If you want the bloody farm I will sign over my claim for five hundred pounds. There is a business here that I could put the money into and stay where I am instead of going back to that cursed hole.
He smiled ruefully. Five hundred pounds was about as far from him as the sun that was trying to break through and shine in the window. It would be impossible to lay his hands on it. His life seemed to be all about impossibilities at the moment. And yet a few weeks ago, when he had discussed things with Jack, he had been full of hope. What was wrong with him this morning? But at the back of his mind he knew that it was the sight of Peter Phelan at the creamery earlier with his new tractor and trailer full of shining churns. Peter Phelan was already on the top of the ladder, and he was struggling to get his foot on the bottom rung. Life was not fair!
A restless scraping of hooves out in the yard reminded him that Bessie was still under the creamery cart and protesting as well that life was not fair. With a sigh he left the letters on the table and went out to attend to her and the churn. After leading her to the milk stand, he poured the skim milk into the old tar barrel that had served that purpose for years. He untackled Bessie, and when he opened the gate into the haggard, she galloped off in delight to join Rusty, the old mare who was almost as old as himself. He would have to round the two of them up again later, because he intended to finish ploughing the high field after he had done the yard jobs. His father had never gone into ploughing or the setting of grain of any kind but had depended solely on the cows, and he had not looked after them very well either. The farm supported only fourteen cows, but Danny knew that, managed properly, it had the feeding of forty. Well run, Furze Hill could be a good, viable place, better even than Mossgrove.
Over the winter he had attended farming classes that the local Macra branch had put on in the village hall. The instructor, seeing his intense interest, had given him books to read, and late into the night he had studied all aspects of farm improvement. He had got his soil tested and he knew that the land here was top class and that he had no wet field as they had across in Mossgrove. It was ironic that the two fields of Mossgrove that had caused all the bother were wet and coarse and subject to flooding from the river and the two that his grandfather had bought beside the village were fine, flat, dry fields.
As he washed the churn and scalded it clean, his sense of well-being began to return. His determination surfaced when he thought of Nana Molly and all she had suffered and her lost dream of Furze Hill. His mother too deserved a break, and he could just imagine the delight of the girls if ever the old house emerged from the grove that smothered it at the moment. He had a lot to fight for, and he was not going to let the immensity of the task get him down. When the farmwork was done in the evenings, he had started to clear around the old arch, and though it was slow, painstaking work, it was giving him great satisfaction. Now, however, he needed to turn his attention to the job on hand, so he brushed out the cow stalls and the stable and checked the hen house for eggs. He made a bran mash for the cow who had calved the night before and looked in on the baby calf who had already got his legs under him and was standing up for his rights in the crowded calf house. The pigs as usual were hungry, so manoeuvring the intricate door he got in to feed them. In another few weeks they would be ready for the factory, and that would be more money to oil the wheels of his hardship. The thought of that made him feel better.
When he went back into the kitchen to have something to eat before he went ploughing, he reread Rory’s letter and smiled grimly to himself. Trust Rory to ask for enough anyway! But at least it was good to know that money could get him out. For himself the land would have been more important than the money. It was Nana Molly who had passed on that love of the land to him, but Rory had had no time for Nana Molly and no such attachment to the place.
Danny rounded up Rusty and Bessie, who was reluctant to come as she thought that having gone to the creamery she had her bit done for the day. But when she was lined up with Rusty behind the plough, she settled down happily. Ploughing was new to him, but when he had put his hands on the plough for the first time, there was an awakening of a connectedness to the brown earth. Jack had told him that ploughmen were born with the love of the earth in their blood. Jack was right. Now he lined the horses up beside the last furrow, and after a little while the three of them moved together in harmony. All day he guided them up and down the hilly field, and though clods of earth clung to his boots and his shoulders ached from balancing the plough to create straight furrows, a deep sense of satisfaction grew in his gut. As the hours passed, the ploughing soothed him, but when the shadows started to lengthen across the furrows, he decided to call a halt. There was the milking and the yard jobs yet to be done, and Rusty was beginning to tire. She was nearly too old for ploughing, but he could not afford to retire her. He looked after her well, and because she was a great-hearted horse, she continued to give of her best. He untied them from the plough, and they led him home across the fields into the haggard. When he had the tackling taken off them, they galloped away, glad to be free.
The yard was full of noise as the pigs squealed with hunger and the calves bellowed to be fed and the hens cackled for attention. But the first on his agenda were the cows, and it was here that he missed his mother, because while he was milking she would look after the yard jobs. He knew that there was too much work for one person in the day-to-day running of the place, not to mind the work of reclamation that he did every night. But he had been ground down for so long that now, when he had the freedom to get things done, he was energised by the challenge. As yet he could not see light at the end of the tunnel, and there were days when he wondered if he would ever see it, but an inner drive kept him going. He held on to the belief that one day the farm would be a thriving concern and that the house in the trees would stand tall and free and that he would have made good Nana Molly’s faith in him.
