will follow her one surviving man away from here. In the meantime, let her be, let her peck about the forest like a goose. Do not concern yourself with her. A woman cannot do you any harm.”
What of the corpse? Again, Master Jordan could not see that this issue was problematic in the least. He snapped his fingers in dismissal.If Master Kent himself was too squeamish in such matters, he’d have his sidemen dispose of the corpse in the same place that any animal carcasses were abandoned. “He has not earned a place on hallowed ground, I think. So let the pigs complete what they’ve begun.” He clapped his hands. “You see, you see?” he asked, as delighted with himself as any boy. “Nothing is as complicated as you fear. Now, gentlemen …” His voice was lowered at this point. He did not want to waste more time on such frivolities. There were graver, grander things to talk about.
I listened to the squaring of the cousin’s feet as he began to outline his plans for Progress and Prosperity. “Do not blame me that I have an impulse to improve, a zeal for progress,” he told his audience this afternoon. “It is not by design or any subterfuge of mine that this estate and the duties that relate to it have fallen in my hands … But any final testament should be observed whatever the consequences. I think we will agree on that.”
Well, let him make excuses for himself. I will skirt round the details of his methods and procedures, the sums and calculations that he’s made, the reckoning. We’ve heard the drift of it before, from Master Kent’s own lips, when he addressed us between the veal and the dancing. The cousin’s version, though, was not so tender on the ear. There was no regret. He did not have a dream in which we “friends and neighbors” were made rich and leisurely, where we were sitting at our fires at home and weaving fortunes for ourselves from yarn. I think he judges us rich and leisurely enough already. No, Master Jordan only had a scheme, a “simple quest,” for a tidier pattern of living hereabouts which would assure a profit for those—he means himself—who have “the foresight.”
What matters most for now is that my master is allowed to stay. It is not the cousin’s wish to be “a country mouse,” he said. He would prefer to remain in his great merchant house in his great market townand simply check the figures once in a while: what rough wool from these old fields has arrived in his warehouse, what cloth his hired women have woven on their looms, what varying profits have been made from selling their worsted, twill or fustian, their pickthread and their petersham, and what profits have been lost to greedy shearmen and staplers, cheating chapmen, and lazy fullers, tuckers and dyers. “So many ravens to be fed and satisfied,” he said, letting his shoulders sag with the weight of his responsibilities. “We should not deceive ourselves that in a modern world a common system such as ours which only benefits the commoners (and only in prolific years) could earn the admiration of more rational observers for whom ‘agriculture without coin’ is absurd.
“Everyone among us plays his part, for the good of the whole,” Master Jordan concluded. “It is the duty of our part to make the others’ part more comfortable. This is society.” He pointed at his smiling village natural . “You, sir. Continue with your quills and charts, and let’s complete your mapmaking before the week is out. This gentleman is Mr. Baynham”—here I heard his steward civilly muttering his greetings—“and he, you will discover, is adept at preparing land for sheep. This is not the first community to benefit from Mr. Baynham’s stewardship. Of course, he needs to be acquainted with your land, my land. He will be guided by the charts. Before first snow he will have structured everywhere within these bounds with fences, dykes and walls, as he sees fit. He’ll be reclaiming forestry. How can it
What of the corpse? Again, Master Jordan could not see that this issue was problematic in the least. He snapped his fingers in dismissal.If Master Kent himself was too squeamish in such matters, he’d have his sidemen dispose of the corpse in the same place that any animal carcasses were abandoned. “He has not earned a place on hallowed ground, I think. So let the pigs complete what they’ve begun.” He clapped his hands. “You see, you see?” he asked, as delighted with himself as any boy. “Nothing is as complicated as you fear. Now, gentlemen …” His voice was lowered at this point. He did not want to waste more time on such frivolities. There were graver, grander things to talk about.
I listened to the squaring of the cousin’s feet as he began to outline his plans for Progress and Prosperity. “Do not blame me that I have an impulse to improve, a zeal for progress,” he told his audience this afternoon. “It is not by design or any subterfuge of mine that this estate and the duties that relate to it have fallen in my hands … But any final testament should be observed whatever the consequences. I think we will agree on that.”
Well, let him make excuses for himself. I will skirt round the details of his methods and procedures, the sums and calculations that he’s made, the reckoning. We’ve heard the drift of it before, from Master Kent’s own lips, when he addressed us between the veal and the dancing. The cousin’s version, though, was not so tender on the ear. There was no regret. He did not have a dream in which we “friends and neighbors” were made rich and leisurely, where we were sitting at our fires at home and weaving fortunes for ourselves from yarn. I think he judges us rich and leisurely enough already. No, Master Jordan only had a scheme, a “simple quest,” for a tidier pattern of living hereabouts which would assure a profit for those—he means himself—who have “the foresight.”
What matters most for now is that my master is allowed to stay. It is not the cousin’s wish to be “a country mouse,” he said. He would prefer to remain in his great merchant house in his great market townand simply check the figures once in a while: what rough wool from these old fields has arrived in his warehouse, what cloth his hired women have woven on their looms, what varying profits have been made from selling their worsted, twill or fustian, their pickthread and their petersham, and what profits have been lost to greedy shearmen and staplers, cheating chapmen, and lazy fullers, tuckers and dyers. “So many ravens to be fed and satisfied,” he said, letting his shoulders sag with the weight of his responsibilities. “We should not deceive ourselves that in a modern world a common system such as ours which only benefits the commoners (and only in prolific years) could earn the admiration of more rational observers for whom ‘agriculture without coin’ is absurd.
“Everyone among us plays his part, for the good of the whole,” Master Jordan concluded. “It is the duty of our part to make the others’ part more comfortable. This is society.” He pointed at his smiling village natural . “You, sir. Continue with your quills and charts, and let’s complete your mapmaking before the week is out. This gentleman is Mr. Baynham”—here I heard his steward civilly muttering his greetings—“and he, you will discover, is adept at preparing land for sheep. This is not the first community to benefit from Mr. Baynham’s stewardship. Of course, he needs to be acquainted with your land, my land. He will be guided by the charts. Before first snow he will have structured everywhere within these bounds with fences, dykes and walls, as he sees fit. He’ll be reclaiming forestry. How can it
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