Samuel objected that the ground was wet, rather boggy in fact in the bottoms.
“Infill, sir! The pit produces an amount of spoil which is tipped to the side wherever there is spare ground at the moment. Build the trackway first, sir, and tip the loads onto the marshy parts, with a set of ditches to take the expressed water away to the river, by way of a settling pond such as I have seen in London down by the Thames. There it is the slag from the smelters, mostly copper but some of iron as well, that is dumped. There are tens of thousands of horses in London and so a need for bar stock for shoes and it is cheaper to bring in ore and coke than to try to heat up made ingots or pigs of iron. There is a deal of metal-working down by the River, sir.”
Samuel had vaguely noticed that to be the case, had not known why.
“A pity we have no source of ore close to our pits – we could smelt our own iron. There is a great call for the metal, I believe.”
“What of sand, Mr Heythorne?”
“Not so far distant, Mr Higgins. Not tomorrow, which we shall spend talking with the suppliers of timber and with our chippy for the building of the trackway. The day after, perhaps, we must spend examining the nature of the sands to be discovered in our vicinity.”
The sands were coarse, a red sandstone needing to be crushed, and not perfect for glass, but they were adequate for gin bottles.
“We do not need a clear metal, Mr Heythorne. If the gin bottle is a little on the cloudy side – well, what does that matter? We are not to produce crystal drinking glasses or sheet window panes or port decanters. The product is to be strong and within reason cheap, and the sands available in this part of the county will do us well.”
It was especially useful that the sands in question were no more than four miles over to the west of Palethorpe. It would be possible to set four-horse wagons on the existing road, after mending its surface initially. There would be a need to rebuild the bridge across the river, but that was not too difficult or expensive a task.
The sole problem seemed to be the location of the sands; they surfaced in a sloping field on a middling squire’s estate and within sight of his old manor house. The gentry were always unwilling to sell any of their land and this one would hardly wish to lease a field to turn into an unsightly pit not a furlong from his front windows. The first need would be to discover who the owner was and then find out his financial standing. He might, with a little luck, be in debt and then he could be persuaded very easily to alienate just a few acres of his patrimony. If it was not so simple, then other measures must be considered.
“The real problem will be if his lands are entailed, Mr Higgins. Then he would be unable to sell whether or not he wished to.”
Mr Higgins had not heard of the entail, needed an explanation.
“Best we should look about for other places with sand, Mr Heythorne, so as to have an alternative if needs be.”
Samuel agreed and they turned away to mount the gig they had left tied to the gate to the field. There was a small boy waiting for them, petting the horse the while.
“My dad says who are you and what you doing in ‘is Five-Acre Field?”
The child, no more than a ten year old, did not sound like the offspring of a gentleman,
“My name is Mr Samuel Heythorne. Does your father own this field?”
“Dad’s Farmer Mayland, as is. Which, I don’t know as ‘ow ‘e owns it, but ‘e got the farming of it. Puts up the young steers in season, so ‘e do, in ‘ere.”
“Can you take us to Farmer Mayland’s yard so that I can speak to him?”
“Up the lane a bit and off uphill a way. Couple of minutes’ walk.”
“Will you take us there?”
Samuel fished in his pocket, came up with a sixpenny bit. The coin disappeared and the boy showed willing to take them wherever they wished.
“You ain’t like vicar, are you, sir? Vicar gives I sixpence most weeks, but I got to drop me breeches for ‘im when ‘e do.”
Samuel shook his head, explained that he was a businessman, not a priest.
“What parish is this, boy?”
“Dunno. I suppose we’re Chapel Chorlton way, you might say. You coming up to see me dad?”
They followed as demanded, found Farmer Mayland in a small yard, trimming a blackthorn hedgerow that ran around two sides.
“Mr Mayland? My name is Mr Heythorne and this in Mr Higgins who works for me. We are looking for sand to quarry for a glassworks we are to build. Your Five Acre Field has sands which could be of use to me. I would wish either to buy or to rent the field. Purchase would be best as the quarry will destroy the land for farming.”
“Can’t nohow, master. Tenant is all that I be. Leasehold off Squire Tackenham what got the big ‘ouse across the way, as well as owning one of they pottery kiln things in Stoke. Full of juice ‘e is and ‘e ain’t one to go letting a tenant sublet a field, even if suppose I wanted to. Ain’t no good trying to talk to ‘im now any case, for ‘im being in London for a month or two.”
“That could be a nuisance, Mr Mayland. Do you know of other outcroppings of sand in the area?”
Samuel jingled a couple of guineas in his hand as he asked.
“T’other side of the hill, another two miles along the lane, across the bit of a vale there, with the stream in it. Boggy come winter. You don’t want to be trying to run a wagon there, master.”
Samuel handed over the pair of coins – that information was well worth the money.
“Tackenham, you say, the name was, Mr Mayland?”
“Squire, as is, master. Quick tempered old bugger, so ‘e do be. Not one for talking to ordinary folks, not at all.”
“Has he an agent?”