When he was finally finished and all the animals were quieted down for the night, it was dusk, but he decided that before he went in to have his supper he would spend a little time clearing around the arch. He had been working at it by night for a few weeks, and every morning he had to restrain himself from resuming the clearing of the night before, but he knew that the farmwork had to take priority over anything else. Tonight he might finally get to the other side, and this would eliminate the need to go out into the road to get in over the wall beside the front gate.
He picked up his slasher and saws from where he had tidied them away the night before and started to cut through determinedly. The growth was dense, and he could feel the briars catch at his sleeves as he slashed in around them. Nature when left to herself soon wrapped her arms tightly around everything. But slowly his hacking began to have an impact, and then suddenly when he cut the leg of one scrawny tree, a huge wad of ivy came free from around the arch. Standing well back he pulled at the ivy. It came away like a trailing cloak, and gradually the whole arch was revealed. He whistled in appreciation: it was a solid arch of red brick in perfect condition. A glow of satisfaction suffused his whole being. These Barry ancestors certainly knew how to build! Careful in case he would loosen the brickwork, he eased away the blanket of surrounding ivy.
It was now too dark to do much more, but he was determined to burrow his way through to the front door, which was not far away from this angle. He cut on determinedly and rammed his way through the undergrowth in what he hoped was the right direction. When he hit a wall he knew that he had arrived somewhere in the general direction of where he had intended. Then he worked along by the wall and found that he was just to the left of the front door. At last the path through the arch was open. Tomorrow evening he would clear it properly. He put away his tools carefully and headed back into the kitchen.
Inside it was cold and dark, and after lighting the oil lamp he rekindled the fire with dry sticks and bits of broken turf. Soon the flames were licking the bottom of the kettle, and he put two of the eggs that he had collected earlier into a black sa
ucepan and rested it beside the kettle. He pulled up the only half-comfortable chair in the kitchen and sat down. A wave of exhaustion swept over him, and though he tried to resist it, sleep overpowered him. A grey mist swept him over to the door of Furze Hill, where he was trying one key after another. He could hear Nana Molly’s voice urging him to keep trying. She had to get in, she cried, because someone was trying to hold her back. Every key he tried disappeared into the keyhole; Nana’s voice was getting more agitated and he was getting more desperate.
He jumped up in fright as a gentle hand on his shoulder woke him. Fr Brady was standing behind him.
“Sorry to wake you, Danny, but I’ve the tea made and the eggs are boiled, and you probably need something inside you,” he smiled.
“God, thanks, Father,” he said gratefully. “I’m glad to wake up because I was having a strange dream.”
“Well, I’ll join you for supper,” Fr Brady smiled as he sat to the already laid out table, “because Kate gave me an apple tart for you, and I can’t let you have all that to yourself.”
But when Danny looked at the table there was cheese and brown bread on it as well.
“You’re feeding the hungry, Father,” he said ruefully.
“Not really,” Fr Tim told him lightly, “just helping a friend who is struggling gallantly up a high hill and who is almost within sight of the summit.”
“The summit could be quite a distance yet,” Danny said as he joined him at the table.
“The secret is to remember that even in the bad days, when you cannot see it, it is still there. The trouble is that with you working such back-breaking hours things could get on top of you.”
“It has happened,” Danny told him grimly.
“You need help,” Fr Brady declared.
“Help costs money, and as the whole parish probably knows by now, I’ve no money,” Danny told him.
“Help does not always have to cost money,” Fr Tim said.
“Well, that’s news to me,” Danny began, but changed his tone and continued, “but that’s not strictly true, because Shiner has been great and comes every chance he gets to help me, and there is nothing in it for him only he is such a good old skin.”
“There are more like Shiner out there,” Fr Tim told him quietly.
“Like who?” Danny demanded incredulously.
“My father,” Fr Tim said evenly.
“Your father?” he exclaimed in amazement.
“Yes, Danny,” Fr Tim said, “and now just hear me through. When you are young and challenged like you are, you might be sometimes overburdened, but still life is full of excitement and vibrancy. Now, when you come to my father’s age and you have your family reared and you are no longer absolutely necessary for their survival and sometimes they wish that you might just get lost for a while, well, then it’s a different story altogether. As a young man my father worked on the buildings in England where he made good money. He was smart enough to get out while he was still young, and he came home and bought a pub. He did well, but he had hard times too because my mother died when we were all young, but he got through it and reared six of us and put us out in the world. My brother who is at home in the business got married last year, and my father now finds himself surplus to requirements in his own house and business. He is beginning to think that he has nothing to look forward to but old age. In other words, he needs a project. And this is where you come in. He would reroof Furze Hill with the slates that Jack says are stacked up at the back, and then he could do the barn. At least it would be a start.”
Danny listened in growing amazement. Could this really be happening? A hundred questions ran through his mind.
“But how old is he?” he blurted out.
“Sixty next year and as fit as a fiddle,” Fr Brady assured him, “and the great thing is that he has all his tools in perfect nick, and my garden shed is like a carpenter’s workshop. That is his burning interest: carpentry, building and gardening.
