"Favors her mother," Tom resumed. "Mrs. Osborn's heart is good, but at Tarnside women dinna count. It's a kind o' pity, because t' Osborn menfolk are lakers and always was."
A laker is a lounging pleasure-seeker and Kit admitted that the remark was justified.
"I sometimes think Osborn means well," he said.
"Mayhappen! For aw his ordering folks aboot, he's wake; like his father, I mind him weel. Might mak' a fair landlord if he was letten and had t' money; but oad Hayes is grasping and always at his tail."
"The rent-roll's good. The estate could be managed well."
"There's t' mortgages and Osborn canna keep money. When he has it he must spend. There would be nea poor landlord's, if I had my way. I'd let them putten rents up if they had money and spent it on the land. Low rent means poor farming."
Kit knew this was true on the Tarnside estate. Dykes that had kept the floods off the meadows were falling down, drains were choked, and land that had grown good crops was going sour. The wise use of capital would make a wholesome change, but Kit did not altogether like centralized control. Although it was economical, the landlord got the main advantage, and there was much a farmer could do, in cooperation with his neighbors, to help himself, if his lease was long enough. Then, joint action was once common in the dale. Men pooled their labor and implements at hay time and harvest, and combined for their mutual benefit in other ways. Now it looked as if they might combine again.
"Are they grumbling much at Allerby about burning peat?" he asked.
"T' women grumble," Tom said dryly. "But they willunt stop, for aw the dirt peat maks an' they canna get ovens hot. I reckon Bell has mair coal coming in than he can get shut of. When I was at station last t' yards was nearly full."
"I rather think Bell has been too greedy. He must pay for the coal as it arrives and his money is probably getting short; the traction engine and trailer cost a good sum, and he has spent something on the lime-kilns. In fact, if we hold on, he's bound to give way."