Shoulder the Sky (Drumberley Book 3)

by D. E. Stevenson

James saw that his first job must be to sort the men who had become extremely slack and careless. He waited for a day or two, observing them carefully, and then he waded in and gave them the works. They were somewhat surprised, for they had heard a good deal about James from Mureth and had formed the opinion that he was pleasant and easy-going and would be an indulgent boss.

  “We’ve got to get a move on,” declared James, when he had told them exactly what he thought of them. “This place has got to be as good as Mureth. Go over to Mureth and have a look round, you won’t see any blocked ditches there. If you don’t want to help me to get this place into decent order I’ll get somebody else to help me, that’s all.”

  They were a little sulky at first but when James took off his jacket and got down to it himself they were shamed into following his example. Quite soon they began to take an interest in the work, and even a certain pride. James, working with them and watching the improvement he had wrought, decided that they weren’t bad fellows — all they had needed was a right good sorting.

  James was thinking about this as he waited at the ford for Daniel Reid. Presently he saw Dan coming down the slope. He waved to Dan and Dan waved back and shouted. It was amusing to see Dan’s method of fording the river; he did not hesitate on the brink as so many people did, nor did he trouble to remove his boots and turn up his trousers as James would have done. He simply walked straight through it, boots and all, as if it were not there. The water was up to his knees in mid-stream because of the rain in the night, but he ploughed through it unconcerned and his faithful sheep-dog walloped through it beside him, covering him with spray.

  “Goodness,” said James as he wrung Dan’s hand. “You’re wet to the skin!”

  “I’ll soon dry, Mr. James,” replied Dan.

  They were glad to see each other for they had shared some curious experiences and had become fast friends. James admired Daniel Reid, he was as straight as a die and an expert at his job. Although he was small and ugly, with a weatherbeaten face and a large nose and bushy eyebrows, there was a queer sort of dignity about him.

  “I wanted you to have a look at the ewes,” said James as they breasted the hill together. “They’re quite healthy but they’re light compared with the Mureth ewes and the wool seems poor.”

  “Inbred most likely,” nodded Dan. “You should buy some good tups at the Lockerbie Sale.”

  “Yes,” agreed James. “You’ll have to advise me about that. Another thing I want is a sheep-dog.”

  Daniel smiled. “That’s not so easy, Mr. James. Nobody would sell a good dog and nobody would buy a bad one.”

  “Where did you get Gyp?”

  “I got her as a puppy. She’s got Loos blood in her, and Loos was the cleverest creature that ever was. But you’d not want a puppy, it’s a made dog you want.”

  “A dog just like Gyp.”

  “Is that so?” said Dan gravely. “What would you give me for Gyp?”

  James laughed. He knew that Dan would not have sold Gyp for all the gold in Ophir.

  They talked about other things after that. James enquired about the wild tup which was loose upon Tassieknowe hill but failed to draw Dan upon the subject.

  “It never would have happened in Sutherland’s time,” declared Dan. “Yon new chap is useless. He neither knows his job nor cares about it.”

  “But what about the beast? Have you seen it lately?”

  “I’ve not seen it for a wee while,” replied Dan in noncommittal tones.

  James glanced at him and noticing a curiously grim smile upon his countenance forbore to question him further.

  “And they’re letting the place go to pot,” continued Dan after a short silence. “There’s a nice wee sheltered meadow near the river; Sutherland used it for sick sheep. Well, there’s a couple of drains got clogged and the whole place is reverting to bog. I spoke to yon new chap about it and he just grinned and said he was not bothering. ‘There’s enough land without that for all the sheep we need,’ he said. What d’you think of that, Mr. James?”

  “Not much,” said James. He could not help feeling slightly amused at the way Dan spoke of the new shepherd at Tassieknowe. Apparently the man was so despicable that he had not even a name.

  “It’s deplorable,” declared Dan, rolling out the word so that it seemed twice its usual length and conveyed more than twice its usual meaning.

  As before, when they had walked Mureth hills together, James found it took him all his time to keep up with his companion. Dan’s legs were short and seemed shorter because he walked with them bent at the knee in a curious ape-like manner, but in spite of this he covered the ground at a steady pace which never varied; up hill or down dale was the same to Dan. Fortunately he stopped every now and then and sent Gyp careering off to round up a little group of ewes and bring them to him to be examined.

