The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [360]
‘Mostly brindled, in looks, your Lordship. Quite small but they are hardy. They can live on the heather and heath grass if they have to. They are good milkers. The farmers from the chalk downs of places like Sarum come down to Ringwood to buy our cattle. They cross them with their own and up on the richer pastures the crosses produce huge quantities of milk.’
‘You depasture your livestock on the Forest?’
‘I could not keep them otherwise. I should need many more acres.’
‘You could not support your family without your commoning rights?’
‘I could not. There is another thing besides. It is a question you see, Sir, of the children. I have two sons grown now. One of these lives with me and works as a labourer. But he also has two acres from which he turns out stock on to the Forest. That way he doubles his wages. In a few years this will allow him to start his own smallholding, and raise a family.’
‘You also have rights of turbary?’
‘Yes. That, and the wood from the Forest, is how I heat my cottage.’
‘Without those rights …?’
‘We should be cold.’
‘How have the commoners been affected by the Deer Removal Act?’
‘In several ways. Firstly, the absence of the deer itself has reduced the grazing for my livestock.’
‘How so? If the deer aren’t feeding, there must be more for the other animals.’
‘So I would have thought, Sir, but it turns out otherwise. The lawns, where the best grass is, are getting overgrown with scrub, which the deer used to eat up. I was surprised, but it is so.’
‘Otherwise?’
‘Though Mr Cumberbatch has said we may not turn out our stock in winter, which we used to do when the deer were there, this has only been partly enforced. If it is, I don’t know how I shall manage.’
‘And the inclosures?’
‘Some commoners now have to drive their cattle for miles to find grazing. The best pasture is being taken. The inclosures, when reopened, provide little for the cattle to eat and the drains made for the plantations are a hazard to the livestock.’
‘So you fear for your future?’
‘I do.’
The Committee was silent. The smallholder had impressed them. This was no furtive forest scavenger, but a free farmer of a kind, they dimly realized, which went back in their island history to ancient days, before even the feudal lords ruled the land. Only the young peer seemed ready to test Pride any further. Cumberbatch had just passed him a note.
‘Mr Pride,’ he gazed at the forest man thoughtfully, ‘I understand that there has been bad feeling towards the inclosures. Indeed, the fences of some have been torn down. Others have been set on fire. Is it not so?’
‘I’ve heard about that, yes.’
‘I suppose, until now, that is the only way the commoners could make their feelings felt. Wouldn’t you agree?’
It was a trap. Colonel Albion looked at Pride sharply, trying to catch his eye. Pride stared fixedly at the wall behind the Committee.
‘I couldn’t say, your Lordship.’
‘You feel some sympathy for them, I dare say?’
‘I’d be sorry for any man that had his livelihood taken away, I suppose,’ said Pride calmly. ‘But of course they shouldn’t break the law. I don’t hold with that.’
‘You wouldn’t do such a thing yourself, then?’
Pride looked at the young peer dispassionately. If he felt anger, or contempt, there was not a sign of it on his face.
‘I have never broken the law in my life,’ he said, gravely.
Well done, man, thought Albion. He watched the young peer, to see if he had finished. Not yet, it seemed.
‘Mr Pride, you seem much opposed to the Office of Woods. Yet you have an eldest son do you not? One George Pride. Would you please tell us by whom he is employed?’
‘Yes, Sir. He is employed by Mr Cumberbatch.’
‘By the Office of Woods, then?’ The young peer looked triumphant. He’d caught this peasant out. ‘If the Office of Woods is such a monster, why does your son work there? Or is he consorting with the enemy?’
Albion held his breath. He had foreseen most things but not this. He hadn’t imagined that, in such a setting, anyone would stoop to baiting the smallholder