Sir Moses—(turning flesh-colour with fury) “O’er dear! Why, isn’t it the rent you yourself offered for it?”
Henerey—“Why, why, but we hadn’t looked her carefully over.”
“Bigger fool you,” ejaculated the Jew.
“The land’s far worse nor we took it for—some of the plough’s a shem to be seen—wor stable rains in desprate—there isn’t a dry place for a coo—the back wall of the barn’s all bulgin oot—the pigs get into wor garden for want of a gate—there isn’t a fence ‘ill turn a foal—the hars eat all wor tormots—we’re perfectly ruined wi’ rats,” and altogether Henerey opened such a battery of grievances as completely drove Sir Moses, who hated anyone to talk but himself, from his seat, and made him leave the finish of his friend to Mr. Teaser.
As the Baronet went swinging out of the room he mentally exclaimed, “Never saw such a man as that in my life—dom’d if ever I did!”
Mr. Teaser then proceeded with the wretched audit, each succeeding tenant being a repetition of the first—excuses—drawbacks—allowances for lime—money no matter to Sir Moses—and this with a whole year’s rent due, to say nothing of hopeless arrears.
“How the deuce,” as Sir Moses asked, “do people live who have nothing but land?”
When Sir Moses returned, at the end of an hour or so, he found one of the old tenants of the estate, Jacky Hindmarch, in the chair. Jacky was one of the real scratching order of farmers, and ought to be preserved at Madame Tussaud’s or the British Museum, for the information of future ages. To see him in the fields, with his crownless hat and tattered clothes, he was more like a scare-crow than a farmer; though, thanks to the influence of cheap finery, he turned out very shiney and satiney on a Sunday. Jacky had seventy acres of land,—fifty acres of arable and twenty acres of grass, which latter he complimented with an annual mowing without giving it any manure in return, thus robbing his pastures to feed his fallows,—if, indeed, he did not rob both by selling the manure off his farm altogether. Still Jacky was reckoned a cute fellow among his compatriots. He had graduated in the Insolvent Debtors’ Court to evade his former landlord’s claims, and emerged from gaol with a good stock of bad law engrafted on his innate knavery. In addition to this, Jacky, when a hind, had nearly had to hold up his hand at Quarter Sessions for stealing his master’s corn, which he effected in a very ingenious way:—The granary being above Jacky’s stable, he bored a hole through the floor, to which he affixed a stocking; and, having drawn as much corn as he required, he stopped the hole up with a plug until he wanted a fresh supply. The farmer—one Mr. Podmore—at length smelt a rat; but giving Jacky in charge rather prematurely, he failed in substantiating the accusation, when the latter, acting “under advice,” brought an action against Podmore, which ended in a compromise, Podmore having to pay Jacky twenty pounds for robbing him! This money, coupled with the savings of a virtuous young woman he presently espoused, and who had made free with the produce of her master’s dairy, enabled Jacky to take the farm off which he passed through the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, on to the Pangburn Park estate, where he was generally known by the name of Lawyer Hindmarch.
Jacky and his excellent wife attempted to farm the whole seventy acres themselves; to plough, harrow, clean, sow, reap, mow, milk, churn,—do everything, in fact; consequently they were always well in arrear with their work, and had many a fine run after the seasons. If Jacky got his turnips in by the time other people were singling theirs, he was thought to do extremely well. To see him raising the seed-furrow in the autumn, a stranger would think he was ploughing in a green crop for manure, so luxuriant were the weeds. But Jacky Hindmarch would defend his system against Mr. Mechi himself; there being no creature so obstinate or intractable as a pig-headed farmer. A landlord had better let his land to a cheesemonger, a greengrocer, a draper, anybody with energy and capital, rather than to one of these self-sufficient, dawdling nincompoops. To be sure, Jacky farmed as if each year was to be his last, but he wouldn’t have been a bit better if he had had a one-and-twenty years’ lease before him. “Take all out and put nothing in,” was his motto. This was the genius who was shuffling, and haggling, and prevaricating with Mr. Teaser when Sir Moses returned, and who now gladly skulked off: Henerey Brown not having reported very favourably of the great man’s temper.
The next to come was a woman,—a great, mountainous woman—one Mrs. Peggy Turnbull, wife of little Billy Turnbull of Lowfield Farm, who, she politely said, was not fit to be trusted from home by hisself.—Mrs. Turnbull was, though, being quite a match for any man in the country, either with her tongue or her fists. She was a great masculine knock-me-down woman, round as a sugar-barrel, with a most extravagant stomach, wholly absorbing her neck, and reaching quite up to her chin. Above the barrel was a round, swarthy, sunburnt face, lit up with a pair of keen little twinkling beady black eyes. She paused in her roll as she neared the chair, at which she now cast a contemptuous look, as much as to say, “How can I ever get into such a thing as that?”