After a brief respite while the animals dried off, I ate my only remaining food, a bag of crisps, and then we continued our journey. As the afternoon wore on the cloud grew darker overhead and it began to rain, lightly at first and then it became a downpour. It took only seconds for me to don the waterproof slicker but I was already soaked. At least it served to cloak the saddle bags and panniers, one of which housed a subdued and half-drowned cat.
Leaving the valley behind we skirted the road wherever we could but were horn-blasted a number of times by unsympathetic car drivers. It was a miserable ride and it was with relief that the gaunt towers of Lemmington Hall appeared through the gloom.
The hall was used as a convent by the Sisters of Mercy who ran a residential facility there for girls with special educational needs. I had run an in-service course for the staff about a year ago and I fully expected that the good nuns would remember me and most probably offer food and shelter for the night. I rode around to the back of the hall where I knew there was a gatehouse entrance. By now the evening had turned really foul with a rising wind causing the rain to lash against us. A sharp-faced nun wearing spectacles peered around the edge of the door in answer to my knocking.
To reassure her I gave my name and asked to be remembered to the Reverend Mother. Then I explained my predicament and asked for help. In reply the door slammed shut without a word being spoken. I waited helpless, holding Fynn by the bridle, with the rain running down my neck under the cloak and through into my boots. In keeping with my mood and to add to my growing worries, Toby Jug began to wail, probably because the rain had dripped into his pannier and he’d been drenched enough. I felt the living embodiment of the saying ‘As miserable as sin’. Just as I was about to leave in despair to try to find some shelter in the woods, the door opened a crack and an unseen person directed me in a hushed voice to go to the gamekeeper’s cottage.
Alerted no doubt by a phonecall from the hall, the gamekeeper was already standing in the doorway waiting for me, the light behind illuminating his huge frame and deerstalker hat. No pleasantries were exchanged between us as he guided me towards a row of outbuildings which he identified as stables and a gun room.
‘Ye can bed down in the stable or the gun room as you like. I’ve unlocked the both,’ he said in a gruff bass voice.
I turned to thank him but he’d vanished. I was beginning to experience a creepy sort of feeling at these turn of events, as if I’d entered a weird village twinned with Transylvania, inhabited by spectres. Light-headed with hunger and tiredness I wondered if his name could be Igor or Drakos and whether we would ever leave this place alive. Nonetheless, I was thankful for the shelter, meagre as it was, but there were no offerings of food.
The stables were bare but dry. Under the light from a single electric light bulb I lifted a damp Toby Jug out of his pannier and set him down on the cobbled floor. Swiftly unpacking and unsaddling Fynn, I made her as comfortable as I could and fed her the last of the horse nuts. Next I filled a pail of water for her from a tap in the yard, although I doubted whether she would need any after the soaking she had already endured.
The gun room offered about the same level of hospitality as the stables but I consoled myself with the thought that it was better than spending the night out in the woods. Spreading my sleeping bag over the long ridged wooden table, I slid in and fell asleep with the sound of Toby Jug washing himself yet again while I stupidly pondered why there were no guns in the gun room.
I awoke cold, damp and stiff minutes after six o’clock in the morning, having spent the night tossing and turning with every kind of ache imaginable in my back and knees.
‘Well, it’s nobody’s fault but yours!’ I told myself as I decided to start on my way as soon as possible. We were on the last leg of the journey and I expected to be home by nightfall at the latest. Toby Jug had found a warm place for the night on a torn cushion which was lying on a bench under the barred window. Trust a cat to find the best berth, I thought. He raised his head, looked up at me and promptly went back to sleep. Fynn, on the other hand, was happy to see me and I had her saddled and packed up very quickly. Toby was reluctant to go back in his pannier but settled down when I stuffed a dry sweater in the bottom for him to lie on. I stroked him and told him gently that we would soon be home and that he had to stop his moaning and make the best of things. Whether he understood me or not, the simple reprimand had an effect because there was no more wailing or awkwardness from him for the rest of the journey.
