Free House That Berry Built by Dornford Yates Page B

fifty – about five times its value, yet half what its owner asks.” The lawyer spread out his hands. “I shall do my best for you. You may count upon that. Of course, if you are prepared to wait for six or eight months—”
    “We aren’t,” said Jill.
    “Precisely, Miladi. If you could wait for so long, the owners would come to heel. But if you cannot wait, you will have to pay.”
    “Say, roughly, four hundred for the three.”
    “Thereabouts,” said the lawyer. “Mark you, I may be wrong: but if you will leave it to me, I will bear that figure in mind. In a little while now, you will come to know the peasants: and then, when you want more land, you will deal direct. But now you are strangers… That makes a big difference, you know. But you will come to like them, and they will come to like you. And they will be proud to know that you are to be their neighbours.”
    “Well, we leave it to you,” said Berry. “We won’t fix any figure, until we hear what you say. But let me make this clear. We are well content to pay more than a peasant would pay. Much more. It’s only fair. But we’re not content to be robbed. The money apart, they’d only despise us if we were.”
    “Permit me,” said de Moulin, “ to commend that point of view. If you take that line with the peasants, you will get on very well. They will both like and respect you. And that is everything.”
    “You think,” said Jill, “that they will be willing to sell?”
    “Miladi,” said the lawyer, “have no concern as to that. It is only a question of price. When we can agree about that, the fields will be yours.”
     
    The lawyer was right.
    By the following Wednesday night, three ‘agreements to sell and to purchase’ had all been signed.
    For the meadow by the road, we had agreed to pay one hundred and sixty pounds: for the one above that, one hundred and forty pounds: and for the one above that, one hundred and twenty-five. With the government tax and the fees, the three would cost us, roughly, five hundred pounds.
    So the site became ours.
     
    The second crop of hay had been recently cut. A third was to come. In return for this third crop of hay, the vendors had agreed to give us immediate possession; for two or three weeks would elapse before the three deeds were signed.
    The following morning, therefore, we all walked up to the site, clambered into the lowest meadow and started to climb.
    When Berry had fallen twice, he sat up and spoke to the point.
    “The first thing to build,” he declared, “is a decent flight of steps. A gradual, curving ascent, with several rests. No good building a house if you can’t get near the swine.”
    “We’ll have to be careful,” said Daphne: “we don’t want to spoil the grass.”
    “Spoil the grass!” said her husband. “You wait till they start to build.”
    “Oh, they’ll make a mess, of course. But steps are permanent.”
    “All right. Don’t you have them,” said Berry. “One thing we shall be spared, and that is visitors. Those that survive will warn all the others off. And for those that don’t – well, the graveyard is nice and close. We’d better keep a bier in the garage.”
    “Don’t be absurd,” said his wife. “If we build the house I want, it will take more than a mountain lawn to keep people away. They’ll simply fall over themselves to see inside.”
    “They’ll fall over themselves all right,” said Berry, grimly. Here Daphne fell down herself. “There you are. Supposing you’d been dolled up, with your Jaeger step-in on and your co-respondent boots. You’d feel like going on up and sliming round some woman who hadn’t got broken knees.”
    His apology having been accepted, I pointed to the foot of the bluff, where our second meadow adjoined the elegant field.
    “There’s a shelf there,” I said. “A sort of half-ledge, half-dip, where we can sit down.”
    With one consent, we all converged upon this haven. After all, it is exhausting to