“Got a bailiff, what does as ‘e’s told. Used to was, ‘e ‘ad an agent but they fell out and the agent told ‘im what an old bastard ‘e really was – in front of every bugger down at the market in Stone! Laugh? I thought I were going to pee me drawers! Anyhow, ‘e ain’t got no agent now, master.”
“Well… we must see, Mr Mayland. I very much want to take loads of sand for the glass we are to make.”
They turned to go, were delayed by Mayland calling to them.
“Thinking on it, master. You ain’t the first what wanted that old sand. There was a bloke last year, ‘e never come and talked to I but ‘e did to the old bailiff. Wanted sand for pig iron, so the bailiff said. Didn’t get it.”
They called their thanks and drove away.
“Moulding sand, Mr Heythorne. Better use coarse sand for that. Got to be like our sand, no clay in it. That’s why it makes good sense to crush sandstone not dig it out of river beds.”
Samuel nodded, added another piece of knowledge to his memory.
“We want the sand, Mr Higgins. Far cheaper than having to go further and build a road and a bridge across a wet valley. Go ahead at Palethorpe, Mr Higgins. Draw up your plans for the glassworks and everything it needs. We shall get sand from somewhere, don’t worry about that. We know there is sand in the near vicinity now. Cost everything up, as well as you can. Where will you get workers, Mr Higgins? You will need a few trained glass-blowers from the very start, will you not?”
“Always some in London, Mr Heythorne. Boys that works with their dads and learns the trade, like I did, and then has to hang about as journeymen and labourers until one of the old men dies and there’s a place for them. Time I need them, sir, a letter to my father and he will send half a dozen good youngsters up here. Arranged that with him before I come away, sir. He’ll be glad to help, sir.”
“Good! We shall do very well, Mr Higgins. You are a thinking man.”
“Nick – I have a problem with sand.”
Samuel explained his difficulty.
“Oh, Mr Heythorne, I am sure we can find a way around that little difficulty. Squire Tackenham, who has a pottery as well as land? I will discuss the matter with Mr Malone first of all.”
Chapter Ten
Killing’s Reward
Sec
tion Two - AD 1765
“Do you know anything of a Squire Tackenham, Mother? From out Chapel Chorlton way?”
Josie shook her head, she had never heard of the name.
“It is likely that Mr Rowlands will know of him, if he is a squire. Why?”
Samuel explained about the sands he wanted access to.
“Difficult, my son. These little landholders will never sell their acres until they are forced to by the courts. Farmers are less of a problem – one can always buy a yeoman out. The owners of great estates will, from what I have read, sell small acreages in exchange for a part-ownership in a coal or iron mine. The in-between holders hang on tight to every acre. It is their land that makes them gentry, you see. Sell up and they become rich and then fall in social status. They might end up with a higher income from money properly invested, but they are no longer squires. This man Tackenham will fear to lose his status if he sells.”
Samuel saw the problem. There seemed to him to be an easy answer.
“Mr Nick, I wish to purchase a five acre field from Tackenham. What if I were to purchase say ten acres in the neighbourhood and offer him that in exchange? He would end up with more land, not less.”
Nick doubted it would work.
“More likely that he would offer thee cash for the ten acres but refuse to alienate any of the land his father had left to him, Mr Heythorne. It is a belief not a rational consideration that leads such as him to refuse to sell their land.”
Samuel had little patience for such stuck in the mud old fools.
“We are living in a new age, Mr Nick! I can find no sympathy for such idiocy! He has sense enough to have bought into a pottery kiln – one might expect him to have an understanding for the needs of a glass works.”
Nick thought that understanding was too much to beg of any squire.
“Even if he is clever enough to see a profit in a kiln, he has beliefs about his land which are akin to religion, Mr Heythorne. He knows that he must not sell any of his land – reason has no part to play. He probably will not sell for any consideration.”
“Then what is to be done, Mr Nick?”
“We should examine the possibilities, sir. It is often the case that a way may be found where there is a positive will to attain a solution. I believe, Mr Heythorne, that where one approach does not succeed then an alternative must be discovered. If he will not accept money for the land, then we should take a less direct tack, as the naval folk might say… Let me talk to Mr Malone first - he is a knowing man and may have a suggestion for me. If that course proves unsuccessful, then I may have to take the matter to the adjudication of my little friends. Fear not, sir, we will triumph over all opposition – we shall advance to the clarion call of the trumpets of righteousness! We shall prevail over the forces of blind illogic and ancient unthinking habit!”
Samuel blinked and agreed, wondering if Mr Nick might not perhaps be feeling a little unwell. He sought the opinion of his mother.
“Mr Nick, Mother, made reference to his ‘little friends’ as providing a solution to our problem with Squire Tackenham. Is he in the habit of talking to the fairies, perhaps?”
Josie shook her head, regretting that her son might have to grow up earlier than she could have wished. She would have preferred him to be more knowledgeable in the ways of the world before he tackled the concept of murder.