I left Fynn standing in the yard whilst I walked over to the gamekeeper’s cottage to thank my host. The upper part of the country-style door was open and I could smell coffee and breakfast. The gamekeeper, a florid-faced man wearing the same hat I’d seen him in last night, sat at a kitchen table in his braces and a collarless shirt with his sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy arms and hands like those of a boxer. In front of him lay a huge plate of bacon, eggs, sausage and fried bread, together with a steaming cup of coffee. My mouth watered and my stomach rumbled in torment at the sight. His wife, a thin woman wearing a flower-patterned pinafore, caught sight of me and came over to the door. I thanked them and asked if there was any charge. At this the gamekeeper glanced over at me and said: ‘Y’ed best be leaving a couple a quid for the lad to clean up after ye.’
Having only offered to pay in jest I found myself blushing and having to rummage about in my clothing for the money. After paying I sensed that I was being a nuisance and bade them goodbye. There was no response and I have never been back.
The morning was dull but dry, although I had to be careful on the roads which were slippery wet after the storm. Having crossed Glanton Pyke and passed through the village the evening before, I was looking for the start of the old railway line from Alnwick which had to be close by. Finding a way around some fields under cultivation, I located the line at last. Fynn must have recognized it from her days at the riding school because she moved along at an eager trot. By ten in the morning we were on the outskirts of Alnwick and home was a mere ten miles away. It had taken less time than I had expected.
Circumventing the town we followed the bridle path through the pastures, an area of grazing land with common access owned by His Grace, the Duke of Northumberland. Riding alongside the River Aln, with Alnwick Castle in the background, my spirits rose again and I looked forward happily to journey’s end. Soon we crossed over the road to Boulmer and followed the Aln until we forded it within sight of Lesbury and Alnmouth. This was the long way round but I had to find a route that crossed riding country or suffer the hazards of riding along busy roads. After leaving Alnmouth behind, the trail headed inland and we were soon passing through the woods at Low Buston and in a direction due south again for Guyzance.
Pausing to give Fynn a breather and a chance for Toby Jug and I to stretch our legs, I took time out to admire the multicoloured mushrooms and toadstools the rain had brought out. They stretched between the trees like a carpet in strikingly beautiful hues of red, green, yellow and gold. Toby Jug made a brief foray amongst them and scattered some of their fleshy tops but swiftly turned away at the obnoxious smells they gave off. Perhaps some of them were the so called ‘magic mushrooms’, much prized among the drug fraternity for their hallucinogenic properties. As for the rest, they’d be deadly poisonous in spite of their bonny colours.
Mounted up again and with Toby Jug safe in his pannier, this time with the lid open so that he could lean on the edge and look out, we pressed on. By the early evening we caught sight of Foxhelliers Farm which meant that Owl Cottage lay only a mile beyond. We covered the remaining distance at a restful pace.
Unlocking the gates to the drive it was comforting to see that nothing had changed except that the grass of the lawn was longer. No doubt Fynn would soon take care of that. I led her into the garden and tethered her to the ring in the wall. Toby Jug leapt down out of the pannier, raced up the garden and climbed halfway up a beech tree for the sheer joy of being back. We were home again and glad of
it.
The inside of the cottage seemed too enclosed and stuffy for my liking after the days spent out of doors. Strolling into the bathroom I got the shock of my life. There confronting me was the stark figure of a baddie from a low-budget Hollywood cowboy film. It took me long seconds to realize that I was staring at the mirror image of myself. The apparition that stared back at me was dishevelled, with dark hair covering a grimy face and five days growth of beard, dressed in a scruffy lumberjack-style shirt, mud-spattered jeans and dirty riding boots. No wonder the nun at Lemmington Hall had refused to fully open the door. I must have been a frightful sight in the semi-darkness, standing beside a bedraggled horse with a cat wailing in the background.
