days.’ Not one to waste energy himself, not unless there was profit in it, like his dogs, he couldn’t understand this need in others. ‘There’s better ways to spend time and energy, eh, Sal?’

He clambered over a stone stile and strode off on his ambling gait along the stony track that led up to Brockbarrow and on to Whinstone Gill, Sally Ann tagging along behind.

The weather was good for the time of year and there were no mists on the tops today. Dan could see for miles.

‘Come on, lass, let’s sit here for a bit, shall we?’ He winked at her. ‘While we wait for them animals to come.’ He laid his coat on the ground and Sally Ann raised a questioning eyebrow before hiding a smile and making herself comfortable beside him.

When he first spotted the fleck of colour on the distant hillside, Dan didn’t think anything of it. Besides, he had other matters on his mind.

But it took no time at all for him to pound out his frustration into Sally Ann Gilpin. The wind was too sharp up here to dally so he pulled up her frock and got on with it. And she, gasping for breath, didn’t seem to object.

Afterwards he had time to look about him and Dan’s long-sighted shepherd’s eyes found no difficulty in picking out the figure. It was Meg, no doubt about it. Across the other side of the dale on the lower slopes of Dundale Knott. And what’s more she wasn’t alone. She had a dog with her. He could see it darting about and running wide in the way of all sheep dogs, rounding up a pair of ewes. He saw her stop and whistle to it and the dog change direction to obey the call.

‘Now fancy that.’ As he’d said earlier, you never knew when a piece of information would come in handy.

Chapter Six

When Sally Ann called one day that autumn there was no sign of the scared, uncertain girl who had come begging for help months earlier. Meg was glad of the visit from a friend since she had seen little of Kath since the day they’d had words over Jack. It was silly really, but Meg had walked away from her friend, refusing to listen to any more, and Kath had stood and shouted after her, calling her a fool.