Feathers in the Fire Read Online Free PDF

and Molly.
    She knew Molly as well as she knew Davie. Molly had been a kind of elder sister to her. Although there was only five years between them Molly had taken care of her when she was small, and had often washed and dressed her. But when she was seven years old her mother decreed that she should do these things for herself. She had also pointed out at that time too the difference in their stations. So Molly had been relegated to helping in the kitchen and doing the housework . . . and now Molly and her father . . . She turned and threw herself face downwards on the hay again. But almost immediately Davie’s voice roused her, crying sharply, ‘Come on! Come on now, none of that. An’ I’ve got to be on me way. It’s milkin’ time, they’ll be crying out for me. Come on now, get up.’
    He pulled her none too gently to her feet and pressed her forward across the balcony and down the stairs, and when they were once more in the open he said, ‘Go on over there and wash your face in the brook, then make your way home an’ leave things as they are, they’ll work out . . . Do you hear me?’
    When she didn’t speak he bent down to her and said gently, ‘Miss Jane, did you hear what I said?’
    She lifted her face to him but still she didn’t speak; then turning, she walked from him over the grass and towards the brook. And he went up towards the track again, but he didn’t run, nor even hurry, he was too stunned to do either. He felt like a dolt. She had made a monkey out of him. He had denied courting her for he hadn’t been over fresh in his advances; she was saucy and so he had kept her guessing. But inside he had courted her; he had even seen them married and got as far as wondering if the master would build them a new cottage . . . The master! He spat vehemently on to the grass.
    ‘I was right then.’
    ‘Aye, you were right, Granda.’
    ‘My God! I still can’t believe it. But then, you know your ma’s always said she was a scut. Your ma’s never far out when she’s judgin’ people. Your ma’s told us on the quiet that she was at it when she was little more than a bairn, not thirteen. She caught her on with young John Curran and she scattered the pair of them. It’s a wonder to me she’s not had your trousers down long afore now, lad.’
    ‘Aw, Granda, what do you take me for?’
    ‘A man, lad; that’s all, just a man. But you’re probably late in startin’. It’s them books. I was sayin’ to Ned only this dinner gone it’s them books, an’ Parson Hedley. But then the master’s a read man an’ all, but it hasn’t stopped him. No begod! it hasn’t stopped him. But then it’s his time of life; turned forty, something happens to you, lad.’ He nodded at his grandson and his eyes stretched in owl-like wisdom. ‘You have the urge to plough another field. At least that’s how the ordinary man feels. But then the master, I didn’t take him for no ordinary man. I’ve followed him to church Sunday, year after year, sunshine and shadow, sleet and snow, not because I wanted to hear old Wainwright but because I was following the pattern of a good man, a man o’ God. Aye, I always thought him an upright man o’ God.’
    ‘Upright man of God!’ Davie was walking the kitchen floor: six strides from the door to the settle, around the table, four strides back to the door; here his fingers lifted the latch, then dropped it again, click-click, click-click. After he had repeated the pattern four times he turned fiercely and cried at his grandfather, ‘Man of God! and coolly planning to shove the blame on me, the both of them. If you could have heard them. How in the name of heaven I didn’t show meself I’ll never know.’
    ‘It’s a wonder they didn’t spot you,’ said Sep. ‘’cos by the sound of it that was their nest. An’ very comfortable. An’ who of us goes down there, except young Johnnie or Mickey to see to a mother and foal, and the cart once a week with the fodder. Stop