Feathers in the Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

prancing lad,’ he said now; ‘go on, go back to your work. Say nowt to nobody; we’ll talk this over when your ma and da come in . . . he won’t be back from Hexham afore seven and that’ll give us time to think . . . ’
    By seven o’clock they had thought a great deal, but it hadn’t got them very far, and the four of them were sitting in the kitchen now waiting for the summons to the house. For countless times in the last half-hour Winnie had exclaimed, ‘I cannot believe it, the master, and him a God-fearing man.’ And now it was not Davie but her father who turned on her harshly, crying, ‘Aw, have sense, girl, have sense. God-fearin’? Even God is no longer afeared when the body cries its needs.’
    ‘Oh Da! stop talkin’ such.’
    ‘I’ll stop talkin’ such when the Almighty decides to change the pattern.’
    Ned now spoke. He looked at his son from where he was sitting in the corner of the settle, his arms folded across his chest, and he said in a conciliatory tone, ‘I would let him have his say, Davie, and whatever you answer, I mean when you tell him you’re not for havin’ it, do it quietly because we don’t want no trouble. What I mean is . . . ’
    ‘What you mean is—’ Davie’s voice was barking, but it was brought tones lower by wild gestures from his mother with her arms flung out towards the wall, indicating that it had ears, the ears of the Gearys. ‘What you mean is that he could give us all the push, bonded or not bonded. Well, here’s one that needs no push, Da, ’cos I’m goin’.’ He got to his feet now, staring back into the three pairs of eyes riveted on him, and his mouth worked for a moment before he added, ‘The world’s wide, there’s things out there I’ve never dreamed of, so . . . so I’m goin’.’
    ‘Aw no. No.’ Winnie came towards him, her two hands joined together as if in supplicating prayer. ‘No, boy, no, don’t go as far as that. Think, now think.’ She tried to press him into a seat, but he pushed her away, then looked at her, half in apology, and, his voice toned down, he said, ‘It’ll be all right; he can’t do anything to you if I go. He wouldn’t, it would be cuttin’ off his nose to spite his face. Where would he get another like you, cooking, cleaning, dairy, the lot? You do the work of two and a half women.’
    Winnie now bowed her head to the side, and it was as if she were, by her gesture, indicating her husband and his rheumaticky twisted hands. Rheumatism had struck him early, whereas her father had reached the middle fifties before his joints had knotted. But Ned wasn’t of the stamina of her father; he suffered greatly from his aches, and had done for the past ten years. And now at forty-three the winters presented a nightmare; wet sacks over his head and shoulders; feet often so swollen and painful that his boots had to be eased off them, had taken an early toll.
    Four generations of the Armstrongs had worked on Cock Shield Farm. It was their home, their place, and now Davie was rocking the very foundations of their livelihood because, like herself, he did much more than his share, and between them they made up for any slackness on Ned’s part and the fact that her father had to be cared for. True, the old ’un still did odd helpful jobs here and there about the place, in the summer that is, but in the winter he didn’t earn the one and sixpence pension the master gave him. But the master made no complaint because most of the work he used to do Davie had taken on. Besides his own work as second cowman, Davie acted as coachman when the master and mistress went in style on their twice yearly visits to The Manor, he took a turn on the plough, he saw to the hunters; there wasn’t a job on the place he didn’t turn his hand to. He had done a fourteen-hour day for years and rarely grumbled, because he was young and strong and willing; but he was also stubborn, hot-tempered, and had ideas in his head beyond those of his