  They went all round the hill, round the back of Winterfell and back over the saddle between Winterfell and Crowthorne — it was twenty miles or so — and all the time Dan talked about sheep and James made mental notes and asked questions. When at last they parted at the ford, and Dan splashed through the water and went home, James was so mentally and physically tired that he felt completely dazed. He sat down upon the bank and rested for a bit and then crawled back to Boscath, leaning upon his crook like an old done man.

  But I’ve learnt a lot, thought James. At least I suppose I have — when I can get it sorted out and digested …

  7

  BOSCATH FARM House was small but Rhoda was pleased with it; the rooms had been painted and papered and her colour scheme of dove grey and turquoise blue was a great success. It was restful; pictures looked well upon the walls and various pieces of furniture which she and James had acquired from their relations seemed to be settling down together uncommonly well.

  The outside of the house was perfectly plain but its austerity harmonised with the landscape of rolling hills. There was no attempt at a garden round the house (the kitchen-garden lay in a sheltered hollow behind the farm); the soft green turf swept up to the very walls of Boscath so that the house looked as if it had grown out of the grass of the hillside like a mushroom. It was square, built of grey stone, but a little wing jutted out at right angles from the main building and in the sheltered corner there was a huge bush of old-fashioned white roses, tiny roses like white silk rosettes, which smelt as sweet as attar. Above the house was a little grove of rowans and beyond were the hills.

  Rhoda had not been looking forward to housekeeping at Boscath; to begin with there was no electricity nor gas. To Rhoda this seemed odd to say the least of it, she expected the house to be wrapped in Stygian gloom save for a flickering oil-lamp which would reek of paraffin; but Miss Flockhart was used to lamps and had a way with them, she kept them clean and well-trimmed so that they neither smelt nor smoked and, far from being gloomy, the house was better lighted than many which boast electric current, for (as Miss Flockhart explained) paraffin was cheap and you could afford to keep a lamp burning in several places at once. There was none of that groping about for a switch nor moving from a brilliantly lighted room to a dark passage. The whole house glowed with a mellow warming radiance.

  The absence of a telephone at Boscath was a much more serious inconvenience. When Rhoda first learnt of this extraordinary circumstance she had laughed and said, “How long will it take to put in?” But to put in a telephone at Boscath would have meant not merely a few weeks’ delay and a few men climbing onto a telephone pole and a few wires festooned about the house. Putting in a telephone at Boscath would have necessitated nearly five miles of wire and sufficient poles to carry it from Drumburly Bridge. This was out of the question and it seemed equally out of the question to bring it across the river from Mureth.

  “But there’s a post every day,” Rhoda was told when she complained about the lack of communications. A post there most certainly was and what they would have done without their pleasant smiling little postie Rhoda could not imagine. He called at Boscath
every morning delivering and collecting letters and parcels and, as he happened to be a second cousin of Miss Flockhart’s brother’s first wife, he was only too willing to do any small commissions in Drumburly or to take a message across the river to Mureth on his way home. At first Rhoda was slightly shocked at the idea of making His Majesty’s Mail her private messenger, but Miss Flockhart had no qualms about it whatever and after a few days it seemed perfectly natural to interview the postman in the kitchen (where he was usually having a cup of tea with his kinswoman) and to ask him to bring half a pound of carpet tacks or a reel of black cotton or a few boxes of matches when he came the next morning.

  There was no difficulty at all about getting in stores, or at least Rhoda was put to no inconvenience in the matter, for Miss Flockhart was used to keeping house in the depths of the country and made her own arrangements. Vans from Drumburly with bread and meat and groceries were extremely reluctant to face the perils of the daft road but they visited Mureth regularly and Miss Flockhart arranged with Lizzie to take in supplies for Boscath and to send them across the river with anybody who happened to be available. The messenger was usually Lizzie’s son who was readily available after school hours. It was nothing to Duggie to wade across the ford with bread or meat for Boscath, and Miss Flockhart took care to reward him for his trouble with a large slice of home-baked cake or a slab of gingerbread.

