Love and Money by Phyllis Bentley

Author:Phyllis Bentley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

5

So what went wrong? There isn’t a clue at all anywhere—or rather, because the major clue was lacking, the others made no sense for nearly a hundred years. All that the Whin Head Mutual Spinning Company knew in 1861 was that suddenly, for no reason given, Eli Boocock refused to allow the “first-rate road of easy gradient” to pass through his land. The Delph Inn, that is to say Rosa Boocock, owned some ground at the top of the hill above the quarry; but Eli Boocock owned that large green field sloping gently down to the Whinburn, on the right of the Mutual, which was really the only feasible route to the mill from Delph Lane, the land on the left being hopelessly craggy. Some fifty yards of level road along the bank of the river had already been constructed, from the great doorway of the mill to the wall enclosing Eli’s territory. Allowing for an elbow in the road, that is, if it crossed Eli’s field at an angle and bent back on itself, the promised easy gradient was quite possible—or at any rate, a gradient easier than the approach to many West Riding mills, the district being notoriously hilly.

I said there was no reason given for Eli’s sudden refusal. I meant no genuine reason, no reason which rang true. He alleged as reason that he needed his field to pasture the cattle he brought over from Ireland. Certainly the field was good pasture. But would a road through the middle of it have prevented his beef cattle from feeding on the rest of the grass? Of course it was intended that the actual square yards of land occupied by the road would be bought from him by the Mutual Company. Eli had invested money in the Mutual enterprise; why did he go about now to ruin it?

For he ruined it. There is no documentary evidence as to what actually happened at this time. One must imagine for oneself the shock of horror when Eli’s decision was communicated to the Committee; the expostulations, the arguments, the attempted negotiations, the raised purchase price offered for the strip of land necessary for the road, the proposal to buy the whole field, the quarrels, the final fury. Tradition has it that Eli sat with his arms folded, smiling secretly, his black eyes a-twinkle, throughout the whole of one angry session of the Committee. Attacked from all sides, accused by Dr. Tom with irrefutable logic of a purposeless destruction of his own interests, shouted at by the rest of the members, EH said only:

“Aye—well—it’s a pity there was a mistake, like. But field’s not for sale.”

Nothing would move him. The Committee in despair invited tenders for making a road up through their own land, beside the quarry, but alas! the gradient was so severe, the ground so rough, that the contractors who came to view the site shook dubious heads, declined the job altogether or demanded enormous prices.

“Let’s doff coats and mak t’road wersens, then!” exclaimed one of the weavers with spirit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.