All the dear faces Page 29

  When each lamb was thriving and trotting sturdily beside its mother, they were moved from the lambing field where Annie and Charlie had put them earlier, on to adjacent land, so that gradually, as a lamb was born and checked each day, all of her flock were driven up on to the more exposed pasture. At that time of the year, as the winter snows melted, the streams were swollen and dangerous, and she had lost several babies whose first staggering steps proved to be their last. Carrion crow and foxes were a hazard but from her twenty ewes she had bred seventeen lambs including four sets of twins.

  Today the air was clear and warm but wisps of mist hung over the ends of the fells. Birds were pouring out their song from throats in which the splendour of summer was scarcely contained. A plover called to its mate, and acurlew glided across the valley, its warbling note ending as it touched the ground. The sun was out, her flock's fleece was dry and ready for clipping and she felt the peace, the content, the pleasure settle in her. All around her was her land, not a great deal but enough to form the small farm she had dreamed of. Her sheep streamed out before her and when they were sheared she and Charlie were to take the fleeces to market to sell. She would keep the ewe lambs for breeding and sell the others at the lamb fair at Penrith. Hire a tup to service her ewes and so another cycle in the year would begin.

  “Come bye, Blackie," she called. "Away to me, Bonnie, steady, steady ... “

  There would be no 'boon' clipping at Browhead for who amongst her neighbours would lend her a hand? She must do it all herself since neither Charlie nor Phoebe had the necessary skill which she had learned when her father considered her strong enough.

  Charlie would drag the sheep to her, and when it was clipped; Phoebe would salve the shorn animal which involved the application to the skin of a mixture of tar and grease. The salve smelled abominable but it would not only encourage the lamb's next fleece, making it stronger and thicker, but would protect it against parasite. Charlie had promised Phoebe he would fashion a harness of sorts to attach to a ring in the wall so that each beast could be kept still while she did it.

  “Ah'll be as reet as nine pence, Mr Lucas, don't tha fret," she had told him stoutly. Phoebe never called Charlie anything but Mr Lucas, no matter how many times he begged her. Cat called him Charlie as naturally as she called Annie 'Mother', but Phoebe had seen right away that Mr Lucas was a gentleman and as such must be shown proper respect. She liked him well enough, for who could dislike such a good-natured, amiable chap? Do anything for anyone, would Mr Lucas, especially Annie. He worked hard, though he was not much good with his hands, try as he might. Willing, oh yes, but give him a hammer and he hit his thumb, an axe or saw and he cut himself, or dropped the log he was chopping on his foot. He had helped Annie to cut the oats and bigg and rye and when they had dried, he would take them to be ground by the local miller. He had cleaned and oiled Joshua Abbott's old plough and in the spring had supplied the 'horse power', laughing as he did about absolutely everything, pulling it whilst Annie guided it along the furrows. The hay was next and how Mr Lucas would fare with that there scythe didn't bear thinking about, but he had done his best. He couldn't help it if his skill lay in other directions, could he? Read anything he could get his hands on he did, always writing something he was, or talking his head off about politics, but what they would have done without him, Phoebe couldn't imagine.

  She and Charlie were waiting beside the gate leading into the big field in front of the farm, both ready to give a helping hand to Blackie and Bonnie as they herded the flock through. A catching pen had been set up so that when the sheep flowed between the gateposts they were immediately enclosed in a small area which was easily accessible to Charlie as he reached in for the animal which was to be clipped. To the side of the farmhouse, just beyond the gate, was the cobbled yard and it was here that Annie had set up the special two-tiered stool which was used for clipping. She sat on the highest tier and the sheep was tipped on to its back on the lower, its head between her knees. Beside the stool were her father's shears, freshly cleaned and sharpened.

  The spring, as though at last the gods were inclined to smile on Annie Abbott, had been a good one, dry and sunny. The blue sky arched away above their heads and high at its zenith a sky lark sang its heart out. The dogs, their work done for the moment, lay panting in the shade by the kitchen step, their tongues lolling from their open mouths. There were midges dancing in the warm air and in the meadow, buttercups and daisies and clover made a patchwork of delicate colour in the green of the grass.

  The sheep bleated anxiously and Annie could feel thesteady rhythm of her heart quicken. The results of a year's, no more than that, eighteen months', arduous back-breaking labour was about to be realised. Her fleeces would be sold, and the male lambs, and she would have ready cash again to expand her flock. To grow! Oh, Lord, keep my hand steady, she prayed, and my back strong, since it all depends on me. And let me remember how to do it!

  “Righto, Charlie, " she called, to the man at the gate, no sign of the tension in her. "Bring the first.”

  The struggling sheep was hauled, hooves scraping, towards her, whilst Charlie sweated and swore. The ewe's bleats added to the growing hubbub as her frantic lamb tried its best to go with her. The sheep stank as Charlie manhandled it on to the lower step of the stool, struggling to get back to its lamb, and for a moment, Annie felt a weakness in her arms and back. She could not do it, dear God, the thing was so enormous. Its fleece was thick, brown, tangled . . . filthy with . . . then her father's voice muttered irritably in her ear, telling her not to be such a great gowk! and to get on with it, girl, and her hand reached for the shears.

