Haweswater Read Online Free PDF Page A

washing in from the line in the garden, wooden pegs in her mouth. She knows when she goes outside that the earth will have been turned loose by water. It will smell over-ripe, too full of itself, like a matured, dropped apple. And this is the only distraction she allows herself from the school books. An eye cast slowly over the external world, so slowly that it is as if the enormous brown-red sweep of fells becomes a view that somehow belongs inside. A gentle cough from the chalkboard at front of the room. Then she returns to the page, tothe old wars of the continent, or a tightly woven sonnet that she will have to peel apart, weigh, then piece back together.
    Her teacher is a middle-aged lady called Hazel Bowman, who drives down from Bampton each day. Her wage is not generous, though her enthusiasm for the education of the children of Mardale is not reflected in this. Textbooks and funding for the tiny school are both limited, and the teacher encourages the older members of the class to assist with reading lessons and arithmetic, sharing their knowledge within the group. A true pragmatist, she has such ways of dealing with things. Hazel Bowman brings with her newspapers for the class to read, both new and old, saved in piles in her reading room, so that the children will become familiar with history as it passes and recognize their place within it. On weekday mornings she arrives early and sweeps the floor of the classroom, lays out the books of the day, or the folded newspapers. On fairer days she will sit outside for a spell on the wall circling the small building and breakfast on bread, or a little smoked fish, watching the reflections in the lake. What she thinks of during these moments is the small number of children that will go on to college or university. This is her greatest pleasure, though she remains in touch with many who stay on in the district to farm. Hers is not solely an academic pride. Then she clasps the roped clanger of the iron bell in the porch of Mardale school and rings out the call for assembly clear across the dale. Her summons will bring boys and girls running along the streams and paths towards the lakeside building, satchels banging on the backs of their knees, sisters and brothers trying to push past each other at the gate. After an address and prayers, class will begin. History and geography. The atlas falls open with a soft thump, the leather spine cracking a fraction more. Pages rustle.
    In the newspapers, the names from the old Bartholomew’s atlas are brought to life, illustrated with event and nationality. Sometimes the world’s place names are changed and HazelBowman will mark the changes into the atlas with her small square handwriting, careful not to smudge her ink or spoil the page. Poetic, colourful names become practical, or flavoured with a different poetry, another country’s mother-tongue. The shift and tussle of monopolies in this era.
    Janet Lightburn approaches this volume of flat sections of the world with vague awe and wonders most of all at the pink shading of the Empire. It seems impossible that they, in their remote corner of a tiny island, should belong to such a vast expanse, such a sprawling, political colour, which includes far-off islands and archipelagos, obese, jutting land masses. It seems a wrong colour to her. It seems ineffectual, like a piece of cherry blossom, a streak of blood in water. A lurid purple would better suit, or a heavy, inching green. But such as it is, the tepid, inoffensive pink will, in her mind, always represent the impossible, a stray, romantic idea, like that of the colonial glacier.
    The older yellowing newspapers describe the labour movements in the south, as well as the north, and women protesting for a younger vote, for family allowance. Cotton workers forming mass picket lines, stand-offs, the resistance to wage cuts in the textile industry. These are notable events, relevant to the north, Hazel Bowman says, effecting. Ask your