“Mr Nick is unconventional, shall we say, in some of his ways, Samuel. He tends often to take a simple approach to opposition to his will. His little friends are a pair of cutthroat razors who have come to his aid on a number of occasions. If Squire Tackenham cannot be brought to see reason, then it may be the case that Nick will prefer to negotiate with his heirs. The less you know about that, the better! Do not ask what he is to do and under no circumstances make enquiry after the event. If Squire Tackenham should be struck by early mortality, then you are to be much amazed and will wonder how such an event might have come to pass. It is the case that one old stuck in the mud squire cannot be permitted to stand in the way of necessary progress, Samuel, and we must regret the means employed to cause his obstructionism to cease – but no more than a private sadness, sir!”
Samuel blinked and ventured a tentative remonstrance.
“It does sound remarkably like unlawful killing, Mother.”
“We must sometimes make our own law, Samuel. The sands are necessary to our business. You will build a glassworks using it to provide jobs for many men and women, that will feed their families and bring prosperity to the village where they live. Should such a benison be aborted by the foolishness of one old man?”
It was unanswerable, Samuel agreed.
“We do not yet know that he will refuse us, Mother. We are not to act prematurely, I trust.”
“I am sure Mr Nick may be trusted to determine what action is appropriate and when, Samuel. Now, I am rather busy this morning – have you any other important matters to consider?”
Samuel retired and sat a few minutes with a calming pot of tea before deciding that certain decisions must be left in the hands of his elders and betters. He took a horse for Palethorpe to discuss the building of the new furnace and cone.
Nick visited Mr Malone the next day, discussing various matters on which they normally collaborated before bringing up Squire Tackenham’s name.
“Ah, that old bastard, Nick! You want nothing to do with that one. I have more than once come close to doing something about him and his big mouth and ill temper. The man has no sense of proportion! Forever raising a complaint about one thing or another, and never wishful to dig his hand into his own pocket to find an answer.”
“What especially, Mr Malone, just of late, that is?”
“Flooding of the ditches which carry the waste away from the lower parts of the town. Sure, they are not too pleasant a sight when they back up and deposit their contents on the street, and the smell is none too delightful, you might say. But the floods dissipate, and the streets clean themselves after a few showers of rain and all is well without the need to spend thousands on sewers and such. If Mr Bloody Tackenham wants sewers, then let him pay for them. There has been never a sewer for centuries past and for me, there never will be!”
Nick agreed that the demand was outlandish, made very little sense.
“And as for rats – well, the rats clear up the bulk of the mess, as stands to reason. They do the town good.”
The man was unreasonable – rats were all over every town, and so they should be, Nick agreed.
“Proposing to go to law, so he is, Nick, for the flooding being a nuisance that the Mayor and Corporation must alleviate. The money that will cost is beyond belief!”
“Intolerable, Mr Malone! The Mayor would have to levy a Town Rate upon the ordinary folk for cleaning up, and possibly another to actually pay for these sewers. Every man in the town taxed to meet the unreasonable demands of one old fool with a bee in his bonnet!”
Nick was truly amazed that one old man could be such a menace to a whole town – how could they tolerate such a one?
“Just so indeed, Nick. He has a kiln in town and does everything in the old way. The great bulk of the employers now pay their men at their works and send them home with their money. Tackenham still pays in the bar of the pub owned by his pottery and sends nine out of ten of his men home drunk and penniless as always was. If there is rioting in the town of a Saturday night, then Tackenham’s people are like to be at the centre of it, them and the two others that do the same. The Bench has complained to him and received short shrift for their pains – he will not change. What was good enough twenty years ago will do him now.”
“The man is a menace to civilised society, Mr Malone!”
“So he is, Nick. If you could see your way clear to encouraging to reform his ways, Nick… Well, be sure that I should be grateful. My good friend the Mayor has more than once regretted Tackenham’s existence in his town.”
“Sad indeed, Mr Malone. No doubt his heir would be of a like mind
to the old man, however, and small gain to being rid of his ways.”
Mr Malone shook his head triumphantly.
“Three daughters, Nick, and not a son to his name and his lady wishful to leave the country life for the comforts of town. Moving to Bath, they say, would see her right, if she had the choice. Twenty years his junior, so she is, and might enjoy a freer life in his absence. Sell up, so she would and have money to live on and to dower her girls. A fine little estate for a man who wished to live out of town, and who would have no objection to a little quarry just a distance down the lane.”
Nick smiled his kindest and left to discover when Squire Tackenham intended to return from London.
“So, my lady, it does seem that Squire Tackenham’s days are past and gone – almost, that is, and his estate will come upon the market. I am not to be telling you your business, as you will know, but I do not imagine you will wish to buy his pottery while his few hundreds of acres are another matter. It would, from all I am told, be necessary to buy his whole estate and then sell again those parts which were not of value to the firm. We are talking, as far as I can discover, of some six hundred acres around the house of which possibly twenty, perhaps more – I am not at all sure, myself - would provide the quarry that is required, being on the sandstone slope and providing room for digging deeper.”
Josie nodded her agreement. She would discover a reasonable price for the land and put the cash together to make the purchase. It would be possible, she had no doubt.
“Having bought and fenced off the land we require, Nick, how we best go about another sale?”
Killing's Reward Page 14