Two hours later Fynn had been rubbed down and brushed, supplied with hay and water and given a welcome home ration of horse nuts. Toby Jug had also been brushed and groomed and given one of his favourite meals. In addition, the figure in the bathroom had metamorphosed into a clean-shaven, well-scrubbed and fresh-smelling human being. Eating the first cooked meal I’d had for days was delightful and the glass of good wine to follow soothed away the aches and pains that are an inevitable side-effect of prolonged horseback riding. I reflected that I’d embarked on a rather foolish escapade with overtones of a schoolboy adventure. I shuddered to think what might have happened had I fallen and been badly injured or if Fynn had broken a leg. And what if I’d lost Toby Jug, drowned in the stream at Ingram Valley? But now that we were all safe and sound and I was in my cottage sitting comfortably in front of a warm log fire, my perspective on the camping trip became rosier. Overall, I had to admit that I’d had a wonderful time and I was glad that I’d taken the opportunity, despite the risks.
The next day we did very little. Fynn ate hay and cropped the grass; Toby Jug wallowed in sleep and arose only to feed and make a trip outside; I lay about reading, thinking and just watching the birds in the garden from a lounger in the conservatory. It would be time soon enough to resume the normal pace of life but for now we rested and whiled away the time in blissful abandon.
By the end of the week I had returned Fynn to her field in Denwick, done numerous household chores and attended to the garden. Everything was back to normal. Throughout the holiday period, whilst she was still my responsibility, I visited Fynn every day and took her riding three or four times a week. On the days when I didn’t ride her I took Toby Jug with me, the two animals seemed to have become even closer since the camping trip. I was kept busy mucking out the loose box, loading hay and cleaning the water trough. The sight of Toby Jug on Fynn’s back, sitting in little red hen-style, whilst Fynn moved around the field cropping the grass or stood dozing under the horse-chestnut tree near the bottom of the field, dumbfounded me. After a few weeks of this routine it mystified me how Fynn’s owner, my colleague Diane Forester, with her coiffured hair and long, painted fingernails, could manage to do all this and look so well groomed.
In the days following our camping trip I gradually became aware that Toby Jug had changed. He looked and behaved differently somehow and then I realized what it was. He’d grown up. He was no longer a kitten. With my overprotective attitude towards him I subconsciously still thought of him as vulnerable but in fact he was fast maturing into an adult cat with independent airs. As Toby Jug grew in confidence he liked to roam further and further afield when he was not with me. Although I valued his freedom and independence as a cat, I couldn’t help worrying about him whenever he didn’t come quickly to me when I whistled and called. He loved the nearby woodland copses where he could prowl in tune to nature’s call of the wild and I respected that. But the downside to a cat living and hunting as a wild creature is that the cat can, in turn, be hunted as a wild creature. Cats do seem to arouse more than a fair share of the violence meted out towards animals, even by humans, never mind dogs and foxes.
With all of this in mind, and because Toby Jug was so precious to me, I wanted to guard him from the world of hurtful happenings. Still, I had to learn all over again that a cat will go where a cat wants to go. Truly, the world is a cat’s oyster. I had to rid myself of the tendency to think of him as being different and more vulnerable because of his poor start in life and because of his size. Toby Jug was, day by day, teaching me that he had his own agenda and he was simply asserting his rights by sometimes straying away from our home environment. I recognized and respected this but continued to worry. There was an element of foreboding about my feelings for Toby Jug’s safety which on two occasions proved to be correct. One such incident was to rankle sorely in my mind for a long time afterwards.
AUTUMN
In autumn the salmon return to the upper reaches of the River Coquet to spawn. It is especially inspiring to witness this annual event which is part of the impressive and unbelievable range of intuitive behaviour laid down by nature in every fish, animal, bird and insect. It is impossible not to be impressed by the magnificent fish that have travelled hundreds of miles through the oceans to return to the river where they were born.
The weir on the Coquet is at a place where the river bends. It is sheltered by deep woodland on either side of the river bank and the river runs over gravel beds clearly visible in the sunlight. Sitting here is the best place to watch the salmon jumping. They hurl themselves over the weir in a seemingly impossible feat. Miraculously, most seem to make it and swim off up river until they meet the next obstacle.
