“One o’ the oldest, they says. The Knuttons lived at the Manor Farm up at Caldecott for more’n a hundred years. But we’ve come down in the world since then.”
“The Manor Farm is the one attached to the Manor of Caldecott, eh?”
“It’s close to Caldecott Manor House. There’s fifteen hundred acres o’ land with it. And nowadays, sir, I often works on that self-same land for Mr. Banks, what owns it now.”
“Are you the oldest of your family?”
“No, sir, Dick was. I was the second. Dick was the lucky ’un, and was old Mr. Banks’ foreman for years; that was in the present Mr. Banks’ father’s time, when farmin’ was a lot better than what it is now. Lor’, sir, in this district three-quarters of the farms scarcely pay their rents. All the landlords ought to be generous like the Duke o’ Bedford; but they ain’t, and we labourers have to suffer.”
“More work and less beer,” I remarked, with a laugh.
“Well, sir, when you mention beer, I’d be pleased to drink a pint at your expense.” A remark which showed the rustic cadger.
“And so you shall when we’ve finished our talk,” I said. “Tell me, have you ever heard or known of any person called Wollerton?”
“Wollerton!” he repeated. “Why, now that I remember, that’s the very question the gentleman asked me the day before yesterday.”
“What gentleman?” I gasped.