From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New

Chapter Nine
The Whole Yard was Ablaze and Burning Fiercely

One year is but a brief span in the history of a family, yet it may bring many changes. It did to Burley Old Farm, and some of them were sad enough, though some were glad. A glad change took place for instance in the early spring, after Bob’s departure; for Rupert appeared to wax stronger and stronger with the lengthening days; and when Uncle Ramsay, in a letter received one morning, announced his intention of coming from London, and making quite a long stay at Burley, Rupert declared his intention of mounting Scallowa, and riding over to the station to meet him. And the boy was as good as his word. In order that they might be both cavaliers together, Uncle Ramsay hired a horse at D – , and the two rode joyfully home side by side.

His mother did not like to see that carmine flush on Rupert’s cheeks, however, nor the extra dark sparkle in his eyes when he entered the parlour to announce his uncle’s arrival, but she said nothing.

Uncle Ramsay Broadbent was a brother of the Squire, and, though considerably older, a good deal like him in all his ways. There was the same dash and go in him, and the same smiling front, unlikely to be dismayed by any amount of misfortune.

“There are a deal of ups and downs in the ocean of life,” Archie heard him say one day; “we’re on the top of a big wave one hour, and in the trough of the sea next, so we must take things as they come.”

Yes, this uncle was a seafarer; the skipper of a sturdy merchantman that he had sailed in for ten long years. He did not care to be called captain by anyone. He was a master mariner, and had an opinion, which he often expressed, that plain “Mr” was a gentleman’s prefix.

“I shan’t go back to sea again,” he said next morning at breakfast.

“Fact is, brother, my owners think I’m getting too old. And maybe they’re right. I’ve had a fair innings, and it is only fair to give the young ones a chance.”

Uncle Ramsay seemed to give new life and soul to the old place. He settled completely down to the Burley style of life long before the summer was half over. He joined the servants in the fields, and worked with them as did the Squire, Walton, and Archie. And though more merriment went on in consequence, there was nevertheless more work done. He took an interest in all the boys’ “fads,” spent hours with them in their workshop, and made one in every game that was played on the grass. He was dreadfully awkward at cricket and tennis however; for such games as these are but little practised by sailors. Only he was right willing to learn.

There was a youthfulness and breeziness about Uncle Ramsay’s every action, that few save seafarers possess when hair is turning white. Of course, the skipper spent many a jolly hour up in the room of the Castle Tower, and he did not object either to the presence of old Kate in the chair. He listened like a boy when she told her weird stories; and he listened more like a baby than anything else when Branson played his fiddle.

Then he himself would spin them a yarn, and hold them all enthralled, especially big-eyed Elsie, with the sterling reality and graphicness of the narrative.

When Uncle Ramsay spoke you could see the waves in motion, hear the scream of the birds around the stern, or the wind roaring through the rigging. He spoke as he thought; he painted from life.

Well, the arrival of Uncle Ramsay and Rupert’s getting strong were two of the pleasant changes that took place at Burley in this eventful year. Alas! I have to chronicle the sad ones also. Yet why sigh? To use Uncle Ramsay’s own words, “You never know what a ship is made of until stormy seas are around you.”

First then came a bad harvest – a terribly bad harvest. It was not that the crops themselves were so very light, but the weather was cold and wet; the grain took long to ripen. The task of cutting it down was unfortunately an easy one, but the getting it stored was almost an impossibility. At the very time when it was ripe, and after a single fiercely hot day, a thunder-storm came on, and with it such hail as the oldest inhabitant in the parish could not remember having seen equalled. This resulted in the total loss of far more of the precious seed, than would have sown all the land of Burley twice over.

The wet continued. It rained and rained every day, and when it rained it poured.

The Squire had heard of a Yankee invention for drying wheat under cover, and rashly set about a rude but most expensive imitation thereof. He first mentioned the matter to Uncle Ramsay at the breakfast-table. The Squire seemed in excellent spirits that morning. He was walking briskly up and down the room rubbing his hands, as if in deep but pleasant thought, when his brother came quietly in.

“Hullo! you lazy old sea-dog. Why you’d lie in your bed till the sun burned a hole in the blanket. Now just look at me.”

“I’m just looking at you.”

“Well, I’ve been up for hours. I’m as hungry as a Caithness Highlander. And I’ve got an idea.”

“I thought there was something in the wind.”

“Guess.”

“Guess, indeed! Goodness forbid I should try. But I say, brother,” continued Uncle Ramsay, laughing, “couldn’t you manage to fall asleep somewhere out of doors, like the man in the story, and wake up and find yourself a king? My stars, wouldn’t we have reforms as long as your reign lasted! The breakfast, Mary? Ah, that’s the style!”

