by Leah Fleming
‘She’s off her head, spending good brass on rubbish. I’m having nowt to do with the job.’ Sunter stormed off again.
‘Don’t mind him, he got out of bed wrong end this morning. He’s that prickly these days, you should wed him and be done wi’ it,’ sighed Warwick, hoping she would take his cue.
‘Do you really think so?’ Ellie laughed and he had to smile. She was far too canny to be caught by this question.
‘Well, you watch out in the ring, not a place for a greenhorn lass. One look at your bonny face and the buggers will line up to catch you out.’
‘That’s where I was hoping you and Sunter would come in handy. I’m not paying a guinea above my price for yon tup but I’ve got a feeling about this one. What do you think?’ She pleaded with her blue eyes to great effect.
‘Go on then, you’ve twisted me arm, good and proper.’ They sauntered over to the temperance tearoom and Ellie ordered a plate of stew sitting amongst the other farm families trying to catch their conversations in case she was missing something. They then took their place in the auction ring and she surveyed the tiers of dalesmen, hunched over their sticks, taking stock of the exhibits as they were led around the sawdust ring, waiting for the bidding to commence.
It was Beth Wildman who had taken her aside at the June clipping and advised her to invest in new blood. For all she was a humble shepherd woman she knew sheep like she knew the village. ‘Yer father would say the same, if he’d been spared, but it’s in yer eye too, so no worries, lass. Go for what hits yer in the belly even if it makes no sense to others. Go for it and you’ll not go far wrong.’ Now there was no one to advise. Dad always said he felt safer buying fifty sheep than five rams. It was best to get a young ram from a reputable sheep breeder and she knew Dad thought highly of the Tan Hill stockmen who were getting noticed around the North Riding dales. Never listen to gossip until after the sale, when the auctioneers and farmers were tanked up with ale; that’s when the true nature of what you’d bought would come to light and she remembered his shame on buying poor stock at one sheep fair. Stick to what you can afford, don’t lose yer head and get carried away with the excitement. She could hear his words ringing in her heart as it pounded in her chest.
Her tup was paraded round the ring and she sat back trying to look bored and uninterested in the proceedings, hardly daring to move. Surely it was only a middling sort of sheep, nowt to get worked up about. The bidding opened and soon it was between Warwick and a farmer from Dentdale. So someone else saw its potential. This was the nasty bit, to stay the ground bidding up cautiously and firmly, wearing out the opposition with the possibility of upping the price and then dipping out of the sale leaving the opposition stranded with an overpriced tup.
Uncle Warwick stayed firm and the farmer, assuming the price would go on rising, dropped out. There was a second of silence and no other bids. The gavel banged down and Ellie jumped up.
‘Sold to . . .’
‘Birkett, Miss Ellen Birkett.’ She smiled proudly as the farmers turned round in surprise at a female voice.
‘I still think yer daft in yer head!’ sulked Sunter on the way home in the cart.
‘You always did, cousin, and that’s why it would be dreadful if we wed. Imagine the offshoots of two mad beasts. Wait while spring and see my new crop of lambs.’ Sunter stared ahead sternly. He would be long gone by then.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The lovers lay tucked for shelter under a mossy boulder on a limestone ridge overlooking Scarsdale, sitting on Fancy’s jacket hiding from the rain as it blew like smoke across the valley. They lay together, limbs entwined, oblivious to their soaking. Fancy’s dark eyes smiled as Ellie stirred beneath him; her left leg had gone to sleep and she shifted to shake some life back into the limb. Neither minded the wind or the rain, it kept their trysting safe from prying eyes on this deserted spot. For once the building works were silent and the Sunday knock-off obeyed rather than ignored. Ellie sat up and pulled her skirt back over her legs. She ought to be getting back to the farm with Mother in one of her moods. Sabbath or not, she would be in the kitchen, hard at the bottling and preserving, waiting for company to call to try out her elderberry cordial and seedcake.
