by Ann Swinfen
At length he rose to his feet again and dragged himself onwards, but he knew, now, that he did not have the strength to cross the moor and reach Swinfen. In one final twist to the cruel game Fortune had played with him, he saw she would bring him so close to home and allow him to die here. Then, as the curtain of snow wavered aside for a moment, he caught a glimpse of a projecting rock face ahead of him. Suddenly all his desires were narrowed down to reaching the place and crawling beneath it to find some shelter from the storm. It leaned forward at an angle from a slight rise in the ground, with a space below it into which he crept. He would rest here for a while. Perhaps the snow would abate, or the wind drop, and he could continue on his way. He curled on his side, and laid his head on his bundle. He was quite unaware when sleep overtook him.
In the afternoon at Swinfen Hall, most of the household were gathered in the kitchen, for despite large fires the rest of the house ached with a bitter winter chill. In the kitchen, however, the large cavernous space was cheerfully lit both by hearth and by candles on tables and in sconces. Margit was wiping dry the last of the pewter plates from dinner and storing them in their places on the rack of the dresser. The older boys, along with Richard, were tying fishing flies at one end of the huge old scrubbed table, which was dented and scored with knife marks from generations of cutting bread. At the other end, the younger children were helping Hester make tarts for supper from circles of pastry and blackberry preserves. Rather more of the preserve had found its way into sticky mouths than on to the pastry. The baby Jane was confined to a triangular frame on wheels in which she trundled about the floor, knocking into everyone’s shins. Bridget was listening to Nan reading, while she mended a chemise, and Patience was tracing out a pattern for Joane’s next piece of embroidery. Near the fire, Agnes and Biddy dozed in their chairs, and the men were mending harness nearby. Dick’s kitten Ginger, now a full-grown cat, was stretched out beside the hearth, with a wary eye on Peterkin, who had quietly asserted his rule amongst the cats and dogs of the house.
Indeed, almost all the household was here. The two eldest Swynfens were asleep upstairs and Brendan had gone out to check his sheep before nightfall. Anne’s sense of duty had taken her off to the estate office to figure her accounts, which were woefully behindhand because of her recent mood of lethargy and depression. After she had sat staring at the columns of numbers for an hour without lifting her pen, the office proved too chilly in spite of her good intentions, and she came in carrying the account book, ink and quill, in the hope of claiming a little space on the table in the warmth and companionship of the kitchen. As she did so, the door at the end of the passageway slammed open, allowing a blast of wintry air to bend the candle flames and stir up the ashes on the hearth into a dancing flurry. Brendan came in, still in his snowy boots, but before Hester could chide him, he took off his hat and shook out the snow, and said:
‘The hurdles are broken down, and someone left the barn door part ajar. Some of the ewes have escaped.’
The boys glanced furtively at each other. They had gone out before dinner to fetch their fishing gear. Had they failed to latch the door? That was five hours since. If the ewes had escaped then, they could be far away by now.
‘They’ll likely not have strayed far,’ said Josiah, toasting his feet by the fire. ‘They’ll have wandered down to the meadow, the silly creatures.’
‘Do you think I am such a fool as not to look there already?’ Brendan flared out at him. ‘I’ve been searching this half hour. I found some tracks in the snow, under the lee of a hedge, heading towards the moor, but there’s so much snow falling that any further tracks were long vanished.’
‘You’ll not be thinking of going after them?’ said Biddy. ‘’Tis wild out there, and far worse up on the moor.’
‘There’s a dozen of the best ewes gone,’ said Brendan grimly. ‘And most are near their time.’ He looked across the room at Anne, who was standing just inside the doorway from the hall. ‘You’ll recall we put the ram to them early this year, planning for earlier lambing and bigger lambs for market.’
Anne did recall. They had debated it long and hard. The risk lay in the chance of bad weather at early lambing time, and nothing could be worse than this.
‘What do you want to do?’ she asked.