  She did eight sheep that day. Sweat poured from her so that she looked as though she had been dipped in water. Phoebe squeaked a lot since she had had nothing to do with sheep before, and even swore as Charlie did, but each shorn ewe was efficiently salved against the dread scourge of scab with rancid butter and tar, each taking her an hour to do, and the fleece was rolled neatly into its bundle before mother and lamb were re-united. Many of the lambs were confused for they did not recognise the snow-white apparition, which, once a browny grey, their mother had now become. The bright blue 'smit' mark stood out on her newly shorn back. Each ewe called for her lamb, and when found, udders which had filled in the separation were quickly emptied.

  The next day it was the same, and the next, and up beside the beck where he sat quietly on his coal-black mare, his patient dog beside him, the man heard her laugh of jubilation, her shout of triumph which echoed about the fell. He watched her as the man with her put his arms about her and when they capered round the yard in a rough semblance of a polka, he lowered his chin to his chest, turned the mare and began to make his slow way towards his empty home.

  Chapter 20

  Charlie Lucas was a Chartist who, in April 1848, had done his best to march with Feargus O'Connor to hand the Chartist petition to Parliament demanding that every man should have a vote, and that in a secret ballot, which was the essence of their People's Charter.

  The petition was not successful. It had been presented by men who believed in peaceful persuasion and when that failed, those who were inclined to think that 'physical force' spoke with a voice more likely to be heard, marched with their pikes, their green rosettes and banners through Halifax and Bradford, through Nottingham and Manchester and other northern towns. A Chartist mob with sticks and stones fighting against the drawn cutlasses of squadrons of dragoons. One of that 'mob' was Charlie who, having found that peaceful means had not achieved the justice and equality for all men he believed they should have, had decided to fling in his hand with the more violent sort, though he was not a violent man.

  Arrests were made, Chartist leaders who had led the riots. The Irish Chartist, John Mitchel was sentenced to transportation on a convict ship to Australia. Three hundred others were sent for trial and it was generally agreed that those still at large should lie low for a while. Charlie had fled even further north, moving from town to tow
n, working at anything he could find; many tasks of a menial nature not suited to his qualifications since, as the son of a lawyer, he was an educated man. He walked for weeks, months, sleeping rough through the summer of 1848, the flame of him growing dimmer, leaving only a footloose, weary man, who, though he evaded arrest, no longer had the fire and idealism of his beliefs to keep him going.

  He had been idling about Rosley, undecided which way to go with winter coming on, north or south, east or west, what did it matter? It was then that Annie Abbott, in her threadbare, overlarge men's clothing had come striding up the track, her two dogs beside her, her fragile, lop-sided sledge behind. He had at that moment, no inclination to do anything positive, like getting on his way, wherever that might be, so he had watched her, not aware that the youth he studied was in fact female, his curiosity caught nevertheless. He had followed her into The Drover's Rest, simply because there had been nothing else to do. His grand and noble ideas had come to nought. He had dedicated himself for years to the Charter which had come to nought. He was needed by no one, until he met Annie.

  On this day in October, he had been at Browhead a year and in a small way, Annie was prospering. Her lambs had been sold at Penrith and up on the fell the ewes were waiting to be covered by the fine hired tup who was butting his head in frustration in the field before the farm. In November he would be allowed to mate, but not before since Annie did not want her lambs to be dropped until April or May when the worst of the winter would be over.

  The potato crop was in, the potatoes stored in clamps, long heaps in the barn covered with straw, soil and hedge-trimmings. The hay was cut, and built up into an enormous haystack, a gigantic task which had been almost beyond the three of them and next year Annie was talking of hiring some of the Irish vagrants who tramped with their families from Whitehaven having come on the coal boats in search of work. Vegetables were stored ready for the winter. Sieves had been cut and each evening the four of them had fashioned the rushlights which would illuminate the long dark nights ahead of them. Peat had been brought in and was stacked and drying in the empty cow byre attached to the house. Annie's own ewes having proved good breeders, instead of slaughtering a couple for meat, she had parted with some of her precious cash and bought two sheep at Penrith market and these had been killedand some of the mutton pickled in brine in the huge vats in the kitchen, the rest smoked above the fire in the inglenook. Charlie and Annie had felled timber last winter, the straight-grained poles which, as Annie had showed him, must be peeled, split into pieces and boiled in water to make them pliable. They were then further split with the 'lat-axe' and shaved and trimmed on Joshua Abbott's 'swillers-horse'. All was now ready for the winter months ahead when the swill baskets and besom-twig brooms, the materials for which were stored in the barn, would be fashioned ready for market in the spring. Which market Annie had not yet decided, she said, but Charlie knew she had some idea brewing in her clever head. She had kept a fleece from one of her ewes and would card and spin and weave in the winter months, making the hodden grey which would become garments of clothing for her and Cat and Phoebe. She was settling, thriving, coming through, winning!