  Miss Flockhart did everything without the slightest fuss and in addition she anticipated Rhoda’s wishes in a way that seemed magical. There is a kind of love — a selfless passion — which breeds this form of magic. Rhoda called her Flockie and Miss Flockhart liked it, as indeed she would have liked any name which Rhoda chose to bestow upon her. Mr. Brown had called her Miss Flockhart; he had treated her well but there had been no real cordiality between them, his attitude had been decorous in the extreme; her family called her Dorrie and treated her with affectionate contempt, but Mrs. James treated her as a human being and gave her friendship and sympathy. She had a brand new personality and a new name.

  In some ways it was a pity that Flockie was so capable for it meant that Rhoda had very little to do. James was busy getting the farm into order and was out all day … the days were long and extraordinarily quiet. The only sounds that broke the stillness were the far-off bleat of a sheep, the twitter of a bird and the murmur of the river. The sound of the river was always there; sometimes one’s ear grew tired of the sound and failed to register it … and then suddenly one would become aware of it again. It could almost have been the sea, in fact if one shut one’s eyes it was easy to imagine waves breaking upon a beach; or it might have been the wind — the west wind rustling through trees — or it could have been the voice of London, far-off, continuous, murmurous as one hears that busy voice in one of her quiet squares.

  Rhoda was sometimes homesick for London and all that London meant. She had had many friends in London and there was scarcely an evening that she did not go out to some sort of party, to a dinner or a dance or a play, or perhaps just to spend a couple of hours at a friend’s house and have a chat. All that was over now, as she had known it would be, and although she was perfectly sensible about it she was missing it more than she had expected.

  In this new life Rhoda had time to think — or no, it was not quite that, it was more that she had the inclination to think. She had had leisure before but she had not used it for thought. This place moved unhurriedly. People here moved more slowly and did things more slowly — and perhaps more thoroughly. Rhoda had always been a dasher, she liked speed. Her craving for speed of movement had been satisfied by the acquisition of a motor bicycle which went like the wind under her expert guidance, but “Blink” had been sold and her father had given her a small car instead and in any case the daft road was no speed track Rhoda could not indulge her passion for speed.

  The house was so small and well-arranged that Rhoda could have managed it herself quite easily but James was determined that she should have leisure for her painting. Rhoda had remonstrated; she had told James that it must be one or the other, marriage or painting, and she had chosen marriage, but James would not listen; he would not believe her; he was not going to allow Rhoda to become a household drudge. Rhoda must paint and go on painting. When Rhoda had pointed out that it was a waste of money to have a cook when she could run the house herself James replied that he could afford it, but that if it worried her she could make enough money by her painting to cover the cook’s wages. Rhoda had no answer for that. Before her marriage she had begun to sell her pictures — just a few of them here and there — and had made a good deal more than enough to cover a cook’s wages.

  The north bedroom at Boscath had been made into a comfortable, business-like studio; the window had been enlarged, the floor stained, the walls lined with shelves and cupboards. James had planned the whole thing, and the alterations had been carried out secretly, as a surprise for Rhoda when they returned from their honeymoon. James had taken a great deal of trouble over the studio — and of course it was sweet of him — but so far Rhoda had not used it. Her paints and easels and palettes and canvases which had been sent from London had not been unpacked. Rhoda went and looked at them occasionally. I can’t, she thought, I don’t want to. I shall never paint again.

  Mr. Flockhart had said that his sister enjoyed the pictures and would want to go out occasionally, and this was natural and right. Rhoda was only too pleased to allow Flockie a day off to go to the pictures. Curiously enough Flockie seemed reluctant to go. “I’m not caring,” she would say when Rhoda suggested she should have a day off, but when Mr. Flockhart’s birthday came in sight and Flockie was invited to be present at the party she allowed herself to be persuaded to accept. She would have to stay the night in Drumburly and come back the next morning for there was no way of getting back to Boscath late at night. As the day drew near she had serious qualms about the project and if Rhoda had not been firm with her she would have given it up altogether.

  The day came and Flockie departed unwillingly; Rhoda drove her to Drumburly and left her there.

  It was rather odd to be without Flockie (Boscath felt even more quiet and lonely), but James came in for supper and they had it by the fire in the sitting room and were reminded of their first night at home. It was not very long ago of course but to both of them it felt like months, to Rhoda because she had too little to do, and to James because he had too much. They washed up the dishes together and were very happy about it, and after a little more chat by the fire they went upstairs to bed.