Ellie felt guilty for skiving off secretly, pretending she was checking on her new tup in the field. She had been tupping all right! But that was nobody else’s business but her own. She was fed up laying down eggs in buckets, vegetables in sand, airing the window blankets to keep out draughts, sorting out ewes to be starved and then flushed in rich pasture before the tups were allowed to run with the flock. These were not the autumn tasks she relished. She sighed loudly and said, ‘I do love the backend of the year, Fancy, trees aflame with colour, seeing all our cattle in the fields, hay stacked high in the barn and the way the shaved fields are mixed up golden and bronze, all them shades of grey and green like a crazy quilt spread over the valley. Show me them poems again . . .’ Ellie stretched over his legs to root in his pocket.
Fancy caught her hand and pulled it away teasing, ‘Ach, no, it needs more work on it afore I read it . . .’
‘It’s fine as it is. Read it to me again, Fancy.’
‘Give me a kiss first!’ The girl flung her arms round his neck and pecked him on the cheek.
‘Not like that . . . you can do better.’ Fancy held her tightly into himself and they rolled together down the slope, laughing as they landed in a heap of sheep droppings, kissing tenderly, fiercely as if sucking the juices out of each other’s mouths. Ellie lay back, feeling the rain on her brow. If Mother could see the state she was in now, defiant and unrepentant. As she gazed up at the clouds of slate, she could hear Mother ranting to Miss Herbert as they all left for church that morning.
‘Can you put this nonsense out of her head? She won’t listen to a word I say. He’s not good enough for her, nobbut a drunken sot, a bogtrotting Scotchman. She’s bringing shame on our good name consorting with navvies. I’ll not have one sitting at my fireside in Jim’s chair. I told her right at the start if she should look in that direction . . .’ Mother ignored her daughter, speaking to the blushing Miss Herbert who shifted awkwardly, not knowing where to look at this onslaught, while Mercy, mouth agog, listened in the doorway. Ellie had turned to the teacher, arguing back.
‘And I’m telling her that me and Fancy is walking out and that’s the end of it. She should not be bothering you, miss, it’s nowt to do with anyone else what I do. Mr MacLachlan would be willing to help on the farm. Together we could do the hard work, the cowing and bulling and raise enough sons to keep up Dad’s herd. It makes sense, Mother.’ Annie Birkett had shaken her fist.
‘I won’t hear another word from her, Miss Herbert. You carry on with him, milady, and you can walk out that door as you stand. That’s my last word on the job. Sunter and Warwick can take over the farm tomorrow and you can wander round every blasted railway line in the land with that ragabash to yer heart’s ruination. I’m sick of that railway, the noise and stench of it. I’m sick of seeing drunken navvies peeing in my hedgerows, rolling down to Scarsbeck as if they owned the place. They can flash their money all they please but it don’t make them respectable and yon Fancy pants is no different than the rest. He’ll get his way with you and dump you for some flighty piece. They’re all the same, scattering their seeds to the four winds . . . nobbut rubbish. Navvies know nowt but work and wickedness. You’d think she’d think better of herself, Miss Herbert, than to throw herself away to a navvy?’
Ellie turned to look at the cause of all this bother. He was her shining man, tender and loving, and now she was his woman. There was no way she would give him up just to please Mam. Everything about him glowed. His fiery hair, boot-polished eyes, his firm strong body freckled and tanned by the sun. As he curled over to scribble in his notebook she raised herself on one elbow to snatch the paper from him. ‘I love that bit about navvy time:
‘This is navvy time, the time of the wildmen,
Who struggle over bog
and moor,
Tramp from sea to river to beck,
Our tracks cut into dale and over
The hills, scattering sheep and cattle
In the low pastures.
We dam up waters, turn the millwheel
Make engines steam, we cut out an iron way
Blast out the mountains to leave our
Rough mark forever
In the spirit of the place.’
‘It’s no finished, I canna make it rhyme like it should but that’s how the words fall.’ Fancy was embarrassed by her reading it aloud.
Ellie sat rigid, upright, afraid. ‘You won’t just jack it in and leave now, will you . . . now we lay together? Mother says that’s all a navvy wants from a girl.’
