Wastralls: A Novel

by C. A. Dawson Scott

"Well, I think it's my business as I'm yer 'usband. You ought to let me 'av it."

"What's the good to let you 'av it, you dunno nothing about farmin'. You bin to sea most all yer life. 'Tis years an' years since you ploughed a bit o' ground."

A dark colour came into the bridegroom's cheek. "'Ow can you say that when I was brought up on the land. I knaw all about farm work. 'Aving married you, to 'av the farm's my due."

Sabina sat very straight in her chair. "Now once for all," said she, "let's settle this matter. Wastralls is mine, and I dare you to so much as lay a finger on it. If you want to farm so much as all that, Higher Polnevas is to let, and its fields are joinin' ours. Why don't you go over and take that? I'll let you 'av the money for that, but you won't 'av Wastralls."

Byron had not expected opposition. Sabina, being a woman, would naturally be glad to have the outdoor work taken off her hands. His surprise at her attitude was so intense that he stared at her in a helpless silence, until she clinched the matter by exclaiming in her hearty, fresh-air voice, "'Tis no good for 'ee to think anything about it."

This phrase opened the flood-gates. Usually somewhat silent, he had moods when the words tumbled over each other in a multitude beyond counting. Perceiving he had miscalculated he set to work to retrieve his error and, during the course of the evening, learnt many things but not how to make Sabina change her mind. The poor man, desperately afraid, did all he knew. He entreated and she smiled, he blustered and she laughed, he cajoled and she warmed to him but, though she warmed, she did not weaken. Her first word was her last: "'Tis no good for 'ee to think anything about it."

Byron was helpless. He could not win her to his will, neither could he break her. She was capable, as she let him see, of separating from him. If he appealed to the hinds, they would side with her. Her cousins at Hember and St. Cadic, the neighbours in the adjacent valleys, would take her part.

Turning the matter over, however, he perceived that time, by giving Sabina fresh interests, fresh cares, might prove his friend. Nurslings tie the mother to the house and when the babies came his wife would have her hands full. She must let go what she could not hold; and he would be ready to pick up, bit by bit, what she let fall.

In this hope he settled to his new life. It was unthinkable that he should attempt to farm Higher Polnevas, when his mind was filled with Wastralls. Of a brooding nature, through which at times flames of emotion broke, he was content to spend his days thinking out and dwelling on the changes he would make when his opportunity came. Sabina's farming, cautious and well-considered, chafed him. He wanted the land to bring forth a hundredfold where she now gave a mere return. He was her lover asking of her all that she could give, eager only to have the exploiting of her possibilities. To make her fruitful was to be his work. He saw the seed swell in her bosom, the silent marvel of growth, the harvest that should reward his husbandry; and, because out of the heart the mouth speaketh, when he talked it was of intensive farming, of the money that lay in sugar-beet, strawberries, asparagus, of market-gardening and the use of glass. Thereby he damaged his cause; for Sabina, listening, came to the conclusion that she had married an unpractical dreamer. If he believed in his theories why did he not rent land and prove them? That he only talked, satisfied her that she had been right in her refusal to let him farm Wastralls and her grip on the land tightened. The kindly fields deserved better of her than that she should put them at the mercy of a dreamer.

Whether or no the man's life that she led did her disservice, it is certain that no children came to modify the situation. In the loft, the carved wooden cradle lay with only the wind to set it a-rock; below, the rooms were as empty of new life as is a whispering conch. The bustle of the farm was like the swish of water about a rock islet, that little spot of sterility and stagnation at the heart of multitudinous life. Sabina, who had natural instincts, who had mothered a bibulous father and many a bit of life from the fields and hedges, was disappointed; but her feeling was mild compared with that of her husband. His children were to have delivered Wastralls into his hand, assuaged at last the long ache of his passion; but the years turned on their axes, going as they had come. At first Byron bore himself with a good courage. After the unprofitable days of his seafaring it was enough to watch the tamarisk stems warming into red life, to spend the daylight wandering over the well-known ground, to return at night to the grey house on its shelf of rock. If, after a while, these delights palled, it was because they led nowhither.