“You won’t be serious and listen, I suppose, Ramsay.”

“Oh, yes; I will.”

“Well, the Americans – ”

“The Americans again; but go on.”

“The Americans, in some parts where I’ve been, wouldn’t lose a straw in a bad season. It is all done by means of great fanners and heated air, you know. Now, I’m going to show these honest Northumbrian farmers a thing or two. I – ”

“I say, brother, hadn’t you better trust to Providence, and wait for a fair wind?”

“Now, Ramsay, that’s where you and I differ. You’re a slow Moses. I want to move ahead a trifle in front of the times. I’ve been looking all over the dictionary of my daily life, and I can’t find such a word as ‘wait’ in it.”

“Let me give you some of this steak, brother.”

“My plan of operations, Ramsay, is – ”

“Why,” said Mrs Broadbent, “you haven’t eaten anything yet!”

“I thought,” said Uncle Ramsay, “you were as hungry as a Tipperary Highlander, or some such animal.”

“My plan, Ramsay, is – ” etc, etc.

The two “etc, etc’s” in the last line stand for all the rest of the honest Squire’s speech, which, as his sailor brother said, was as long as the logline. But for all his hunger he made but a poor breakfast, and immediately after he jumped up and hurried away to the barn-yards.

It was a busy time for the next two weeks at Burley Old Farm, but, to the Squire’s credit be it said, he was pretty successful with his strange operation of drying wheat independent of the sun. His ricks were built, and he was happy – happy as long as he thought nothing about the expense. But he did take an hour or two one evening to run through accounts, as he called it. Uncle Ramsay was with him.

“Why, brother,” said Ramsay, looking very serious now indeed, “you are terribly down to leeward – awfully out of pocket!”

“Ah! never mind, Ramsay. One can’t keep ahead of the times now-a-days, you know, without spending a little.”

“Spending a little! Where are your other books? Mr Walton and I will have a look through them to-night, if you don’t mind.”

“Not a bit, brother, not a bit. We’re going to give a dance to-morrow night to the servants, so if you like to bother with the book-work I’ll attend to the terpsichorean kick up.”

Mr Walton and Uncle Ramsay had a snack in the office that evening instead of coming up to supper, and when Mrs Broadbent looked in to say good-night she found them both quiet and hard at work.

“I say, Walton,” said Uncle Ramsay some time after, “this is serious. Draw near the fire and let us have a talk.”

“It is sad as well as serious,” said Walton.

“Had you any idea of it?”

“Not the slightest. In fact I’m to blame, I think, for not seeing to the books before. But the Squire – ”

Walton hesitated.

“I know my brother well,” said Ramsay. “As good a fellow as ever lived, but as headstrong as a nor’-easter. And now he has been spending money on machinery to the tune of some ten thousand pounds. He has been growing crop after crop of wheat as if he lived on the prairies and the land was new; and he has really been putting as much down in seed, labour, and fashionable manures as he has taken off.”

“Yet,” said Walton, “he is no fool.”

“No, not he; he is clever, too much so. But heaven send his pride, honest though it be, does not result in a fall.”

The two sat till long past twelve talking and planning, then they opened the casement and walked out on to the lawn. It was a lovely autumn night. The broad, round moon was high in the heavens, fighting its way through a sky of curdling clouds which greatly detracted from its radiance.

“Look, Walton,” said the sailor, “to windward; yonder it is all blue sky, by-and-by it will be a bright and lovely night.”

“By-and-by. Yes,” sighed Walton.

“But see! What is that down yonder rising white over the trees? Smoke! Why, Walton, the barn-yards are all on fire!”

Almost at the same moment Branson rushed upon the scene.

“Glad you’re up, gentlemen,” he gasped. “Wake the Squire. The servants are all astir. We must save the beasts, come of everything else what will.”

The farm-steading of Burley was built in the usual square formation round a centre straw-yard, which even in winter was always kept so well filled that beasts might lie out all night. To the north were the stacks, and it was here the fire originated, and unluckily the wind blew from that direction. It was by no means high; but fire makes its own wind, and in less than half an hour the whole yard was ablaze and burning fiercely, while the byres, stables, and barns had all caught. From the very first these latter had been enveloped in dense rolling clouds of smoke, and sparks as thick as falling snowflakes, so that to save any of the live stock seemed almost an impossibility.

With all his mania for machinery, and for improvements of every kind possible to apply to agriculture, it is indeed a wonder that the Squire had not established a fire brigade on his farm. But fire was an eventuality which he had entirely left out of his reckoning, and now there was really no means of checking the terrible conflagration.

