Feathers in the Fire

by Catherine Cookson

  The child was now standing, supporting himself on his crutches. She stared at his face; it was wearing the most strange expression. He was gazing towards Whitfield Moor and the hills beyond. She watched him look from one side to the other, taking in the great range of space; then his head went slowly back on his shoulder and he stared up into the sky.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ She put out her arm and encircled his waist, and he turned and looked at her and smiled. And he was beautiful too. This fact often made her sad, but not today; it was as if she also, like him, was seeing the world outside the farm for the first time. She gripped him to her and he dropped his crutches, and as she had been wont to do since she was a small child, until she was twelve years old, she rolled on the grass, but now with him pressed tightly to her. When she stopped they lay, their faces close together, laughing; then like an eel he was away from her, scrambling over the grass on all fours, his body from his waist to his hips wobbling from side to side. When he reached his crutches he began to run wildly here and there like someone demented, and she chased him, laughing as she called, ‘Amos! Amos! Stop! Keep away from the edge! Be careful. Be careful!’ Every time her hands went to grasp him he ducked or slithered from her hold.

  The agility on his newfound legs amazed her; it was as if he had used the crutches from birth. It seemed that Parson Hedley was right, he was going to be very adaptable. Parson Hedley said he was the brightest child he had ever come across. For a moment a cloud passed over the bright day as she thought, if only her father could see him as Parson Hedley saw him; or for that matter, if her mother had viewed him as a human being; if only one of them had taken him to their hearts. Anyway, he had her, he would always have her.

  She lifted up her skirts and raced towards him, for now he was some distance away and nearing the edge of the Tor where it dropped almost sheer to the road below. This part was strewn with loose rocks and boulders and as he went twisting in and out of them she had a job to outmanoeuvre him. When at last she caught him she sat down with her back to a boulder and laughed as she rocked him. Then suddenly she said, ‘Listen,’ and they both became still and listened to the sound of a pony trap below them. It was coming around the bend of the road below them. Jumping to her feet and pulling the boy with her, she raised her hand and shouted, ‘Parson Hedley! Parson Hedley!’

  The man in the trap stopped and looked about him, then lifted his head. She waved down to him again, and at this he waved back, then he lowered his hand and stared at the small figure by her side, and she knew that he was very surprised at what he was seeing. She put her hand to her mouth and shouted, ‘We’ll come down,’ and at this he called back, ‘No, stay there, I’ll come up; just let me fasten Toby.’

  She watched him drive the trap to where the ground levelled off sufficiently for him to take it off the road and where there was grass for the pony to nibble; then she followed his movements as he made his way up the winding narrow path, and when he was below them she laughed down at him. Then with Amos stumping by her side she ran back towards where the path came out on the summit. They reached the spot simultaneously and their greetings were high and pleasurable as if they hadn’t met for some long time, instead of twenty-four hours previously.

  The parson was a man of medium build. He had flat rather blunt features, none of which had any claim to good looks, except perhaps his eyes; even these were nondescript in colour being a flecked grey. But it was the eyes that gave interest to the face; perhaps it was the kindliness and understanding in their depths, and a certain sharp keenness in their glance, which rarely held censure, that made them attractive.

  He gazed down at the boy who had become a deep interest in his life, as also had his sister, but whereas he could express his feelings on the former, he had to hide them on the latter; for all her capabilities, he still considered Jane a child, and, even if she hadn’t been, there remained circumstances which prevented him from presenting himself as anything but a friend, pastor and tutor. But with the child it was different, and now he exclaimed loudly, ‘Well! Well! A day of miracles. What is this?’ He stood back and surveyed the boy standing erect, shoulders hunched, on the small crutches; and when Amos, in his forthright manner, stated, ‘I’ve got legs,’ he had to pause before answering, ‘Indeed, indeed you have, Amos. Now why didn’t we think of this before, eh, Jane?’

