Bonds of Earth, The by E.V. Thompson Page B

me. All I’ll say is that if he’s a straightforward and honest man, the sort of person I can do business with, it will be to the advantage of all of us should his mine workings extend beneath either this farm or Elworthy’s.’
    â€˜But what about Sir John, where does he come into all this? He wouldn’t have been talking to Elworthy unless it was about something that is going to be to his advantage – and I don’t doubt it has something to do with the working of the mine.’
    â€˜You let me worry about Sir John Spurre, I’ll deal with him if and when the need arises … but don’t you have work to do? From all you had to say last evening about the mine-captain’s daughter you didn’t hurry yourselves finding this injured miner and giving him and his family the victuals I sent to them out of the goodness of my heart. There’ll be some catching up to do about the farm, so you’d best be getting on with it.’

    The words of Agnes were reassuring, but Goran’s confidence in the woman farmer received a severe jolt the following evening. He returned home to the cottage on Elworthy Farm to find his mother so upset she had not even prepared the evening meal.
    It seemed Sir John had paid another unexpected visit to the farm that afternoon and after spending some time talking to Elworthy in the farmhouse had taken a walk about the farm in his company, inspecting the outbuildings – and even the cottage where Goran and his mother lived.
    Visibly very upset, Mabel Trebartha said, ‘He walked in without so much as a “by your leave” and behaved as though I wasn’t here. After looking around him he turned up his nose and walked back out again without having said a single word to me.’
    â€˜What was Elworthy doing? Didn’t he explain what the visit was all about?’
    â€˜He never said a word the whole time the pair of them were in here. Just followed Sir John around like some cowed dog and there wasn’t anything I could say to him while they were both here together. I looked for him after Sir John rode off, but he wasn’t to be found anywhere, and he still isn’t around. It’s quite obvious he intends selling up but is too embarrassed about it to tell me.’
    â€˜I’ll go and look for him now and find out exactly what’s going on, but I’ll build up the fire first so you can have something cooking for us when I’ve found him.’

    Locating Elworthy was not as easy as Goran had anticipated. He was nowhere to be found in the farmhouse or in the farm complex and during his search Goran discovered that neither the chickens nor the pigs had been shut up for the night. The cow had been milked by his mother but the milk was still in the bucket into which it had been drawn and Elworthy had not performed his usual task of taking it to the wooden churn at the gate by the river, from where it would be collected by customers from the village using their own vessels.
    After taking the milk down to the farm entrance himself, Goran walked slowly back to the farm. He was beginning to worry about Elworthy. The simple farmer could not always be relied upon to make a rational decision when one was necessary, but Goran had never known him fail to perform any of the many routine tasks about the farm. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the fact that Sir John Spurre was somehow involved made it all the more serious.
    Having visited all the places where the farmer might possibly have been working, Goran was about to return to the cottage to tell his mother his search had been unsuccessful, when he remembered something that had occurred a few years before.
    One of the mares on the farm had produced a foal to which Elworthy had become deeply attached. It was the first animal to receive his attention each morning, coming to him when it heard his voice, and he was often to be seen leaning on the field gate as the young