‘Hey! Who said anything about leaving? Ellie Birkett, how could you be thinking such a thing with the job only just begun and me with my hut furnished with newspapers lining the walls and a line of lockers on the walls and the prettiest girl in the dale on my arm? Shame on you. If ever I came to leave, I hope I would not be going alone . . .’
‘Is that so?’
‘Aye, I would be hoping that a certain lassie would away north with me.’
‘I have a farm to keep. How would Mother manage on her own? The vultures from High Butts would soon be scavenging.’
‘Then we can stay and I’ll help you all I can.’
‘But Mother is feared that you carry my heart in your knapsack already. She will not stomach our meetings.’
‘She’s off her head to fear I would harm you. Why should she think I would shame you?’
‘She says there are no wedded women in your camp,’ Ellie whispered, blushing at her boldness, feeling crumpled and dishevelled. Fancy burst out laughing.
‘Is that all that bothers the wifie? It’s no true . . . we have a few with brass rings on their fingers. Let me take you down to Scarsbeck right this minute and get it seen to by the minister of the kirk. And if she canna hold with such a public display, then I ken a place over the border at Gretna Green village where the blacksmith will wed us over his anvil, the old way. No one will stop us there.’
‘Oh, Fancy, would you do that for me?’
‘Name yer day and we’ll get on with it. Over the hills to Kendal up Shap Fell to Carlisle on the fast train and then you can return with a husband on yer arm, how about that pleasing your mammy? The choice is yours.’ He hugged her with wet arms.
‘Never mind her, I’m choosing what I want. How romantic to steal away in the night and come back wed with no fuss and no palaver. Yes, please, Fancy.’ Ellie sighed deeply as the rain dripped down her nose.
‘Name the day, why wait? It’s our wee secret. We could be there and back in a few days.’
‘As long as we’re back for tupping. I shall be needed then to check out my new ram. Won’t it be exciting to sneak off by moonlight, but can we really make it happen for us?’
‘Whisht! Our minds are made up and no one can stop our plans if they dinna ken what we’re up to. We can meet by the track at Scarsbeck Cross and tramp over to Dentdale up the west line. Are you sure that’s what you are wanting?’
‘Sure as death, Fancy. Once it’s done then there’ll be peace and no one can gainsay the deed. Mother’ll have to make a place for you at the table or bite on her own sour grapes.’
‘I widna be so sure about that, lass. She seems awful stubborny to me,’ said Fancy as he shook out his jacket and brushed down her skirt, his heart beating at the rashness of the promises so glibly made. How would he survive on a daleside tending stupid sheep?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Saint Luke’s late sunshine warmed bowls of fruit on the stone window ledges of St Oswy’s church. The scents of the harvest table wafted over the congregation: apples, medlars, pears, late peaches from the orangery at Scarsbeck Hall, filberts and sacks of oatmeal, speckled eggs carefully selected for colour and texture and a display of vegetables from the produce show giving a flourish to the display.
The pews were jam-packed with the great and good of the dale jostling for seats at this annual gathering and the bun fight in the parish room which passed for a harvest supper when all the best of the produce would be auctioned off and the rest distributed to the poor and needy in baskets. Arguments would rage for weeks down the ginnels in the cottages as to whose basket was bigger and better than the one they got from the chapel harvest.
All was safely gathered in barns and hay lofts: oats for the havercakes, nets of onions, potatoes and carrots, parsnips and beetroot, fruit stored in cool lofts, lines of apples shining like amber, rubies, emeralds and topaz. The pitted windfalls were left in the orchards for pigs to forage and fatten before their slaughter in late November. Ewes were heads down in the lower pastures ready to be salved with tar and butter oil and tup rams bought at the tup sales soon to be let loose on them so the next harvest of lambs could begin again.
None of the altar fixtures and fittings had missed a share of the decoration; trailing ivy wreathing the altar rail wended its way across the lectern and up the three-tier pulpit; bunches of Michaelmas daisies and the few chrysanthemums which had survived the early frosts stood dotted at random, their very sparsity catching the eye in an effective manner. There were vases of stiff gladioli standing like spears and branches of copper beech poking round the pillars. The candle rails were garnished with yet more ivy to highlight bunches of grapes donated by the Hall but there were only stalks left on; the culprits in the choir stalls spitting pips at each other during Bulstrode’s painful hour when the village growlers massacred yet another of S.S. Wesley’s anthems for small choirs.