As soon as the alarm was given every one did what he could to save the live stock; but the smoke was blinding, maddening, and little could be done save taking the doors off their hinges.

Who knows what prodigies of valour were performed that night by the humble cowmen even, in their attempts to drive the oxen and cows out, and away to a place of safety? In some instances, when they had nearly succeeded, the cattle blocked the doorways, or, having got out to the straw-yard, charged madly back again, and prevented the exit of their fellows. Thus several servants ran terrible risks to their lives.

They were more successful in saving the horses, and this was greatly owing to Archie’s presence of mind. He had dashed madly into the stable for his pet Scallowa. The Shetland pony had never looked more wild before. He sniffed the danger, he snorted and reared. All at once it occurred to Archie to mount and ride him out. No sooner had he got on his back than he came forth like a lamb. He took him to a field and let him free, and as he was hurrying back he met little Peter.

“Come, Peter, come,” he cried; “we can save the horses.”

The two of them rushed to the stable, and horse after horse was bridled and mounted by little Peter and ridden out.

But a fearful hitch occurred. Tell, the Squire’s hunter, backed against the stable door and closed it, thus imprisoning Archie, who found it impossible to open the door.

The roof had already caught. The horses were screaming in terror, and rearing wildly against the walls.

Peter rushed away to seek assistance. He met Branson, and in a word or two told him what had happened.

Luckily axes were at hand, and sturdy volunteers speedily smashed the door in, and poor Archie, more dead than alive, with torn clothes and bleeding face, was dragged through.

The scene after this must be left to imagination. But the Squire reverently and fervently thanked God when the shrieks of those fire-imprisoned cattle were hushed in death, and nothing was to be heard save the crackle and roar of the flames.

The fire had lit up the countryside for miles around. The moonlight itself was bright, but within a certain radius the blazing farm cast shadows against it.

Next morning stackyards, barn-yards, farm-steading, machinery-house, and everything pertaining to Burley Old Farm, presented but a smouldering, blackened heap of ruins.

Squire Broadbent entertained his poor, frightened people to an early breakfast in the servants’ hall, and the most cheerful face there was that of the Squire. Here is his little speech:

“My good folks, sit down and eat; and let us be thankful we’re all here, and that no human lives are lost. My good kinswoman Kate here will tell you that there never yet was an ill but there might be a worse. Let us pray the worse may never come.”

Chapter Ten
“After all, it doesn’t take much to make a Man Happy.”

For weeks to come neither Uncle Ramsay nor Walton had the heart to add another sorrow to the Squire’s cup of misery. They knew that the fire had but brought on a little sooner a catastrophe which was already fulling; they knew that Squire Broadbent was virtually a ruined man.

All the machinery had been rendered useless; the most of the cattle were dead; the stacks were gone; and yet, strange to say, the Squire hoped on. Those horses and cattle which had been saved were housed now in rudely-built sheds, among the fire-blackened ruins of their former wholesome stables and byres.

One day Branson, who had always been a confidential servant, sent Mary in to say he wished to speak to the Squire. His master came out at once.

“Nothing else, Branson,” he said. “You carry a long face, man.”

“The wet weather and the cold have done their work, sir. Will you walk down with me to the cattle-sheds?”

Arrived there, he pointed to a splendid fat ox, who stood in his stall before his untouched turnips with hanging head and dry, parched nose. His hot breath was visible when he threw his head now and then uneasily round towards his loin, as if in pain. There was a visible swelling on the rump. Branson placed a hand on it, and the Squire could hear it “bog” and crackle.

“What is that, Branson? Has he been hurt?”

“No, sir, worse. I’ll show you.”

He took out his sharp hunting-knife.

“It won’t hurt the poor beast,” he said.

Then he cut deep into the swelling. The animal never moved. No blood followed the incision, but the gaping wound was black, and filled with air-bubbles.

“The quarter-ill,” said the cowman, who stood mournfully by.

That ox was dead in a few hours. Another died next day, two the next, and so on, though not in an increasing ratio; but in a month there was hardly an animal alive about the place except the horses.

It was time now the Squire should know all, and he did. He looked a chastened man when he came out from that interview with his brother and Walton. But he put a right cheery face on matters when he told his wife.

“We’ll have to retrench,” he said. “It’ll be a struggle for a time, but we’ll get over it right enough.”

Present money, however, was wanted, and raised it must be.

And now came the hardest blow the Squire had yet received. It was a staggering one, though he met it boldly. There was then at Burley Old Mansion a long picture gallery. It was a room in an upper story, and extended the whole length of the house – a hall in fact, and one that more than one Squire Broadbent had entertained his friends right royally in. From the walls not only did portraits of ancestors bold and gay, smile or frown down, but there hung there also many a splendid landscape and seascape by old masters.

Most of the latter had to be sold, and the gallery was closed, for the simple reason that Squire Broadbent, courageous though he was, could not look upon its bare and desecrated walls without a feeling of sorrow.

Pictures even from the drawing-room had to go also, and that room too was closed. But the breakfast-room, which opened to the lawn and rose gardens, where the wild birds sang so sweetly in summer, was left intact; so was the dining-room, and that cosy, wee green parlour in which the family delighted to assemble around the fire in the winter’s evenings.

Squire Broadbent had been always a favourite in the county – somewhat of an upstart and iconoclast though he was – so the sympathy he received was universal.

Iconoclast? Yes, he had delighted in shivering the humble idols of others, and now his own were cast down. Nobody, however, deserted him. Farmers and Squires might have said among themselves that they always knew Broadbent was “going the pace,” and that his new-fangled American notions were poorly suited to England, but in his presence they did all they could to cheer him.

When the ploughing time came round they gave him what is called in the far North “a love-darg.” Men with teams of horses came from every farm for miles around and tilled his ground. They had luncheon in a marquee, but they would not hear of stopping to dinner. They were indeed thoughtful and kind.

The parson of the parish and the doctor were particular friends of the Squire. They often dropped in of an evening to talk of old times with the family by the fireside.

“I’m right glad,” the doctor said one evening, “to see that you don’t lose heart, Squire.”

“Bless me, sir, why should I? To be sure we’re poor now, but God has left us a deal of comfort, doctor, and, after all, it doesn’t take much to make a man happy.”

Boys will be boys. Yes, we all know that. But there comes a time in the life of every right-thinking lad when another truth strikes home to him, that boys will be men.

I rather think that the sooner a boy becomes cognisant of this fact the better. Life is not all a dream; it must sooner or later become a stern reality. Life is not all pleasant parade and show, like a field-day at Aldershot; no, for sooner or later pomp and panoply have to be exchanged for camp-life and action, and bright uniforms are either rolled in blood and dust, or come triumphant, though tarnished, from the field of glory. Life is not all plain sailing over sunlit seas, for by-and-by the clouds bank up, storms come on, and the good ship has to do battle with wind and wave.

But who would have it otherwise? No one would who possesses the slightest ray of honest ambition, or a single spark of that pride of self which we need not blush to own.

One day, about the beginning of autumn, Rupert and Archie, and their sister Elsie, were in the room in the tower. They sat together in a turret chamber, Elsie gazing dreamily from the window at the beautiful scenery spread out beneath. The woods and wilds, the rolling hills, the silvery stream, the half-ripe grain moving in the wind, as waves at sea move, and the silvery sunshine over all. She was in a kind of a daydream, her fingers listlessly touching a chord on the harp now and then. A pretty picture she looked, too, with her bonnie brown hair, and her bonnie blue eyes, and thorough English face, thorough English beauty. Perhaps Archie had been thinking something of this sort as he sat there looking at her, while Rupert half-lay in the rocking-chair, which his brother had made for him, engrossed as usual in a book.

Whether Archie did think thus or not, certain it is that presently he drew his chair close to his sister’s, and laying one arm fondly on her shoulder.

“What is sissie looking at?” he asked.

“Oh, Archie,” she replied, “I don’t think I’ve been looking at anything; but I’ve been seeing everything and wishing!”

“Wishing, Elsie? Well, you don’t look merry. What were you wishing?”

“I was wishing the old days were back again, when – when father was rich; before the awful fire came, and the plague, and everything. It has made us all old, I think. Wouldn’t you like father was rich again?”

“I am not certain; but wishes are not horses, you know.”

“No,” said Elsie; “only if it could even be always like this, and if you and Rupert and I could be always as we are now. I think that, poor though we are, everything just now is so pretty and so pleasant. But you are going away to the university, and the place won’t be the same. I shall get older faster than ever then.”

“Well, Elsie,” said Archie, laughing, “I am so old that I am going to make my will.”

Rupert put down his book with a quiet smile.

“What are you going to leave me, old man? Scallowa?”

“No, Rupert, you’re too long in the legs for Scallowa, you have no idea what a bodkin of a boy you are growing. Scallowa I will and bequeath to my pretty sister here, and I’ll buy her a side-saddle, and two pennyworth of carrot seed. Elsie will also have Bounder, and you, Rupert, shall have Fuss.”

“Anything else for me?”