‘Take out a search party,’ he said. ‘Up to the part of the moor they know. I need the youngest and strongest: Master Richard and Master Dick, and Isaac. We’ll make two parties and take a horse each, in case we need to carry any home.’
‘Isaac has a bad cold,’ said Anne. ‘I don’t think he should go.’
‘Then I’ll go alone, and the other two can go together.’
‘Wait!’ Anne set down her load amongst the discarded fishing tackle. ‘I’ll put on warmer clothes and come with you. They’re my ewes and my responsibility. Richard, Dick, run quickly and dress as warmly as you can.’
They went off at once. It would be a bleak undertaking, but they never questioned the need for it.
‘It’s not a task for a woman,’ said Brendan, still speaking to her across the whole length of the big room.
‘I am as strong as any here. Let’s waste no more time discussing it.’
Within half an hour they were on their way, past the lake and the cultivated land and heading towards the moor. Brendan insisted that Anne should stay with him, where, as he said bluntly, he could have her under his eye. He sent the two boys off to the left, along the edge of the forest, towards the Freford end of the moor. With Anne riding one of the big geldings, and his dog at his heels, Brendan strode up the slope to the moor, heading in the direction of the flock’s summer feeding grounds.
Despite her bold words, Anne was more than a little afraid once they were outside in the blizzard. Her hat blew off at once, to be retrieved by Brendan. She pulled the hood of her cloak over it and tied it down, but the wind whipped her cloak away from her body, and she had to clutch it around her with one hand, needing the other for the reins. As they climbed above the shelter of the forest, the wind redoubled in fury, and the snow fell so thick Anne was blinded, and hardly knew how to guide the horse. Brendan, who was walking a little ahead, turned round to check that she was still following, then, as though he could read her thoughts, he took hold of the reins near the bridle and led the horse.
It was impossible to speak, for the wind ripped their words from their mouths and bore them away screaming, but they signalled to each other by gesturing. Anne thought she saw a sheep, but it was only a rock. Then the dog Niall nosed up something from under a snow-laden gorse bush. A hare rose up on its hind legs and stared at them, its nose working, then leapt away across the snow. The shepherd whistled to the dog to stop him chasing the hare, and he came back reluctantly. Brendan shouted something to Anne, but she shook her head and cupped her hand behind her ear to show she could not hear. He came close to her stirrup and she leaned down, as he laid his arm along the back of her saddle and put his mouth close to her ear.
‘I said, ’tis a common belief that hares are witches’ familiars, so. I’ll not let the dog hurt it, lest ’tis one of Agnes’s. We would not want to call down bad luck indeed, now would we?’
Anne made a face at him and he laughed. She saw that, incredibly, he was enjoying this wild trek across the moor through the blizzard, and she thought: So am I. For some reason, I feel suddenly hopeful. Perhaps we’ll find the ewes alive in spite of all.
When they reached the ruins of Agnes’s cottage, Brendan made her halt and dismount. They sat in the lee of one of the fallen walls, where there was a little shelter from the falling snow, and the noise of the wind was lessened.
‘Here,’ he said, pulling a flask out of his pocket, ‘drink some of this, it will warm you.’
Anne took a drink, then choked and sputtered.
‘What is it?’
‘We of Ireland and Scotland call it uisge beatha. The water of life. I always keep a small store for times like these. It will give you hea
rt to carry on.’
‘It will make me so drunk, I suppose I’ll forget that we’re on Packington Moor in a blizzard.’ But she consented to swallow one more mouthful.
As Brendan began to get up, she stopped him.
‘Before we go on,’ Anne said, ‘and as we may die of the cold up here, I would have you tell me one thing, Brendan Donovan.’
‘And what is that?’ he asked, sinking back beside her.
‘You’ve never told me why you came here, for what purpose. Do you trust me enough to tell me now?’
He shivered, and huddled deeper into his cloak, and did not at first answer. When he did, his words surprised her.
‘You know a man called Sir John Clotworthy.’
‘He was one of my husband’s colleagues in the House of Commons. They both belonged to the moderate party.’
