The Shadow of the Sycamores Read Online Free PDF

canna go?’
    Nessie pursed her mouth for a moment. ‘It’s time you learned how to look after yourself. You’ll be bothying, I take it?’
    ‘Aye, but we’ll get our food in the farm kitchen.’ He feltcheated. He had expected to put up a stand for the right to go and his stepmother was practically telling him she’d be glad to see the back of him. ‘Father?’ he asked, pleading for some show of affection, for a sign that he’d be missed – but the middle-aged man avoided his eyes.
    It was Abby who cried, ‘No, Henry, you’re not old enough to be …’
    ‘Not old enough?’ Nessie barked. ‘It’s time he was earning a living and not leaving it to me and his father to feed and clad him. Speaking of that, wouldn’t you say it’s time you took a job and all?’
    This did make Willie react. ‘No, no, Nessie. I agree with you that the lad should start learning how to fend for himself but let the lassie be.’
    His wife’s brows plunged down. ‘See here, Willie Rae, I’ve been wed on you for a good few year now and not one single night have we had by ourselves. We should be able to do what we like, without wondering if the bairns’ll hear us.’
    ‘But she’s just fourteen and never been away from …’
    ‘It’s time she was out in the world meeting folk. How d’you expect her to find a man? Or do you want to be keeping her for the rest o’ your life? If that’s what you want, it’ll be without me!’
    ‘No, Nessie!’ His ruddy face had paled. ‘You’d not leave me, would you?’
    ‘Try me. It’ll be just me and you or it’ll be you and your precious lassie.’ She turned round and stuck her face close to the girl’s. ‘Is that what you want, eh? Would you like me out o’ the road so your father can come to your bed and …’
    ‘That’s enough!’ Willie shouted his outrage at this insult. ‘She doesna understand what you mean and, if I was any kind o’ man, I’d throw you out for saying it.’
    Nessie smirked suddenly. ‘But you’re not any kind o’ man, are you? You’re a man that needs a woman like me, a woman that needs a man, isn’t that right? Eh?’
    It was the truth and he dropped his head, too shamed to look his children in the eyes.
    ‘Never mind them, Abby,’ the boy soothed as he led his sister up the stairs, ‘you can come to Craigdownie with me on Sunday if you want. I’m sure they’ll have a job for you an’ all.’
    But Abby was not to be comforted. ‘I canna bide here now,’ she moaned. ‘She wants rid o’ me. She’ll go on and on at me and punch me and …’
    Somewhat self-consciously, Henry sat down on the bed beside her and slipped his arms around her. ‘I’ll tell you what. We’ll pack some things and go to Gramma. How about that?’
    ‘They’ll hear us going out.’
    ‘We’ll wait till they’re sleeping.’
    Her face was miserably white but there was something she had to find out as they waited. ‘Henry, why did you say Father wasn’t your real father?’
    He gave an embarrassed grin. ‘I didna really think he wasn’t. It was just … you four were girls.’
    The doubt in her eyes clearing as an explanation struck her, Abby whispered, ‘But Gramma once said Father had been dying to get a son and he’d just got daughters.’
    ‘I thought he couldna make a son. That’s why I said he wasn’t my father.’
    ‘No, you’re wrong, Henry. He was that desperate for a boy, he’d no thought for anything else. No thought for Mother, really … not till after …’
    ‘I can’t remember what she looked like,’ he said, sadly.
    ‘You were only hours old when she died – I don’t remember much myself. I ken Gramma didn’t have much time for him but she said he really had loved Mother. He near went mad when she died, blaming himself and getting so drunk she thought he might do away wi’ himself. That’s why she was so hard on him.’
    ‘So Gramma never thought it was funny him getting a son after so long?’
    ‘No, she said it was