  Jane smiled widely at him. ‘I did, but I didn’t think he could manage them.’

  ‘I can manage them, look, look,’ Amos interrupted while he demonstrated, going round in small circles, and she laughed as she caught him crying. ‘We can see. Yes, darling, we can see. But you’ll make yourself dizzy. Come along, sit down.’

  When they were seated on the grass Arnold Hedley gazed before him for a moment in silence, then said, ‘It’s years since I was up here; I’d forgotten how magnificent was the view.’ Then glancing at the boy who was sitting to the side of Jane he said low, under his breath, ‘It was good for him to see the world for the first time from this spot. It was like you to think of bringing him up.’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea, Parson, it was Molly who suggested it.’

  He looked into her face. She was so honest, she would not even take a little credit to herself when it rightly belonged to someone else. Her face to him was beautiful for it held the beauty of honesty, the beauty of an unselfish nature and a kindly heart. True, she was given to bouts of temper, but then she was but human; and she was young, so young, too young to have the responsibility of mothering this boy and running that disembowelled tortured household. He was often amazed at the gaiety she managed to maintain. But then her charge, although terribly handicapped, was a lively, intelligent little fellow, too intelligent, he considered at times, for his age. But he supposed God in His wisdom had given him the gift of memory and keen perception to make up for his lack.

  He was bending forward towards Jane to make a further comment when he was pushed aside by Amos roughly forcing himself between them from behind. The force levelled by the child’s arm into his ribs was of a strength one would associate with a boy of ten or twelve. He held back his head and surveyed the child as Jane admonished him, saying, ‘That’s naughty, Amos. You mustn’t push like that. That’s very naughty.’

  Amos was now sitting upright between them. There was a slight smile on his face, and with a lightning movement he turned to the parson, raised his hand and viciously nipped the lobe of his ear.

  When Arnold Hedley actually cried out with equal amounts of surprise and pain Jane, snatching the boy’s hands, slapped them hard as she cried, ‘That’s very wicked, Amos, very wicked. How dare you!’

  Amos stared wide-eyed up at her, and, his smile sliding into a grin now, he said, ‘He pulls my ear.’

  She exchanged a glance over his head with Arnold; then she swallowed and said, ‘Parson does it playfully, he never hurts you. There is a difference between pulling and nipping. If you ever do that again you’ll get a sound smacking, a real smacking.’

  The smile slid from the boy’s face, his eyes clouded, his lips fell firmly one on the other. In a child of similar years this might have been a prelude to tears, but he showed no signs of crying; instead he threw himself forward on to his hands and knees, crawled swiftly to where his crutches were, stood up on them and, looking from one to the other, said firmly, ‘I’m going down to the farmyard.’

  ‘You will wait a moment.’ Jane put out her hand to stop him, but he was gone, and when she rose and ran after him Arnold Hedley got to his feet. His ear was still stinging, the boy’s nails had almost pierced the skin. He felt the lobe gently as he looked to where Jane was struggling to hold the child from going towards the path, and now he went swiftly to them, saying, ‘Let’s go down; I’ve got lots of calls to make before evening. Here, you take the crutches and I’ll carry him.’

  When he stooped and lifted the boy up, Amos smiled into his face, and he smiled back at
him; and he said as Molly often did, ‘You’re an imp, young fellow, you’re an imp.’

  ‘Can I ride in your trap?’

  ‘Yes, of course you may.’

  ‘I’m going to have a trap and a horse.’

  Arnold turned and glanced enquiringly at Jane. When she shook her head, the motion did not go unnoticed by the boy for he twisted round and cried at her, ‘I am! I am, Jan. I’m going to have a horse and trap. And I’m going into the town, I’m going to race papa into the town.’

  Neither of them gave any answer to this. In single file they made their way down the sloping path of the Tor, and along the road to the pony and trap. There was a quietness on them now, a restraint, and Jane was acutely aware of it; she was to remember this day for as long as she lived, the day when Amos had nipped Arnold’s ear.

