Even there, though, settled round the kitchen table, with his lordship at one end and the agent at the other, there was a frivolous tendency to regard the meeting more as a friendly “crack” than a call to business. It was some time before Bluecaster, at last allowing Brack’s deeply-chagrined countenance to swim gently into his ken, hammered on the table for silence. Then he got to his feet diffidently, stammering and sticking a little, his glance travelling nervously from face to face. He had Will Holliday on his right hand, and Dockeray on his left, with Bownass of Moss End beyond, Bradley of Wilson Fold and old Simon Farrer of Meadow’s Ing. They looked at each other stolidly, and said “Ay, ay! Yon’s reet!” at intervals.
Brack was about the middle, with Wolf on one side and a joyful Holliday cousin ready with gibes on the other. Denny sat directly across, and pretended to be rowing hard whenever he thought Bluecaster wasn’t looking. Brack stared over him and through him, and hated the whole lot of them, lock, stock and barrel. It was a pity they were too stuck in the mud to recognise real merit when they ran into it head first.
Lanty listened to Bluecaster’s speech with the faint discomfort that he always experienced under his employer’s efforts. In the landlord’s place, and in his own present grim mood, he would have told the lot of them to stay and be drowned or clear out and be damned, but that wasn’t Bluecaster’s way at all. On the contrary, he was always pathetically anxious to carry a stray leg of anybody’s donkey.
A question had been raised about the Lugg, he told them—was it really as safe as was made out? There was an old theory just brought up again that in flood-time the tide hadn’t enough room. Well, it always had had enough room, they knew that, but of course nobody could answer for the future. The question was—were they justified in continuing to gamble on the point? The late Mr. Lancaster, whom they had all known, and not only known but respected, had given as his definite opinion that there was no gamble in the matter at all. World-famous engineers had, after the first, backed that opinion, and so far the Lugg had proved them all right. Mr. Lancaster had affirmed that it was no sort of danger to the east side, while it meant a great benefit to the north. Speaking as a landowner, he was naturally anxious to see the estate improved and extended, but, speaking as a man, he was not willing to risk, even upon a mere possibility, good tenants who were also, he hoped, his very good friends. If the Lugg was really a danger, it must go, but he felt sure that wouldn’t be necessary. He would now call upon Mr. Bracken Holliday of Thweng to put before them his views on the matter.
Brack was only too ready to be up, in spite of cousinly adjurations to “Hod thy gab, an’ let yan o’ t’aald yans kick off!” Denny was now swimming violently behind Bradley’s back, but Brack ignored him, fixing his eyes on Bluecaster. He was nervous at first—the antagonism in the atmosphere had the passivity but also the resistance of the yard wall—but it ceased to embarrass him as he warmed to his subject. His pace quickened, his words came easily. For the moment he forgot any petty personal animosity, and the sincerity of his belief wrung attention even from the most scathing mocker.
He knew he was a stranger, nowadays, he said, and what had been good enough for them for so long was sure good enough for him. That was one way of looking at it, no doubt. But—now he didn’t want to put on frills!—he’d knocked about the world more than a bit, and he’d seen little jokes played by Nature that here on the marsh they’d just laugh down and out if he was fool enough to waste time telling them. But they had set his mind’s eye jumping, and it was still jumping when he settled down at Thweng. At first he had been content to take the word of older men than himself, but after a while that mind’s eye of his got jumping again, and told him right out that the Lugg had got the cinch on the top marsh-farms. No, he didn’t believe they were safe! He had a slap-up, cracker-jack reason for refusing to believe it, but he meant to keep it to himself, along with the jokes in meteorology. They had no guarantee, except an almighty run of luck, (that was probably pretty well run out, by now), that the Lugg wasn’t throttling the bay. They had never had a real storm to test it, not one of those storms that could buck the roof off creation. The Lugg had never seen the real goods. There had been an imitation, fifty or sixty years back—his uncle would remember it—when the marsh roads were under water for a week. There was no Let then, certainly, but he opined the Let wouldn’t have made much difference, and anyway the flood had had full room. That wasn’t the case, now. They had no guarantee—he struck one hand against the other and the cousin copied him, while Denny swam harder than ever—he didn’t mind repeating it, because it was the thing he wanted to hammer plum into their minds—they had no guarantee that the Lugg wasn’t throttling the bay! It wasn’t as if the tides were backing off. He guessed it was the other way about. From what he could remember before he went West, the force of the inflow was greater now than it had been then. He wasn’t setting out to say it was much, but the mere fact itself meant a lot. He called upon his uncle to say how close on Pippin walls the last winter tides had brought the sea.
Avuncular love failed him, however, for Willie, disgusted at being thus dragged in without notice, was understood to reply that he wasn’t “in t’dock or any sic-like spot,” and Brack had to fall back once more upon his own unsupported eloquence.
It wasn’t as if the Lugg protected the north farms. It hadn’t even that excuse. Ninekyrkes and Ladyford were safe enough, W.P. and G.W., with the Let to guard them. But all the Lugg protected was land clean robbed from the sea, while it threatened other land that the sea had given them of its own accord. So far, the sea hadn’t fired them out, but it would do it some day. He was dead sure the estate was crowding its luck! As tenant of a marsh-farm, sharing what he reckoned a very real danger, he asked his lordship right now to give the matter his earnest attention.
He sat down abruptly, and the cousin patted him violently on the back, disarranging the set of his coat. There was a pause, during which everybody looked at the agent, and after a glance at Bluecaster he slowly obeyed the unspoken call.
Brack’s virulent letter in mind, he had been surprised by the temperate tone of his speech. Perhaps he was reserving his private knowledge of the Almighty’s intentions for a peroration to be appended later. But thus far he was behaving well enough, and deserved a temperate reply.