“He farmed some of the best land in the lower Dale, his shorthorns won prizes regularly at the shows but he was nobody’s friend. Mr. Bateson, his neighbour to the north, summed it up: “That feller ’ud skin a flea for its hide.” Mr. Dickon, his neighbour to the south, put it differently: “If he gets haud on a pound note, by gaw it’s a prisoner.”