  Three

  The sun was going down as Davie Armstrong came up the south side of the Tor, walked over the top and stood on the summit, almost in the same place where Jane and Parson Hedley had sat a few hours earlier. A feeling, long starved of expression, rose from the depths of him and escaped on a long, long breath. He sighed before muttering aloud, ‘The bonny hills. Aye, the bonny hills.’ There was a softness in his tone and a moisture in his eyes as if he was being reunited with a loved one.

  He hitched the canvas bag further on to his shoulder as he looked to the left of him where he could see the smoke rising straight up from the farmhouse chimneys and, a short distance away, three spirals in a row from the cottage chimneys. His gaze moved over the fields into the far distance to the ridge on which he used to pause for a moment before going down to the meadows to collect the cows. It was a fine view from the ridge, but up here was finer, more wide, grander. In his remembering it had been from this point he had viewed his land, and when he compared it with the places he had seen over the last five years he had always found them wanting.

  He had landed in Newcastle last night, and for the past week he had been telling himself that was as far as he was going to go into Northumberland. Although he was longing to see his folks, he knew that, once back, the sickness would start up in him again, the sickness for the hills, for the wide sky, wider it seemed than any he had viewed on the oceans that he had crossed. There, you couldn’t tell which was sky and which was water, but here the sky was an endless canopy of clear light. And up here you knew it went on for ever and ever.

  ‘Aw well, enough of this.’ He spoke aloud, then stepped over the edge of the Tor on to the winding path and went down on to the narrow road, along it and on to the main road, and slowly with steady step and a slight swaying to his carriage he came back to the farm.

  Mickey Geary was the first to see him. Mickey was coming along the road with a dog by his side. The dog barked and ran from him and towards the oncoming stranger, and as it stood yapping the boy stopped and, his jaw dropping and his face spreading into a wide grin, he exclaimed, ‘Why! Why it’s you, Davie. Eeh! you’ve come back. Why, man? Eeh! we never thought to see you again.’

  Davie came up to the small boy, for Mickey at thirteen was still undersized, but his face as always was round and bright. He put his hand on the boy’s head and ruffled his hair, saying kindly, ‘By, lad! Mickey, how you’ve grown. I wouldn’t have known you,’ although he was thinking that the boy had hardly changed in five years. ‘Well, well! an’ how is everybody?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ Mickey jerked his head. ‘Things’ve changed a lot since you left, Davie. Eeh! your ma’ll be over the moon.’

  ‘Granda all right?’ He asked this question tentatively; it had been a fear in him for a long time that he wouldn’t see his granda again.

  ‘Aye, oh aye, like a linty. Me ma says he’ll never die, they’ll have to take him to the slaughterhouse.’

  Davie laughed and jerked his head, then said, ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you again, Mickey. So long for the minute.’

  As he walked away the boy called, ‘You home for good, Davie?’

  ‘No, no, lad, no farm life for me, not after being on the briny.’ He saluted from the peak of his cap, and the boy stood watching him in admiration as he stepped off the main road, crossed over the wide grass verge and on to the narrow path fronting the cottages.

  Just before he opened the door he dropped his bag from his shoulder and took off his cap; then thrusting the door back with a flourish, but still holding the knob, he bent forward, his hat held like a quoit in his hand, ready to throw, as he cried, ‘Do I have to chuck it in to test me welcome?’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Winnie muttered the words, but she didn’t immediately rise from her chair or put down the pair of moleskin trousers she was patching, nor did Ned take the tacks from his mouth or lift the last from his knee on which was a boot he had been soling. It was Sep who first rose to his feet. The clay pipe had dropped from his hand on to the mat, and he made no effort to retrieve it, but came slowly across the room. Yet before he had reached Davie, both Ned and Winnie were by his side. Then on a gabble of high exclamations they all stood entwined, and it was Winnie who held on to him to the last. The tears raining down her face, she kept saying, ‘Oh lad! Oh lad! what a shock,’ until he pressed her from him and, holding her at arm’s length, cried, ‘Well, if that’s the way it’s gona be I’d better make me stay short, eh?’