  The sky was a low, leaden canopy of grey clouds draped from fell to fell as Charlie trudged down the track towards the village of Hause on the edge of which stood the mill. Behind him he pulled the sledge which, though still in the state it had been when he had first seen Annie Abbott, over twelve months ago now, had been used for carrying everything from potatoes and peat, from fresh-cut sieves to a tired child, and now the oats and bigg he was taking to be milled. The runners had come off a time or two causing some consternation and great hilarity when one slid all the way down Middle Fell, scattering sheep in every direction, until it splashed into the beck. He had followed it, gathering speed as it did, and finishing up beside it in the sweet tasting, icy water.

  He sighed as the memories of the past year came flooding through his mind. Good, sweet memories which were filled with Annie, with laughter and tears and worry, with peace and fulfilment. Annie's lovely face strained so often into deep hollows of weariness as she took on tasks which were beyond her, but which were performed just the same. Annie's face laughing, bright and glorious as it had been on the day the runner came off the sledge and her tears, channelling through the birth blood which had smeared her cheeks as she had fought to save a lamb's life. Peace he had seen in her eyes as they had sat together in the dusk on the drystone wall before the farmhouse, and fulfilment as her complete flock of twenty ewes and their offspring moved placidly from one sweet tussock of grass to another. He had known her every mood, the brave goodness of her, the spirited temper, the merry humour, the bright resolve that said she would never be beaten. She was proud, defiant and independent. She was strong and beautiful and she was in love with Reed Macauley who had married some heiress from Bradford.

  So what was to happen to Charlie Lucas who loved Annie Abbott? he asked himself, his eyes cast down to the rough ground before him. His good leather boots in which, with the Chartists, he had tramped the long miles from Manchester to London, moved one beside the other in his line of vision and he noted with a part of his mind which dwelled on practicalities that if he didn't get them repaired soon, they would be beyond it and he would have to take to wearing the wooden-soled clogs. Annie, Cat and Phoebe wore. Not that there was any shame in that. They were warm and serviceable but somehow it seemed to him that clogs would be a symbol of his complete isolation from the class into which he had been born and the life he had known as a child and youth. A reforming family, his had been, despite their rank, taking him to reform meetings, where he had learned about Luddism and Chartism and the injustice of man against man. His father, a good man, a lawyer who had acted on behalf of many radical men on trial for their beliefs, had become bankrupt in the process, worn out from protecting other men from starvation, rarely charging for his own services, dying, as had his wife, Charlie's mother, in genteel poverty in West Yorkshire.

  So Charlie had gone on the tramp, enduring what his fellow men, those with nothing, endured, moving up anddown the country, speaking at Chartist meetings, passionate and ready to do whatever was asked of him in the fight for freedom and equality. It had been important to him. There had been nothing else and no one else. He had known many young women, liked them, some of them even loved a little, but lightly, good humouredly, with none of the strength and passion with which he loved Annie. He wanted Annie very badly, and how was he to continue to live beside her, with nothing more than the friendship which was all she had to give him? He slept in the snug loft above the dairy and cow byre and between his bed and Annie's was a wall a foot thick but it might as well have been thirty, or a veil of flimsy gauze, it would not have mattered, since Annie was not for him. Her demeanour told him so. She was open, generous with her friendship, her affection even, which he had seen grow as the months went by but he wanted more than that. Much more. He wanted her not only in his heart where she already was, but in his bed. He wanted her for wife and mother, to him and to their children, and her nearness, the soft curving flesh of her breasts and waist and hip, the fine delicacy of her white wrist, the sweetness of the flesh beneath her chin, her fragrance and warmth as she moved about his nights and days, were killing him as slowly and irrevocably as were the years. He had nothing to offer but himself, and his labour, and his love. She had her land, her farm, her flock. She had her child and a good friend in Phoebe and though she was not accepted into the community which lived in the Vale of Borrowdale, Bassenthwaite and Keswick, surely that would come when they realised, the people in that community, her worth. She had no need of Charlie Lucas. She would argue of course, since she could not see into his heart and would be distressed when he told her he must go. She knew nothing of his Chartist background, but if she did she would not understand, since the Chartist movement was dead so what was there for him to do, she would ask and he must think of some reason to satisfy her.

  He turned at the foot of the tra
ck where it led out on to the Hause road, looking up at the high fells where he had lived these last twelve months. He could see Annie and Phoebe scything the last of the bracken with long graceful strokes. When it was cut, which must be done each backend to prevent it encroaching on pasture land, it would be used as bedding for any animals which were brought inside for the winter. As yet of course, Annie had none, but still the bracken must be cleared. They were late with the end-of-autumn task, but the previous weeks had been frantic with all the work which must be completed by only three adults before the snows began.