Mr Gollop, the pugnacious quarryman, took the opportunity, a good one, to draw attention to rural imperfections unconnected with his own industry.
‘We quarry people get shot at sometimes for the fumes we’re said to cause. It strikes me that’s nothing to what’s being inflicted on us all at this moment by the factory farms.’
The smell through which we were advancing certainly rivalled anything perpetrated by the Quiggin twins. Mrs Salter, brushing away this side issue, went into action.
‘It’s not so much the fumes you people cause as the dust. The rain doesn’t wash it away. The leaves are covered with a white paste all the year round. After they’ve had a lot of that, the trees die.’
Mr Tudor, a man of finesse, must have thought this conversation too acrimonious in tone for good diplomacy. He had steered the Council through troubled waters before, was determined to do so this time.
‘We do receive occasional complaints about intensive farming odours, Mr Gollop, just like those we get from time to time regarding your own industry. The Council looks on animal by-products as the worst offenders, even if poultry and pig-keepers cannot be held altogether blameless, and some of the silage too can be unpleasing to the nostrils. The air will be fresher, I hope, when we are over the next field. There’s a lovely view, by the way, from the top of the ridge.’
Individual members of the party being concerned with different aspects of what was proposed, the group began to string out in all directions. Isobel, discussing with Mr Goldney the contrasted advantages of stone walls and hedges, a tactical feint, would quickly disengage herself, when opportunity arose, to obtain a good position to command the ear of Mr Todman, the figure likely to be most influential in the outcome of the morning’s doings. Somebody, who had not joined the party at its point of departure by the stile, was now coming across the fields from the west. When he drew level this turned out to be Mr Gauntlett. He would usually appear on any occasion of this kind. Today he was wearing an orchid in his buttonhole.
‘Good morning, Mr Gauntlett.’
‘Morning, Mr Jenkins. Beautiful one too just now, tho’ t’won’t last.’
‘That’s what Mrs Salter says.’
‘Not where the clouds do lie, nor the manner the rooks be flying.’
Mr Gauntlett’s professional rusticity did not entirely cloak his faintly military air, which was in complete contrast with Mr Todman’s soldierliness. Mr Todman suggested modern scientific warfare; Mr Gauntlett, military levies of Shakespearean days, or earlier.
‘How are you keeping, Mr Gauntlett? Haven’t seen you for a long while.’
‘Ah, I can’t grumble. There was a sad thing last week. Old Daisy died. She was a bad old girl, but she’d been with me a long time. I’ll miss her.’
‘I remember you were looking for her — it must have been two years ago or more — when those strange young people came to see us in their caravan.’
Still feeling rather self-conscious about being caught by Mr Gauntlett with the caravan party, I said that with implied apology. Mr Gauntlett brushed anything of the sort aside.
‘Daisy was just where your young friend said. She’d whelped, and there was one pup left alive. It were a good guess on his part.’
‘So he was right?’
‘It were a good guess. A very good guess. He must know the ways o’ dogs. Well, what are we going to be shown this morning, Mr Jenkins?’
‘I wonder. There’s quite a fair lot of people have come to see. It means local interest in preventing what the quarry want to do.’
Mr Gauntlett laughed at some amusing thought of his own in this connexion. When he voiced that thought the meaning was not immediately clear.
‘Ernie Dunch won’t be joining us today.’
‘He won’t?’
There was nothing very surprising about this piece of information. It looked as if Mr Gauntlett had cut across the fields from Dunch’s farm, which was out to the west from where we were walking. Mr Dunch farmed the meadow on which The Devil’s Fingers stood. He was not the farmer who had acted as figurehead in purchase by the quarry of the neighbouring fields, his land running only to the summit of the ridge, but his own attitude to quarry development was looked upon as unreliable by those who preferred some restriction to be set on the spread of quarry workings. Dunch was unlikely to bother much about what infringements might be taking place on territory with scenic or historical claims. Idle curiosity could have brought him to the meeting, nothing more. He would be no great loss. For some reason Mr Gauntlett found the fact immensely droll that Mr Dunch would not be present.
‘Ernie Dunch didn’t feel up to coming,’ he repeated.
‘I don’t expect Mr Dunch cares much, one way or the other, what the quarry does.’
‘Nay, I don’t think ‘tis that. Last Tuesday I heard Ernie saying he’d be out with us all today, to know what was happening nextdoor to him. I said I’d drop in, and we’d go together. I thought I’d see, that way, Ernie did come.’
Mr Gauntlett laughed to himself.
‘That’s natural enough, since the quarry would extend quite close to his own land. I’m glad he feels himself concerned. What’s wrong with Mr Dunch?’
Obviously, from Mr Gauntlett’s manner, that question was meant to be asked. He had a story he wanted to tell. I was not particularly interested myself why Dunch had made his decision to stay away.
‘Ernie’s quite a young fellow.’
‘So I’ve been told. I don’t know him personally.’
‘Two-and-thirty. Three-and-thirty maybe.’
Mr Gauntlett pondered. We plodded on through the heavy furrows. Mr Gauntlett, having presumably settled in his own mind, within a few days, the date of Ernie Dunch’s birth, changed his tone to the rather special one in which he would relate local history and legend.
‘I’ll warrant you’ve heard tell stories of The Fingers, Mr Jenkins?’
‘You’ve told me quite a few yourself, Mr Gauntlett — the Stones going down to the brook to drink. That’s what we want to make sure they’re still able to do. Not be forced to burrow under a lot of quarry waste, before they can quench their thirst. I should think the Stones would revenge themselves on the quarry if anything of the sort is allowed to happen.’
‘Aye, I shouldn’t wonder. I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Smash up the culvert, when the cock crows at midnight.’
‘Ah.’
I hoped for a new legend from Mr Gauntlett. He seemed in the mood. They always came out unexpectedly. That was part of Mr Gauntlett’s technique as a story-teller. He cleared his throat.
‘I’ve heard tales o’ The Fingers since I was a nipper. All the same, it comes like a surprise when young folks believe such things, now they’re glued to the television all day long.’
Mr Gauntlett watched television a good deal himself. At least he seemed always familiar with every programme.
‘I’m pleased to hear young people do still believe in such stories.’
‘Ah, so am I, Mr Jenkins, so am I. That’s true. It’s a surprise all the same.’
I thought perhaps Mr Gauntlett needed a little encouragement.
‘I was asked by a young man — the one who told you where to find Daisy — if the Stones bled when a knife was thrust in them at Hallowe’en, or some such season of the year.
‘I’ve heard tell the elder trees round about The Fingers do bleed, and other strange tales. I can promise you one thing, Mr Jenkins, in Ernie Dunch’s grandfather’s day, old Seth Dunch, a cow calved in the dusk o’ the evening up there one spring. Old Seth Dunch wouldn’t venture into The Fingers thicket after dark, nor send a man up there neither — for no one o’ the men for that matter would ha’ gone — until it were plain daylight the following morning. Grandson’s the same as grandfather, so t’appears.’