Once I took Toby to see this wonderful event. It was a night when the moon was full – a wonderful night to be out enjoying the night air and the starry sky. Toby was in his element. We arrived at the weir and found a fisherman working the river. He seemed quite surprised to see us and smiled as he told me that salmon do not leap at night. I felt somewhat humbled but I had learned something. So instead, Toby Jug and I sat on the riverbank, taking full advantage of the ambience and occasionally I shone my torch on the water to illuminate the outlines of the salmon gathering below the weir, waiting for dawn to take the next step on their journey of life. Some were very large; all looked silvery in the torchlight. They swam around in a leisurely fashion, swaying as they moved. They seemed to be saving their energy for the final effort that lay ahead.
It was with a mixture of fear and fury that I found Toby Jug in a state of abject terror on November the 5th, Guy Fawkes’ Night. The day had started with a fine crisp autumnal morning and after feeding I let him out for his morning stroll. I was working at home that day to finish an article in time to meet an editor’s deadline. Whenever I spotted him, Toby Jug was happily playing in the garden amid the gathering piles of fallen leaves which were being enticingly swept about by a rising wind.
Around 4.30 p.m. I could hear fireworks parties starting in the village and there seemed to be more bangs and rockets zooms than normal. Toby Jug had never heard fireworks before and I was sure that they would startle and probably frighten him. I went outside and called his name. Normally, he would shoot towards me, especially since it was time for his evening feed. But there was no sign of Toby Jug in spite of my whistles and calls. I went back inside the cottage thinking he would soon return. Sometimes, he would suddenly appear on a window sill, looking in towards me and crying for me to open the door.
As time passed it grew dark and I began to get worried. I started to search for him in earnest. I looked in the outhouse with an opening in the wall where he was able to gain entry if I wasn’t at home. Inside was a large linen basket with a thick woolly blanket for comfort but he wasn’t there.
Just then a man from further along the road, whom I slightly recognized, was passing with his black Labrador. He stopped by my gate, looking red-faced and angry. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘there’s some young ’uns throwing fireworks into a garden. They’ve scared something up a tree, must be a squirrel or cat, and when I told them to stop they threw a banger at the dog. The young brats! I’d like to give them a jolly good hiding. Their parents must be morons.’
And with that he strode off without waiting for a reply, thumping his walking s
tick angrily into the ground to emphasize his feelings, with his dog following meekly at his heels.
My blood turned cold at the thought that it might be Toby Jug up that tree. I ran along the main street where I came upon a rowdy group of youths who were indeed throwing fireworks into the old vicarage garden. One of them, encouraged by the shouts of the others, was balancing on the garden wall and throwing fireworks up into the higher branches of an ancient oak tree that grew in the corner of the garden.
‘Get ready to grab it if it falls,’ one of them yelled just as I arrived panting and furious. I can’t recall what I shouted at them, I only remember that I stormed into their midst, arms flailing and shoulders thrusting them aside, I charged at the big fellow on the wall knocking him into the garden and then I turned on them like an enraged bear. I was furious at what they were doing to some innocent animal, especially as it could be Toby Jug. Not surprisingly, they fled and left me drenched in sweat and hot with anger.
My heart was thumping so fast that I was shaking with emotion and needed to rest against the wall for a while until I calmed down. I wasn’t accustomed to having aggressive confrontations and the whole business was upsetting. Turning to the tree I peered up into the branches. I could see nothing except dark patches among the twisted limbs which were still partly hidden from the streetlight by autumn leaves not yet fallen.
Just then a woman I recognized came out from her cottage across the road. She was at pains to tell me that she’d been terrified by the youths, who had thrown firecrackers into her passage way and burnt patches on her rug, and that she had telephoned the police. She went on to say that they deserved being chased and that I had done the right thing and that she hoped the little cat up the tree was all right.
My worst fears were confirmed. It had to be Toby Jug. Desperate to see he was safe but not yet absolutely sure it really was him up the tree, I clambered on top of the wall and softly called for him. A man, who the woman hailed as Andy, appeared and asked if it was my cat up the tree and would I like to borrow his ladder to have a look. Since there was still no sight of Toby Jug I accepted his kind offer. While he went to get the ladder, the woman, who identified herself as Jenny Croger, volunteered some more details which convinced me it was Toby Jug up there.
Paw Prints in the Moonlight Page 12