The Shadow of the Sycamores Read Online Free PDF Page A

wouldn’t like and Nessie in a bad humour was … ‘D’you have to tell them tonight?’
    ‘Aye, I have.’ His smile broadened even further. ‘Ach, I’mbursting to tell somebody. Jim Legge wants me to start at Craigdownie on Monday.’
    It was worse than she thought. Telling Nessie that would be like throwing a lighted match into a barn full of hay – or worse, into a barrel of paraffin. ‘You’re not twelve yet, Henry, can you not just wait a while afore you …’
    ‘Craigdownie’s one o’ the best farms there is. If I say no this time, I’ll likely never get another chance.’
    ‘But it’s miles and miles – you’ll have to bide in.’
    ‘There’s a bothy for the single men.’
    ‘You’re not a man yet and, any road, she’ll not let you go.’
    ‘She canna stop me. She’s not my real mother.’
    ‘Father could stop you. He is your father.’
    ‘So he says.’
    His sister’s chin dropped with pained shock at such a statement, her serious brown eyes were in danger of popping out of their sockets. ‘God’ll strike you dumb for saying things like that, Henry,’ she managed to whisper. ‘Of course he’s our father.’
    ‘Yours, maybe, but …’
    ‘You’re surely not hinting that Mother was … that she had another man? You’re mad to even think it. She’d four of us to look after even before you were born. What time had she for other men?’
    Henry stopped, looking rather abashed. ‘I’m sorry, I was just teasing you – but it was a stupid thing to say.’ Little did he know that he had almost voiced a suspicion that was festering in the mind of Mary Jane Gow, whose husband had revealed his part in the secret of the boy’s real name when he was lying on his deathbed less than a month ago.
    The sound of the back door opening again stopped what was fast developing into a quarrel and Abby tried to calm her rattled nerves as her father tiptoed into the kitchen. ‘She’s nae back yet?’ At Abby’s head shake, he sat down on his usual chair by the fire, laid his tweed cap on the fender-stool and held his hands out to the heat. ‘It’s that cold outside it’d freeze the words afore they left your mouth.’
    Henry winked at a flustered Abby. ‘I’ve some good news, Father, but I want to wait till Nessie comes in.’
    Looking up at the wag-at-the wa’ clock Nessie had brought with her when she moved in, Willie said, ‘She shouldna be long. She aye comes in dead on nine.’
    No sooner had he said this than the clock gave a wheezy whirr and a little bird popped out to herald the passing of another hour. It had only given four hoarse ‘cuck … oos’ when they heard Nessie’s heavy feet approaching the front door.
    ‘My,’ she said breathlessly when she burst in, ‘you’re fine and cosy in here. Think yourselves lucky you didn’t have to go out. My hands and feet are like to drop off me.’
    ‘Abby’s got the kettle boiling for some tea,’ Willie prompted his daughter, who dutifully rinsed the teapot into the slop pail kept handy for such purposes.
    Sensibly waiting until his stepmother’s hands and feet had thawed a little, Henry took up his stance centrally to the fire and Abby cowered her brown head down into her knitted jumper in dread of what he was going to say – or, rather, of what would happen once he said it. Thankfully, he made it short and to the point.
    ‘I’m going to Craigdownie on Sunday, for Jim Legge wants me to start work first thing on Monday morning. Isn’t that good news?’
    He cast an apprehensive glance at Nessie now, waiting for her to erupt in anger, but was astonished to see her thin lips curved slightly upwards for a change. ‘Well, now, that is good news, isn’t it, Willie?’
    The wind taken out of his sails, the arguments he had prepared remaining unsaid, Henry was even more surprised by the look of shame on his father’s face. ‘Aye, Nessie, it is that,’ he mumbled.
    The boy couldn’t believe it. ‘You mean, you’re not saying I