“That’s just it,” agreed Mr. Brough.
3
“I was going to ask Jock Shearling if he’d had any bother with them gangers coming over, cadging eggs and that,” went on Mr. Brough. “The pipe line’s only five miles away as the crow flies just now: the surveyors planned the line so’s to avoid the rocky outcrop they’d have struck if they’d taken the line direct over Bowland: they swung north a bit, nearer to our fells, but they’ll turn southwest again from now on and the gangs won’t be so near. I’ll be glad to know they’re farther off. I never like having casual labour near farmsteads and stock, and they’re a rough lot of chaps working out yonder.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Macdonald, “but Jock’s no complaint to make about the gangers, on the contrary in fact. You’ll have noticed that our track’s been made up, Mr. Brough, and we’ve got a decent surface to drive on right up to the house.”
“Aye, I couldn’t help but notice: that’s a right good job, that is. Makes a mort o’ difference to have a clean road up to the house and buildings. I’d been wondering how you got that done, Mr. Macdonald, unless so be the council did it for you by contract.”
“The council didn’t do any of the work,” rejoined Macdonald. “They let us have a load or so of asphalt and road grit which they had over from the job at Greenbeck, but Jock tackled the job: he did the levelling and laid the stones himself, and finished the job with the help of one of those gangers from the pipe-line works. This chap turned up one Saturday afternoon, saw Jock working, and cadged a job. Jock said he was a good worker and they finished the surfacing together. Jock paid him at the rate of half a crown an hour and the chap seemed satisfied.”
“Well . . . I’d never’ve believed it, never,” said Brough. “That’s a rum go, that is: them chaps up there, they’ll curse you to your face if you offer them a job in their free time, or that’s my experience when I’ve wanted some casual labour, laying drains and suchlike. And I’ve warned them off more ’n once, reckoning they was up to no good coming over farmland.”
“Well, Jock seems to have struck it lucky with the chap who worked for him,” said Macdonald, “and there haven’t been any others at Fellcock. I asked Betty, because I know she’s often alone for hours on end and I didn’t like to think of her being bothered.”
“Reckon she’s got plenty of gumption, Mrs. Shearling has, and she’s got a good dog: these gangers don’t like dogs,” said Mr. Brough. “Well, I’m glad one of them had the sense to lend a hand at a useful job, but I can’t help wondering what he was after when he came tramping over t’ fell. The contractors lay on a lorry to take the chaps down to the main road midday Saturdays so’s they can have a break. They won’t stick it up in the huts weekends. It’s well run, that job is.”
Macdonald nodded. “Aye. I had a word with the manager one day: he’s an experienced man. He’s organised these labour camps for the contractors in a number of remote localities and he knows all the problems that arise when you get gangs of casual labour miles away from the decencies of ordinary home life.”
4
“Well, I’d like to tell you just what I had in mind,” said Mr. Brough at last. “I’ve rented Nat Borwick’s land since he gave up best part of ten years ago and I’ve tried to play fair with him, keeping up his fences and ditches and that, so things didn’t go to rack and ruin. The old man’s gone childish now, no sense he’s got: likely he won’t last long now, but there’s his old woman to think of, and she worries about High Garth Hall. I’d like to look over the house and see how things are: now you being a policeman—arm of the law as they say—I wondered if you’d come with me, so there can’t be any back-chat like, if so be we find things aren’t as they should be.”
“I’d be quite willing to come over the house with you, Mr. Brough, but how are you going to get in? Will Mrs. Borwick let you have the keys?”
“I sometimes wonder if she knows where the keys are,” replied Brough. “Old Nat, he had them safe enough for years, but where he’s got them now is a different story.”
“Well, that makes it rather awkward, Mr. Brough. We can’t break in. Now has Mr. Borwick got a solicitor?”
“No, that he hasn’t. When I rented the land from old Nat, I suggested we’d get a lawyer to make out a proper legal agreement, but Nat wouldn’t have it. ‘Lawyers is for rogues,’ he said. ‘You and me, we be honest men and we don’t want to go paying nought to lawyers. We’ll fix what’s right between our two selves as honest men should.’ And that’s how it was,” said Mr. Brough. “Every quarter day ever since then I’ve been to see old Nat and paid him what we agreed, paid him in cash, the way he wanted it. He’s never lost by it: he trusted me and I’ve paid him his money and he knows I’ll go on paying it as long as I use the land.”
“Well, you have your own way of doing business,” rejoined Macdonald. “You say he’s getting childish. Can he still count the money when you pay it?”
“Aye, he counts it and Mrs. Borwick she watches him do it and he still signs his name in the same rent book we started with, nigh on
