A Just and Upright Man (The James Blakiston Series) by Lynch R J

Author:Lynch, R J [Lynch, R J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mandrill Press
Published: 2013-05-22T23:00:00+00:00

‘It is hard, I grant. You will still have the chickens and the pig and the garden.’

‘Aye,’ said Zeke. ‘But for how long?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘What do you know of enclosures?’ asked John.

‘Nothing. I was never part of one. And neither were you.’

‘No. But my cousin in Barton, James Savile, he was in one. After the Act was passed the commissioners came to divvy up the land. James was to get a little piece to make up for everything they took away from him. So he didn’t have his grazing or his turbary but he would have some land. What they call his allotment. Not the best land, mind, the squire would get that, but land.’

‘Yes. That’s fair.’

‘Of course it is. But they had to pay for the fencing, see, man.’

‘Well, if you’ve got some land of your own, of course you have to fence it. You’ll be feeding someone else’s pig instead of your own, else.’

‘No, man. James didn’t just have to pay for his own little bit fence. He had to pay for the squire’s and the rector’s an’ all.’

‘No, John. No, that can’t be right.’

‘Right? We’re not talking about right, man. We’re talking about what’s in the Act, and who wrote the Act, and that wasn’t the cottagers and the squatters. It’s the squire and the rector and their pals in Parliament who wrote the Act. And that’s what it said. The squire and the rector and all them that were getting big bits of land out of it, they didn’t have to pay one penny for fencing. But all the poor little buggers that were getting enough land to raise a pig and grow cabbages, they’re the ones who had to pay for all the fencing. Their own and everybody else’s.’

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