“I can’t believe it.”
“He’s probably just what the doctor ordered,” Fr Tim quipped.
“He’s a godsend,” Danny declared in amazement.
“He’s been called worse. You’re on then?” Fr Tim asked.
“Well, of course I’m on! Wouldn’t I be a bloody fool not to be?” Danny gasped, hardly able to take it in.
“Any move on the ownership problem?” Fr Tim asked.
In answer Danny handed him Rory’s letter. He read it slowly, nodding his head, and then asked, “Can I take this with me?”
“You can, of course,” Danny told him in surprise, although after the last few minutes he felt as if he was gone beyond being surprised. From his experience of training sessions, he knew that Fr Brady moved fast, but tonight he was passing himself out.
The following morning as Danny let out the cows after milking, Fr Brady’s car whipped into the yard, and as he unfolded his long legs from beneath the steering wheel, a much smaller man with a thatch of greying hair jumped out of the passenger seat. Danny felt a jolt of surprise. He was not quite sure what he had expected Fr Brady’s father to look like, but certainly nothing like this youthful, solidly built man who strode forward and caught his hand in a warm, firm grasp and announced, “I’m Bill Brady.”
“Thanks for coming, Mr Brady,” Danny stammered in confusion.
“Forget the Mr,” he was told with a friendly smile.
“Nothing like the geriatric you were expecting?” Fr Brady grinned in amusement at Danny.
“Well, no,” Danny admitted wryly.
“Dad, I think that Danny was expecting a much more senior citizen,” he told his father.
“Well, that’s probably on the way, but hopefully this job will postpone it for another while,” he said with enthusiasm, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. Almost like a magnet, his eyes were drawn to the arch. “Oh boy,” he breathed, “look at that for workmanship.”
“Would you like to see the house?” Danny asked, sensing his enthusiasm to size up the whole situation.
“Lead me to it,” Bill Brady instructed.
Danny led them under the arch and through the tunnel that he had created last night. When they reached the front door, Bill Brady stood back silently appraising it and then ran his fingers lovingly along its surface and outline.
“We don’t make doors or entrances like this any more,” he breathed. Turning to Danny with a face full of admiration, he declared, “Young fellow, your grandmother’s people could certainly build a house.”
Danny felt a glow of appreciation for this warm exuberant man. This was the kind of father to be proud of and love. For no reason that he could understand, Danny felt tears in his eyes. The older man put his arm around him and hugged him.
“Young Danny,” he told him, “you and I are going to do wonders here. Tim, you go about your business now and, Danny, you look after your farm jobs. I need a few hours here to get the feel of things and form a plan of campaign.”
CHAPTER TEN
AT FIRST JACK thought that he was imagining it when he saw movement on the roof of Furze Hill. He was walking down to Mossgrove, his eye wandering along the valley. As his gaze rose to the distant hills, a sudden movement on the roof caught his eye. He was so familiar with every inch of the landscape that anything different struck him immediately. That someone was on the roof of Furze Hill brought him to a standstill. He had no clear view as the roof was partly submerged in trees, but some had not yet leafed, so through bare branches he could see a figure move carefully along. He was too far away for recognition but knew from the outline that it was not Danny Conway. Who on earth could it be? Then, as he watched, two other men came across the roof. They were carrying tools and began to remove the sheeting and slide it down off the roof. The other man, the one he had noticed first, had some kind of a pulley system bringing up what must be slates on to the roof. He was carrying them slowly along and carefully placing them beside the stripped section. Then he began to reroof.
“Good boy, Bran,” he praised, patting the dog’s head. “What the neighbours are doing does not bother you. Your job is to get the cows in for milking.”
He turned in the next gap where the cows were lying in a cluster at the bottom of the field. Bran ran ahead, his paws spattering dew and creating a green path through the silver field. When the cows saw him, they began to lever themselves up, leaving flattened nests in the high grass. Bran circled around them, making sure that they all understood that milking time had come and that there was nowhere to go only out the gap. But that did not hurry them as they slowly came on to all fours and calmly ambled across the field. Long necks craned over big bellies as the entire bawn gently nudged or forced each other through the gap, and then they stretched out into an orderly row down the boreen. Jack smiled to see Mother Legs lead the bawn as usual. She was a long-legged, bawny cow who had great difficulty calving but was a good milker. They had had her for years, and now she had a daughter and granddaughter in the herd, both of them close behind her in the row. The Legs were speedy movers, but then they were not weighed down with large udders of milk like Snow White, who was trailing at the rear. Snow White was a strange name for a red cow, but she had been a pet calf of Nora’s, who had named her after her favourite fairy story at the time.
He had two of his cows milked before Peter arrived silently and sat under Snow White across the stone channel from him. They each had their own quota of cows and without discussion went straight to their own. Peter was not a morning person, so there was no salutation, and it would take him a while to make any attempt at conversation. Jack understood this and waited for him to thaw out. Shiner, however, when he arrived a few minutes afterwards, had no such considerations and, full of exuberance, started singing:
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