“Don’t be greedy. But I’ll tell you. You shall have my tool-house, and all my tools, and my gun besides. Well, this room is to be sister’s own, and she shall also have my fishing-rod, and the book of flies that poor Bob Cooper made for me. Oh, don’t despise them, they are all wonders!”

“Well really, Archie,” said Elsie, “you talk as earnestly as if you actually were going to die.”

“Who said I was going to die? No, I don’t mean to die till I’ve done much more mischief.”

“Hush! Archie.”

“Well, I’m hushed.”

“Why do you want to make your will?”

“Oh, it isn’t wanting to make my will! I am – I’ve done it. And the ‘why’ is this, I’m going away.”

“To Oxford?”

“No, Elsie, not to Oxford. I’ve got quite enough Latin and Greek out of Walton to last me all my life. I couldn’t be a doctor; besides father is hardly rich enough to make me one at present. I couldn’t be a doctor, and I’m not good enough to be a parson.”

“Archie, how you talk.”

There were tears in Elsie’s eyes now.

“I can’t help it. I’m going away to enter life in a new land. Uncle Ramsay has told me all about Australia. He says the old country is used up, and fortunes can be made in a few years on the other side of the globe.”

There was silence in the turret for long minutes; the whispering of the wind in the elm trees beneath could be heard, the murmuring of the river, and far away in the woods the cawing of rooks.

“Don’t you cry, Elsie,” said Archie. “I’ve been thinking about all this for some time, and my mind is made up. I’m going, Elsie, and I know it is for the best. You don’t imagine for a single moment, do you, that I’ll forget the dear old times, and you all? No, no, no. I’ll think about you every night, and all day long, and I’ll come back rich. You don’t think that I won’t make my fortune, do you? Because I mean to, and will. So there. Don’t cry, Elsie.”

“I’m not going to cry, Archie,” said Rupert.

“Right, Rupert, you’re a brick, as Branson says.”

“I’m not old enough,” continued Rupert, “to give you my blessing, though I suppose Kate would give you hers; but we’ll all pray for you.”

“Well,” said Archie thoughtfully, “that will help some.”

“Why, you silly boy, it will help a lot.”

“I wish I were as good as you, Rupert. But I’m just going to try hard to do my best, and I feel certain I’ll be all right.”

“You know, Roup, how well I can play cricket, and how I often easily bowl father out. Well, that is because I’ve just tried my very hardest to become a good player; and I’m going to try my very hardest again in another way. Oh, I shall win! I’m cocksure I shall. Come, Elsie, dry your eyes. Here’s my handkie. Don’t be a little old wife.”

“You won’t get killed, or anything, Archie?”

“No; I won’t get killed, or eaten either.”

“They do tell me,” said Elsie – “that is, old Kate told me – that the streets in Australia are all paved with gold, and that the roofs of the houses are all solid silver.”

“Well, I don’t think she is quite right,” said Archie, laughing. “Anyhow, uncle says there is a fortune to be made, and I’m going to make it. That’s all.”

Archie went straight away down from that boy’s room feeling every inch a man, and had an interview with his father and uncle.

It is needless to relate what took place there, or to report the conversation which the older folks had that evening in the little green parlour. Both father and uncle looked upon Archie’s request as something only natural. For both these men, singular to say, had been boys once themselves; and, in the Squire’s own words, Archie was a son to be proud of.

“We can’t keep the lad always with us, mother,” said Squire Broadbent; “and the wide world is the best of schools. I feel certain that, go where he will, he won’t lose heart. If he does, I should be ashamed to own him as a son. So there! My only regret is, Ramsay, that I cannot send the lad away with a better lined pocket.”

“My dear silly old brother, he will be better as he is. And I’m really not sure that he would not be better still if he went away, as many have gone before him, with only a stick and a bundle over his shoulder. You have a deal too much of the Broadbent pride; and Archie had better leave that all behind at home, or be careful to conceal it when he gets to the land of his adoption.”

The following is a brief list of Archie’s stock-in-trade when he sailed away in the good ship Dugong to begin the world alone: 1. A good stock of clothes. 2. A good stock of assurance. 3. Plenty of hope. 4. Good health and abundance of strength. 5. A little nest egg at an Australian bank to keep him partly independent till he should be able to establish a footing. 6. Letters of introduction, blessings, and a little pocket Bible.

His uncle chose his ship, and sent him away round the Cape in a good old-fashioned sailing vessel. And his uncle went to Glasgow to see him off, his last words being, “Keep up your heart, boy, whatever happens; and keep calm in every difficulty. Good-bye.”

Away sailed the ship, and away went Archie to see the cities that are paved with gold, and whose houses have roofs of solid silver.