Ralph Hardy surveyed his congregation with satisfaction. It was a good turnout under the circumstances with the usual descending orders of the dale firmly in their stalls waiting for a lecture, a pat on the back and a chance to doze or check who had put on the best show: the landowners and yeoman farmers to the fore in their boxed pews, tenant farmers in the middle and the smallholders and cottagers at the rear. In each pew families sat like organ pipes in order of size. Farmer red-faced in tweeds and muffler, wife in poky bonnet and firm stays upright with her best Paisley shawl on display for those of lesser means to envy. Then the children, descending in height, fidgeted in stiff collars and boned bodices, kicking the pew backs with boots or clogs according to means. Rows of offspring ensured many another harvest in years to come.
The parson did a quick tally; all present and correct from each of the Anglican farmsteads. The villagers were augmented by Wally Stackhouse and his brood from the Fleece who always managed high days and holidays and a free feast, the Bulstrode woman and shopkeepers who had organised the harvest display. The church smelt like a fruit market at noon and Ralph’s stomach began to gurgle at the prospect of the goose pie supper to follow. He was hoping for a good auction to raise funds for new lead flashing for the church roof seeing as how the stuff that had lasted two hundred years disappeared overnight a few weeks ago. The constable needed to look no further than Paradise camp for his villains but no one there could help them as the suspects had jacked in and sloped off with half St Oswy’s roof on their handcart. They had last been seen at the Hill Inn at Chapel le Dale refuelling themselves on their way to Ingleton. Mr Hurst could only shrug his shoulders and offer a donation to start the fund.
It was unfortunate that they did not wait until after the September flash floods which soaked the valley, flooded the beck, leaving pools of water on the pews and hassocks soaked through. Someone had turned the tap on upstairs and no mistake and his congregation huddled for cover under umbrellas. Thank providence that this afternoon was warm and the heavens above cloudless, a typical Luke’s little summer in mid-October; the lull before the onslaught of winter.
Ralph had his eye on a jar of Lund’s heather honey stuck among tasteless marrows the size of Wellington boots, and pumpkins like lanterns ready for the Halloween capers. The tomatoes he viewed with suspicion, knowing full well that many were fertilised with manure straight fr
om the communal privies and pig pens in the back yards of Scarsbeck alongside other overstuffed dubious offerings up for auction. Dalesfolk wasted nothing.
Cora Bulstrode had done her best to raise the sheep exhibits into some artistic shape; sheep fleeces and carded wool lay draped around the spinning wheel and carding brushes. Then there was the Mission teacher’s effort to display butter tubs and pats with golden squares stamped with traditional leaf patterns. There was a whole cheese in muslin cloth and bottles of Annie Birkett’s prize-winning primmyrose wine. One bottle of that had him on his knees pleading for mercy. What a cornucopia of God’s gracious goodness in keeping with his own efforts to redeem his priestly function. They were going to get a first-class lecture in line with recent events in the parish and his new-found enthusiasm to put fire back into his sermons.
As he peered through the undergrowth on the lectern to find his reading he remembered the notices in his pockets to read out at the intimations. The notices would provide a break in the hymn-prayer-hymn sandwich; a breather for the audience to cough, slip in a lozenge, stretch and stare around. He had to admit the church looked a picture thanks to all the brass-polishing, pew-dusting, hassock-beating bevy of ladies who kept the ancient church as spick and span as their own neat front parlours. He never saw any other part of their homes when he visited. Only the welcome hearth of Beth Wildman. He wondered if she was watching over his efforts.
Then he saw Liddy Braithwaite sitting with her lips pursed tightly, arms folded menacingly across her ample bosom which for once was covered up. Her husband sat by her side, his tanned pate shining as smooth as a russet apple. Ralph thought himself mad to even contemplate he could carry on with their joyful trysting. Sacrifices had to be made, he sighed, and turned to his task. ‘My text today is from St Matthew’s Gospel, chapter six, verse nineteen: Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth . . .’