"But there's a different scene down at Cherry-trees, I'm thinking," he muttered to himself, with another cynical laugh. "Nobody 'II take the trouble to tidy things up there yet awhile."
And, half-unconsciously, he walked slowly up the steps of the granary and stood where he and his foreman had stood when the unholy shoutings of the stang-riders had been carried by the freshening wind to their ears. From the head of the steps Taffendale had often looked out across country, and had more than once noticed that from that elevation—the highest about the Limepits—there were only three signs of human habitation to be seen. To the south-west the square, battlemented head of Martinsthorpe church appeared over the tops of the elms and beeches which shut in the village; far away on the eastward the spire of another village church, renowned for its height, rose above the thick woods beyond Badger's Hollow. And in the middle foreground of the landscape stood Cherry-trees, a mean group of poor buildings when seen close at hand, but when viewed from some distance forming a pleasant patch of red and yellow against the prevalent green and grey.
This piece of colour was now gone. Taffendale saw the sturdy square tower in the near right, the sharp, slender spire in the far left, but the little farmstead was brought down to the level of the land on which it had stood: there was not so much as a ruinous wall, a shattered mass of gable-end to rise above the hedgerows. As he lingered there, he pictured the scene—the blackness, the litter, the refuse, the general untidiness and sense of squalor, and some dim and vague notion came into his mind that somewhere, at some time, he had read something about the abomination of desolation.
Desolate and black Cherry-trees lay until the nine days' wonder of its downfall was well-nigh over. Such participants in the stang-riding as could be identified had been duly prosecuted and lightly punished; the dead had been sat upon by a Coroner and a jury, and consigned to a quiet grave, and like all country matters the affair was beginning to simmer down from boiling point to a stagnant surface. The steward came upon the scene, and with the under-steward and various other folk of officialdom viewed the wreckage of the small homestead. And when he had viewed it he began to wonder what to do about the question presented to him. Was it worth while to rebuild the place? Cherry-trees, under Perris's tenancy, had some fifty or sixty acres of land attached to it; it so chanced that running alongside that land there was a holding of similar size which had been untenanted for half-a-year, and was not easy to let because the small house upon it was little better than an outbuilding and the outbuildings were ramshackle sheds. There was no possibility that Abel Perris would ever come back, and it was out of the question that his wife, or widow, whichever Rhoda might be, should continue to farm land on which she could not live; why not, then, reflected the steward, throw the two small holdings into one and make a farm of a hundred acres and build a new farmhouse? After all, little farms and little farmers are a nuisance to themselves and to everybody.
While the steward, gazing on the black desolation of Cherry-trees, was reflecting on these things, Taffendale rode up the lane and paused to exchange greetings. He inquired what the steward's plans were, and the steward told him what was in his mind, and knowing him to be a practical man, asked his advice. Taffendale turned in his saddle and gazed across the acres which Perris had farmed and those of the holding adjacent to them. A sudden notion occurred to him.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, with the directness of a man who makes up his mind quickly but once for all. "I'll take those hundred acres—at once."
The steward stared, and suddenly felt glad that Taffendale had come along. Then he laughed a little.
"Not content with all the land you've got?" he said pleasantly.
Taffendale shook his head in a fashion that signified neither assent nor dissent.
"It's not that," he said. "You know, I have land on this side of these two holdings, and I have land on the other side of them. I'll take both—the hundred odd acres of them—and link things up. I shall farm them better than any small farmer."
"Little doubt of that," observed the steward. "Very good. That shall be attended to at once. They're yours."
"But there are certain things you must do," said Taffendale. He turned again in his saddle and pointed to the ramshackle place which lay on the holding next to Cherry-trees. "That'll have to come down—every stick and stone," he added.
"Oh, of course. We'll have it down and the ground cleared at once," replied the steward.
"And as for this place, Cherry-trees," continued Taffendale, looking around him, "you'll build me here three good cottages for married labourers. I've three real good men now that want to marry, and if I've cottages for them I shall be able to keep them on. Real good cottages, mind you, with proper outhouses, and accommodation for pigs and fowls."
"Very well," said the steward, who knew what sort of tenant he was dealing with. "That shall be done, too. It's a capital idea to keep men that you know."
"And there's another thing," remarked Taffendale, edging his horse nearer to the ruins, "you'll have to see that there's a proper water supply here. Now, the situation of the old house was a good one; facing south, and convenient for the garden at the back, but I always noticed when I came here that the well was set between the yard and the fold—there's the remains of it, sticking up out of that pile of rubbish—and I'll lay anything that the water's not what it ought to be. I once did taste it, and it was my opinion that it was badly contaminated. You'll have to sink a new well, at a proper distance from the houses."
"Yes," replied the steward. "We'll do that also. In fact, as you take the whole lot, everything shall be thoroughly overhauled and put in order.'
"I'm particular about my men," said Taffendale. "If you want a model for the cottages, go and look at my lime-burners' places at the Limepits. But," he added, with a laugh, "they're on my own property."
"We'll make these as good," answered the steward. And he drove off, saying to the under-steward that Taffendale was a particular man and that they must be particular to please and humour him, for having once taken the land he would hold it as long as he lived, and they would be as sure of its proper and generous cultivation as of the rent, and, furthermore, be saved the troubles which arise from having little farmers of no capital, who put no money into their land and have hard work to pay for it, however much reduction they get.
"I'll have no more men of the stamp of Perris on this estate," said the steward, with decision. "I wonder where the man is!"
"That's what a goodish many hereabouts wonders, sir," replied the under-steward. "But," he added, with a sly chuckle, "we all know where his wife is—up yonder at the Limepits."
The steward, however, was not to be drawn into any discussion of local scandal or gossip. He remained indifferent to his satellite's obvious desire to talk.
"Mr. Taffendale's private affairs," he said, "are his—private affairs. If he chooses to give shelter to a woman who was burnt out of house and home, it is his own business. But Perris's disappearance is a public affair. It has a queer aspect."
"Aye, sir, and it isn't the only queer thing that's happened in this place of late," observed the under-steward. "There's a many folk hereabouts still asking themselves every day where yon Pippany Webster's disappeared to."
"Oh, the man ran away!" said the steward. "He just ran away."
The under-steward uttered inarticulate sounds of respectful dissent.
"Well,