Free Down Daisy Street by Katie Flynn Page B

had come back with a satisfied look on his ruddy, weather-beaten face. Alec had met him in the lane and had turned back to open the gate. His father had driven into the yard and then gestured to Alec to accompany him while he took the pony from between the shafts and made all tidy.
    The men worked together amicably, and once the pony was untacked and the trap manhandled into the cart shed Alec went to rub Feather, the pony, down, assuming that his father would leave him to do the simple task. Instead, Bob followed him into the stable. Alec would not have described his father as a silent man but as a man of few words, who seldom chatted or passed on gossip, so he guessed that it was important when his father remarked: ‘While I was out this morning, I decided it was time I took the bull by the horns, so I went into the estate office and had a word with Mr Mathews, Mr Rumbold’s agent. I explained as how I’d always wanted to own my own farm; I knew the estate wouldn’t want to sell our place but I wondered whether there might be another farm nearer the edge of the estate which they’d consider selling. Mr Mathews, he laughed, but in a nice sort o’ way, and said that Mr Rumbold wasn’t thinkin’ of selling anything, not after all the work he and his forebears had put in, drainin’ the marshes and settin’ up the Horsey windmill to pump the water into the mere. It was only what I expected, o’ course, but I must ha’ looked a trifle downcast because he suddenly said: “Have you ever thought of increasing your acreage, Mr Hewitt? Only old Mr Brown can’t manage his place no more and his son, Billy, int interested in takin’ on the farm when his dad goes. It’s hard up agin your land and I’m pretty sure Mr Rumbold would be happy for you to increase your holding by taking on Mere Farm. There’s a neat enough house, though it’s a bit run down, and your lad will be wantin’ his own home one of these days. I know the land int up to much,” he say, “but that’d be reflected in the rent, o’ course.”’
    ‘I say, Dad,’ Alec breathed, knowing that his face was shining at the prospect of increasing the size of their holding. ‘That’d be as good as owning our own place, wouldn’t you say? Rumbold’s always been a good landlord, not the sort to increase the rent just because a tenant increases the value of the land he’s workin’, and one of these days I’d like a place of me own. So what did you say?’
    ‘We shook hands on it,’ Mr Hewitt said proudly. ‘Mr Mathews, he’s a man of his word, and old Brown is leaving to go and live with his daughter in King’s Lynn when he’s done harvestin’. A’course, there’s forms to be signed and agreements to be reached an’ that, an’ old Brown will want us to buy the dead stock as well as the livestock, but I reckon it won’t fetch much and I don’t grudge giving the old feller a bit o’ pocket money for his retirement. Well? What d’you say?’
    Alec knew that dead stock did not mean dead cows and pigs but was the term used for such things as carts, ploughs, harrows and so on, right down to a trowel for transplanting garden plants and the rakes and pitchforks used to turn the hay. He grinned at his father, glad that Bob Hewitt was a generous man and not likely to quibble over such things, for of course they were unlikely to need a good deal of the dead stock, though it could always be put by to be used when their own implements were worn or broken. ‘I think you’ve done real well, Dad,’ he said appreciatively. ‘I allus look forward to harvest, but it’ll be better than ever next year because we’ll be doubling the size of the farm. Poor old Brown. It’ll be a blow to him, surely? I remember you telling me once that he and his son Tom were grand neighbours and first rate farmers, but that was before Tom was killed in the war, of course.’
    ‘Aye. Tom’s death seemed to take all the stuffing out of his father – and he’s Mr Brown