‘Moderate, is it? And do you know him well?’
‘Not very well. John knows him better than I. Why do you ask?’
‘It was John Clotworthy cheated my family out of their estates. We were considerable landowners in Antrim. Fair land of Antrim, on the sweet shores of Lough Neagh. Clotworthy made some fraudulent deal under the new settlements, and we lost everything—land and stock and goods and home and all. My father died of despair.’
His voice was flat, all emotion drained from it.
‘My mother lives with my dowerless sisters in a labourer’s cottage—she who was one of the greatest ladies of Antrim. My two brothers were killed fighting in the war. My wife and two children were put to the sword by English soldiers. I must needs hire myself out as a shepherd to provide for the women of the family who are left.’
Anne, bereft of words, touched his arm. After a silence, she spoke hesitantly.
‘Alas, Brendan, these are terrible times we live in. I know nothing about John Clotworthy’s affairs in Ireland. But what has this to do with me?’
‘I came to England sworn to avenge my family on him. I would kill him if I could, or harm him in any way I might. I prayed to God to guide my hand. Aye, God forgive me, I prayed that. Then, to my disgust, I learn that Cromwell is there before me, and has shut Clotworthy up in Windsor Castle, where I may no more come at him than he may gain his freedom.’
He gave a bitter laugh.
‘’Tis a mockery, is it not? He is imprisoned because he is so moderate, and that serves to protect him from the consequences of his cruel deeds.’
‘But—’
‘In Dublin I had spent time discovering more about my enemy. Who were his friends? John Swynfen, John Crewe, Denzil Holles, Nathaniel Fiennes and others. So, when I had made my way to London, I thought: I will take my vengeance on his friends, until such time as I can lay my hands on him.’
He paused and looked at her intently, and took her hand.
‘I think, perhaps, I was mad then.’
Anne felt her heart jerk against her ribs.
‘And so you came to Swinfen.’
He nodded.
‘And so I came to Swinfen. And here I found, not John Swynfen—himself a prisoner—but his wife and children. And by all I can learn, John Swynfen is a good man, who would not steal another’s land.’
‘You are right. He would not.’
‘And I hired myself to Anne Swynfen, plotting how I might hurt her—kill her, perhaps, and her children, one by one.’
Anne shivered and tried to pull her hand away, but he would not let it go.
‘That time at the lake,’ she said, choking on the words, ‘would you have left Jack to drown?’
There was a silence, then Brendan drew a long shuddering breath.
‘I do not know. God help me, I do not know. But you came, and I woke from my madness, and Jack did not drown.’
He was silent again, until Anne thought he had no more to say. Then he shook himself and turned towards her.
‘I found that this Anne Swynfen, who struggled to save her manor from the fate of so many in this war, was not the woman I had imagined in those vengeful dreams of mine back in Ireland. She loved and cared for all alike—her family and servants, her labourers and tenants, down to the least lamb or silly hen. She even cared for her Irish shepherd, him with his deceitful ways and murderous heart.’
Anne shook her head. She could not speak, her heart pounding like a trapped hare in her throat.
‘And her Irish shepherd found his own frozen soul beginning to warm a little, in the midst of all this kindness. Until he realised his wickedness and folly, and swore to himself and to God, that he would lay aside his sinful plan, and try to go forth and live again. For ’tis not so bad a fate for a man, to be Anne Swynfen’s Irish shepherd.’
There was silence between them. Then he pulled her to her feet.
‘Come, we’ll turn into figures of ice ourselves, indeed, sitting here in the ruins of Agnes’s home. Let us go once more in search of those feckless ewes.’
He helped her to mount, untied the horse, and whistled up the dog. Anne was too stunned by his revelations to speak, until at last she said:
‘Where are you headed?’
‘I’m making for the place they call the Devil’s Dressing Room. I think they’ll not have gone further than that. Then we’ll work our way round to my bothy. All of that was their grazing ground in the summer.’
