CHAPTER IX
A DIFFERENCE WITH THE DUCHY
Newtake Farm, by reason of Will’s recent occupancy, could offer no very considerable return during his first year as tenant; but that he understood and accepted, and the tribulation which now fell upon him was of his own making. To begin with, Sam Bonus vanished from the scene. On learning, soon after the event, that Bonus had discussed Hicks and himself at Chagford, and detailed his private conversation with Martin Grimbal, Blanchard, in a fury, swept off to the loft where his man slept, roused him from rest, threw down the balance of his wages, and dismissed him on the spot. He would hear no word in explanation, and having administered a passionate rebuke, departed as he had come, like a whirlwind. Sam, smarting under this injustice, found the devil wake in him through that sleepless night, and had there stood rick or stack within reach of revenge, he might have dealt his master a return blow before morning. As usual, after the lapse of hours, Will cooled down, modified his first fiery indignation, and determined, yet without changing his mind, to give Bonus an opportunity of explaining the thing he had done. Chris had brought the news from Clement himself, and Will, knowing that his personal relations with Clement were already strained, felt that in justice to his servant he must be heard upon the question. But, when he sought Sam Bonus, though still the dawn was only grey, he found the world fuller for him by another enemy, for the man had taken him at his word and departed. During that day and the next Will made some effort to see Bonus, but nothing came of it, so, dismissing the matter from his mind, he hired a new labourer—one Teddy Chown, son of Abraham Chown, the Inspector of Police—and pursued his way.
Then his unbounded energy led him into difficulties of a graver sort. Will had long cast covetous eyes on a tract of moorland immediately adjoining Newtake, and there being little to do at the moment, he conceived the adventurous design of reclaiming it. The patch was an acre and a half in extent—a beggarly, barren region, where the heather thinned away and the black earth shone with water and disintegrated granite. Quartz particles glimmered over it; at the centre black pools of stagnant water marked an abandoned peat cutting; any spot less calculated to attract an agricultural eye would have been hard to imagine; but Blanchard set to work, began to fill the greedy quag in the midst with tons of soil, and soon caused the place to look business-like—at least in his own estimation. As for the Duchy, he did not trouble himself. The Duchy itself was always reclaiming land without considering the rights and wrongs of the discontented Venville tenants, and Will knew of many a “newtake” besides this he contemplated. Indeed, had not the whole farm, of which he was now master, been rescued from the Moor in time past? He worked hard, therefore, and his new assistant, though not a Bonus, proved stout and active. Chris, who still dwelt with her brother, was sworn to secrecy respecting Will’s venture; and so lonely a region did the farm occupy that not until he had put a good month of work into the adjacent waste were any of those in authority aware of the young farmer’s performance.
A day came when the new land was cleaned, partly ploughed, and wholly surrounded by a fence of split stumps, presently to be connected by wires. At these Chown was working, while Will had just arrived with a load of earth to add to the many tons already poured upon that hungry central patch. He held the tailboard of the cart in his hand and was about to remove it; when, looking up, his heart fluttered a moment despite his sturdy consciousness of right. On the moor above him rode grey old Vogwell, the Duchy’s man. His long beard fluttered in the wind, and Will heard the thud of his horse’s hoofs as he cantered quickly to the scene, passed between two of the stakes, and drew up alongside Blanchard.
“Marnin’, Mr. Vogwell! Fine weather, to be sure, an’ gude for the peat next month; but bad for roots, an’ no mistake. Will ’e have a drink?”
Mr. Vogwell gazed sternly about him, then fixed his little bright eyes on the culprit.
“What do this mean, Will Blanchard?”
“Well, why not? Duchy steals all the gude land from Venwell men; why for shouldn’t us taake a little of the bad? This here weern’t no gude to man or mouse. Ban’t ’nough green stuff for a rabbit ’pon it. So I just thought I’d give it a lick an’ a promise o’ more later on.”
“‘A lick an’ a promise’! You’ve wasted a month’s work on it, to the least.”
“Well, p’raps I have—though ban’t wasted. Do ’e think, Mr. Vogwell, as the Duchy might be disposed to give me a hand?”