Giles Hoggett, a veritable Cassandra in some respects, was dubious over the purchase of Fellcock: it was too high for milking cows, the land wanted a deal of till and cultivating to produce a good hay crop: there was no metalled road across the last half mile of fell, and the road up from the valley was steep and rough. Kate Hoggett pointed out all the difficulties of housekeeping in such a remote and lonely spot: no running water in the house, no electricity, and the flagged roof and mullioned windows needed repairing.
It wasn’t until Macdonald fetched Jock and Betty Shearling to view his longed-for property that the Hoggetts began to consider the prospect more hopefully. Macdonald had got to know Jock Shearling and Betty Fell four years ago, when he had helped the Camton police to investigate the fire at Aikengill and the sheep stealing on Croasdale Fell. Jock and Betty had been married for over three years now.
What Jock and Betty didn’t know about hill farms wasn’t worth knowing, and their great desire was to get their feet on the first step of the farming ladder. They had no capital to buy a farm of their own, but Macdonald’s offer gave them a chance to buy a few beasts of their own while they tilled his land and improved his buildings at a wage from which thrifty Betty knew she could save steadily, week by week.
Macdonald drove the young couple up to Fellcock one sunny September day, before he put in a bid for the land: he knew that Jock and Betty were accustomed to fell farming, but he wondered if Betty would say “no” to the ancient remote house. He needn’t have bothered: Betty looked at it as her future home.
“ ’Tis a good house: I can make a do of it,” she said confidently. “ ’Tis a better house than my father and mother ever had, and if it wants fettling up a bit, Jock’s handy with roofs and chimneys and suchlike.”
Jock looked at the buildings first: the long sturdy barn and the lean-to calf shippons; then he walked over the fields.
“ ’Tis good land,” he said. “Nicely placed for draining and the meadows slope to the sun. That needs some till, lime and basic slag, but you can get the hill-farm subsidy for them, and then you’ll want a tidy lot of stock—young beef cattle to start with—till the land’s in better heart. Then that’ll be fit for dairy cattle. If you let me work it, gaffer, reckon you won’t lose in t’ long run.”
So Macdonald bought his forty acres of enclosed land, together with the buildings and farmstead and rights of sheep grazing over the fell, and Betty and Jock moved in before winter and began to put things to rights. Macdonald gazed out across Lunesdale to the distant mountains and was aware of a deep-seated satisfaction. It was the first land he had ever owned: it was his own and one day that sturdy stone house would be his home. He had lived in London since he was ten years old: his career had been in London, but his roots were in the Highlands where his forebears had been crofters: in comparison with their humble steading, the land and buildings at Fellcock were rich. Macdonald knew that: he looked at the green fields and the sturdy stone house and his heart warmed to both. This was where he meant to live when he retired: surely in this place a man could live at peace; even though the world went mad, this hill country might keep its ancient dower of quietude under the northern stars.
2
It was at Michaelmas that Macdonald became owner of Fellcock—that Jock and Betty moved in—and for the next six months he was spending money on his farm steadily. He paid for the grazing cattle and the young stock, for a tractor and implements, for hay and concentrates, for repairs to barn and shippon and house, for furniture and paint and wallpaper, but every time he visited the place, the house was more like home, the land in better heart, the grazing cattle thriving. In March, the first of his beef cattle went to market and lambing was near at hand: Jock had rounded the ewes up from the fell and they were brought into the pastures adjacent to the house. On Lady Day, Macdonald drove north, a full week’s leave ahead of him, to observe the lambing—his first lambing as “gaffer.” Jock Shearling used the old term of respect: the gaffer was the master, the hind was the man, or bailiff; in the conservative north, especially in the remote fell country, ancient terms were still used and it somehow pleased Macdonald to be addressed as “gaffer”: the word was native to the district. “Sir” does not come naturally to the lips of the country fraternity in the north: “boss” smacked of the town, but “gaffer” was still a term of respect.
It was nearly four o’clock on a sunny afternoon when Macdonald turned from the main road on the south bank of the River Lune and began to climb into the hills: he drove through the village of Crossghyll, where folks were beginning to recognise him and hands were waved in welcome. All the village folk knew who he was and had probably commented on his temerity in buying a hill farm, “at his age, too: ’tis a young man’s job, is Fellcock.” But Jock and Betty had silenced the critics. “He’s got a head on his shoulders: he’s a worker, and he’s kind and straight with it,” said Betty, and Jock said, “If you take Mr. Macdonald for a fool, the fool’s yourself.” So the villagers waved to the newcomer from London and reminded themselves that Macdonald had done a good job when he rounded up