  As Rhoda drew aside the curtains she saw that the night was stormy, a wind had got up — a gusty wind — blowing down the valley and bearing with it a few sharp spatters of rain, clouds were coming over the hills, over Winterfell and Crowthorne; they were moving rapidly and the moon showed through the rifts. At one moment the landscape was dark and the next it was flooded with pale cold light. Rhoda shivered, there was something a little eerie about the moon and the hills and the flying tattered clouds.

  She was still watching them when she saw Wanlock come up the path, he waved to her and shouted.

  “Is Mr. James in bed?” cried Wanlock. “The wee heifer is calving. I’ve got Roy helping me but we could do with Mr. James.”

  James had begun to undress but it did not take him long to get ready and as he had helped Willy Bell on similar occasions he knew what he was in for and put on his oldest clothes.

  “You don’t mind being left alone, do you?” he said as he kissed Rhoda and rushed away.

  Rhoda did not mind. Why should she? She was a sensible person and a farmer’s wife. She got into bed and lay there looking out at the hills and the clouds and the sudden swift glimpses of the moon. It was not a pleasant sight and she realised that it would be better to draw the curtains and go to sleep or to light the lamp which stood upon the bedside-table and read a book, but although the sight was unpleasant it fascinated her and she felt unable to rise and blot it out. Besides even if it were blotted out it would still be t
here, thought Rhoda uncomfortably.

  She was alone in the house. She had never been alone in a house before. No, never, thought Rhoda looking back down the years. She had been alone in a flat in London but that was different for there had been people all around, moving about and breathing, and there was the sound of people in the street. Here there was nobody, nobody moving or breathing or making a sound. The only sound was the sound of the wind which had suddenly risen to gale force and was sweeping down the valley in squally gusts; it whistled in the chimneys for a few moments and was gone … then it came again, roistering round the little house battering at the doors and windows like a wolf trying to get in. Sometimes it roared in fury, sometimes its voice dropped to a sibilant whisper which was even more disturbing to the nerves.

  It was even more disturbing because during one of these partial lulls Rhoda could hear a door banging. It was the wind of course. It must be the wind. She listened intently and she heard the stairs creak. There was somebody coming upstairs, coming up quietly, furtively, one step at a time.

  Rhoda’s heart pounded, her throat was dry. For a moment she was paralysed with fear … and then she pulled herself together and rushed to the door and flung it open. There was nobody.

  “You’re a fool,” said Rhoda as she got back into bed. “You’re a perfect idiot to be frightened of the wind. You’ll just have to get used to it, that’s all.”

  There were all sorts of things that Rhoda had to get used to in her new life — not only the wind. She had known it would be different of course but she had not realised how utterly and completely different it would be. Rhoda felt that if she had been translated to Mars she would not have found life upon that planet more utterly and absolutely different from her previous life than this. Boscath was not a different part of the country, it was a different world.

  If James could have spent more time at home the different world would have been a pleasant place but James had so much to do that he went out early and returned home late. Rhoda visited Mureth frequently and Mamie came to see her — this helped to fill up the day — and then twenty-four hours of heavy rain turned the river into a raging flood and cut off communications between Mureth and Boscath … and life was suddenly impossible. Yes, it was impossible. Rhoda could not bear it, she would have to go. She would go home for a week or ten days. Flockie would look after James. Several times she made up her mind to speak to James about it, but when James came in the desire to go away from Boscath vanished and she said nothing. As a matter of fact Rhoda was rather ashamed of herself. She had never felt so unbalanced before — at one moment wanting this, at another moment that — she had prided herself upon knowing her own mind. Now apparently she did not know it. She was annoyed with herself for not being able to settle down, but being annoyed with herself only made things worse. Dozens of people had said to her, “You’re going to live on a hill-farm in Scotland? How frightful! You’ll never be able to bear it. You’ll be cut off from everything — no theatres, no dances, no social life!” Of course Rhoda had realised all that, but it had not worried her for she would have James. She could be happy on a desert island with James. Well, here she was on a desert island and she was not happy. Her friends had been right.