They found that the wind had abated a little while they were sheltering, but the snow continued to fall inexorably. The dog ranged ahead of them and to either side, seeking the sheep, but after the hare he flushed out no living thing. It was only as they came near that ill-omened part of the moor called the Devil’s Dressing Room, where few people cared to venture, that the dog ran ahead and disappeared from sight. They could hear him whining, somewhere a little to their right.
‘Run ahead,’ said Anne to Brendan, who was still plodding along at the horse’s head. ‘I can follow the sounds, but I’ll not press the horse too hard. It’s treacherous ground around here.’
A few minutes later she came up with them. The dog, wagging his tail with pleasure, was digging in a drift, throwing the snow up in a great arc behind him. Brendan was on his knees, digging more carefully with his hands. Anne slid from the horse’s back and ran over to them.
‘Is it the ewes? Have you found them?’
At that moment Brendan stayed his hand and gave her a startled glance. She looked down at the hole he was digging. A piece of cloth protruded from it.
‘I fear we’ve found some poor wandering beggar,’ he said. ‘What fool would come up here alone? I think you should stay back, mistress, for I think he’s dead.’
Anne shook her head angrily and knelt down beside him.
‘We must try,’ she said.
Brendan shooed the dog off, and together they dug away the snow that covered the body. It was a pitiful sight. The man lay curled like a dying dog, his ragged clothes barely covering his skeletal frame.
‘Poor soul!’ Anne cried out in pity. ‘Look at his boots. Nothing but canvas wrapped around scraps of leather.’
Brendan was burrowing away near the man’s head.
‘This cloak was a good one once,’ he said. ‘He probably had it off a Royalist soldier on a battlefield full of the dead.’
He lifted a corner of the wine-coloured velvet, lined with pale quilted silk, dirty and stained. Anne’s hand flew to her lips. Then she crawled forward and began to dig frantically to clear the man’s head and shoulders of snow. At last, pale as the very snow, all the blood drained from her face, she sat back and looked at Brendan across the body.
‘It is John. And you have your wish, Brendan Donovan, for he is dead.’
An expression of horror came into his eyes, then he reached out and heaved John free of the clinging snow, until he held him across his knees. He felt for a pulse in John’s wrist and under his ear, then pressed his own ear close to John’s lips.
‘He’s cold as ice and deathly still, but his heart is beating faintly. Help me to rub him warm.’
So they knelt on either si
de of John and pummelled and rubbed his limbs and his chest until their arms ached and their hands throbbed.
‘Stop your weeping, woman,’ Brendan said brutally. ‘You’ll do him no good by that, nor yourself either.’
‘And why should I not weep?’ she shouted at him. ‘My beloved is come home like a starving ghost and is like to die. Why should I not weep?’
‘He will not die,’ said Brendan between his teeth.
And at that moment, whether roused by their shouting or their efforts to warm him, John opened his eyes. His glance was unfocused and confused, and his lids dropped again over his eyes, but it gave them hope.
‘We must get him across the horse,’ said Brendan, ‘so we can take him to the bothy. He cannot sit astride, we’ll have to lay him across like a shot deer. Help me lift him.’
With some difficulty, stumbling around in the snow, they managed to lift John onto the horse, although they were so tired Anne thought for a moment that they would not have the strength to do it, wasted away though he was. He hung there, head dangling down on one side of the horse, legs on the other. Anne found the bundle where his head had rested.
‘There’s a blanket here.’
‘Put it over him.’ Brendan was taking off his cloak and spreading it over John.
‘What good will it do if you freeze to death?’ she asked.
‘I shall keep warm enough walking.’
She unfastened her own cloak and tucked that around John.
Brendan opened his mouth to object, then closed it again.
As if the heavens had emptied their final burden of snow, the storm began to ease, although now night had crept up on them and it was growing dark. But Brendan swore he could see in the dark to find his way to the bothy. Anne placed more faith in the dog, who ran ahead and then back to them, certain of its way. At last the bothy showed as a more solid darkness against the darkening sky. As they approached, the dog began to yelp excitedly.