  ‘Sit down, sit down, and let’s look at you.’

  ‘You’ll get a better view standing up.’ He posed before her, spreading his arms wide and turning round. And she laughed, they all laughed; and then, still looking at him, still crying, she said, ‘Eeh! I’d better put the kettle on. Are you hungry, lad, have you had anything to eat? Why didn’t you let’s know you were comin’? Where’ve you been? I mean where’ve you come from?’

  ‘Hold your hand, woman.’ Ned pushed her in the shoulder. ‘Give him time to get his breath; it’ll take him a week to answer that lot. Come and sit down, lad. Come and sit down.’ His voice was soft and breaking and he stood aside and watched his son take his own seat by the fire.

  Davie looked at his father, and Ned said quietly, ‘It’s good to see you, lad.’

  ‘You, too, Da.’ He felt a warmth towards his father that was new. He had expected to find him much older looking, more crippled with the rheumatics, but it was as if he had left him only yesterday; and his grandfather, five years added to his sixty-seven had done little to alter him outwardly, except to bleach his hair to a silvery white and turn the stubble round his face to a dirty grey. It was his mother who was altered. Her hair had been touched with grey, now it was all grey, not a brown streak to be seen; and her face was thinner; she was thinner all over. He leaned forward and caught her hand as she stood with her back to the table gazing at him, and she came to his side and with a quick movement pressed his head against her breast before pushing it from her again and turning away to busy herself with making the tea.

  ‘I can’t believe it, lad.’ Sep was shaking his head now, ‘Out of the blue, just like that. When did you get in?’

  ‘Last night, Granda.’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Where haven’t I been!’ He pulled his brows down and moved his head slowly.

  ‘Well, wherever you’ve been it’s broadened you.’ His father’s eyes were looking over him, from his brown hair that seemed lighter now, over his tanned features, over his shoulders filling his melton-cloth coat, down to his stout boots, and he ended, ‘You’ve put on some weight I’d say.’

  ‘Aye, Da; but mind’ – he pointed – ‘it isn’t from the good grub they feed us, by! no.’

  ‘Bad?’ Sep poked his head forward, and Davie nodded at him. ‘Rotten would be a better word, Granda; terrible on some boats. You mightn’t believe it’ – again he was pointing his finger – ‘there was many a day during the first year I was away I envied the pigs their swill. By, lad! when I think what I used to give those pigs, and what we got on that boa
t.’

  ‘You’ve been on more than one boat?’ Winnie turned from the table, and he looked towards her and said, ‘Aye, Ma. This one now is me second; I’ve been with her nearly four years. It’s a good ship, that is if you can say any of them are good.’

  She turned her attention fully on him now and stared at him in silence for a moment before saying softly, ‘You don’t like it, I mean the sea?’

  ‘Well, Ma—’ he leaned back in the chair, stretched his legs out, then flung his arms wide and said, ‘That’s a question that’s going to take me three full days to answer, for sometimes I do, an’ sometimes I don’t. When I’m on it I hate it, when I’m off it and on dry land I’m longing for it. Tell you truthfully, I don’t know me own mind. Yet there’s one thing I do know.’ He nodded first at his father, then at his grandfather before he continued, ‘It’s a damn sight better than working on the land, I mean the prospects. Don’t you notice anything about me?’ Now he was grinning at them, sweeping them with a merry glance; and they looked him over again and shook their heads while they laughed back at him, and he said, ‘Oh well, a prophet in his own country. That’s what I’m always saying.’ The phrase was not applicable to the situation but it sounded fine, learned, but one thing he had said was accurate, that he was always quoting it was true. ‘You’re not looking on any ordinary donkey-room pony you know.’