The Tale of Hill Top Farm Read Online Free PDF

often felt that the only real love in her life came from her animal friends—a sad truth that had become even sadder and more true in the past few months.
    Back inside the coach, Beatrix was glad that the only other passenger—a bald, portly gentleman in a flowered waistcoat—was sound asleep. She gazed with unseeing eyes out of the window as the coach was pulled onto the ferry and the horses unhitched for the short trip across the narrow lake. The bald gentleman stirred and snorted but did not waken.
    The steam ferry was a flimsy affair and Beatrix always felt nervous as a passenger, especially when the wind blew from the south and the waves broke over the ferry’s low prow. But this time, she didn’t notice the choppy water or the gathering twilight. She had not meant to let Miss Woodcock see how sharply she had felt the unexpected news of Miss Tolliver’s death—although it was not Miss Tolliver for whom she mourned. Beatrix had been pleased by the generous offer of bed and board during her visits to the village, but she had scarcely known the lady who offered it.
    No, it was Norman Warne she mourned. Norman, the news of whose death had reached her by telegram whilst she was visiting her uncle in Wales scarcely two months before. Gentle Norman, whom she had loved with all the fierce, pent-up passion of a heart that had long ago despaired of loving or being loved. Kind, compassionate Norman, who had known her as she was and had loved her in spite of all her defects and shortcomings. They had been engaged for only a month when (to her parents’ great distress) he died, suddenly and unexpectedly. Now, all Beatrix’s plans and hopes for a bright future lay buried in Highgate Cemetery, in a new grave still covered by raw earth, as raw as her heart.
    The steam whistle shrieked again, and Beatrix resolutely closed her mind to thoughts of Norman and all that might have been of their life together. She had not come here to mourn, but to get on with the daily business of living, as he would have wanted and as her own nature—usually optimistic and hopeful—urged. She took out a handkerchief, wiped her eyes, and was blowing her nose when the gentleman opposite awoke with a hiccup and shook himself.
    “Whazzit?” he asked. “Whuzzum?”
    “The landing,” Beatrix said distinctly. “We’ve arrived on the Sawrey side.”
    In a moment, the horses were hitched again and the coach bumped off the ferry. Beatrix felt her heart quicken, realizing that she was so near her destination, so near to the place where she hoped to begin a new life—if not now, then someday.
    The village of Far Sawrey was just at the top of Ferry Hill, and less than half a mile beyond was Hill Top Farm and the hamlet of Near Sawrey. The names of the twin villages, which seemed so perversely backward, always confused visitors who came across Lake Windermere. Why was one village called Far Sawrey, when it was a half-mile nearer the lake, the ferry, and the railway? And why was the other village called Near Sawrey, when it was farther away and altogether less important?
    All became clear, however, when the visitor realized that “near” and “far” were measured not from the lake but from the ancient market town of Hawkshead, three miles to the west, for centuries the most important settlement in the area. The village of Near Sawrey ( sawrey was an Anglo-Saxon word for the rushes that grew along the shore of Esthwaite Water) was nearer to Hawkshead by about a half-mile.
    To the tune of the coachman’s shout, the snapping whip, and the creaking harness, the four horses pulled the lumbering coach up the climbing, twisting road to the top of Ferry Hill and through Far Sawrey. Off to the left, on a green hill some distance away, Beatrix could see St. Peter’s and the churchyard where Miss Tolliver lay buried. She did not allow her glance to linger, but she could not quite suppress the sadness that welled up inside her. Norman lay in a fresh grave in