Francis Brett Young

“ Mrs Mamble whipped them away, and Abner set out with Mary.
Snow still covered the ground, but by this time, in lane and road, the trampled ways were clear and the bordering drifts marked with the treading of birds, squirrels, and other woodland creatures. Abner was so unused to walking with a woman that he set a pace that Mary could not equal. Breathless, she begged him to walk more slowly. The exertion and the cold air flushed her cheeks and reddened her lips to the hue of holly and spindle-berries in the hedge. Her body glowed, and her hair was bright as the fronds of bracken in the sun. ”

“ The night sounds vanished from Abner’s ears. The woods held their breath and listened. He could hear nothing of the river’s tumult—only the harsh breathing of Atwell and the hiss of the colza flare.
‘By the houly! Look at him! Fourteen pounds if he’s an ounce!’
The shadow of a lifted arm against the light. A violent descent, and then a swirl in the black water and the great fish struggling on the bank. For Mick Connor never missed his mark.
‘Out with the light!’ And then a sudden darkness in which the roar of the stickle and the vague noises of the trees returned. ”

“ The Gunner used to chaff her as she stood there. He had done enough lovemaking in his young days and now his only attitude towards women was one of jovial cynicism. No doubt the foreman thought that Susie stayed because she enjoyed his teasing; but Abner knew better. He knew it was himself, not Eve, that Susie was watching. Between them, unseen by the other, the air was charged with potential passion like the sky of a hot night, placid and slumberous yet ready to burst into lightning. He could laugh at Gunner Eve, this dry old man who vainly imagined that he was pleasing her fancy. ”

“ For many years there had been no such winter in the Powys march, and old men who divined portents of weather from the berries of holly and the conduct of birds, foretold that there was worse to come. By the end of January the cloggers, as sensitive to sky-change as any feathered migrants, had struck their tents in the Wolfpits valley, leaving half their harvest of alder ungathered, and set off north for Lancashire where, in a country parched with fire and warmed with millions of huddled houses, they might finish the shaping of their wood for market. ”

“ Do you think a woman can go on living this miserable, separated life and settle down into an old maid like Aunt Isabel without feeling anything? No . . . people like you don’t think that a woman should have any feelings. You think as long as you’re well fed and get your glass of whisky at night and all your books kept up to date, you think that’s enough life for a woman, you think that it’s a privilege for her to spend her days looking after you. Do you think a woman never wants a man?’
Prosser gasped. ‘I think you’ve taken leave of your senses, Marion,’ he said. ”

“ The drowsiness of summer had passed and a new restlessness seized him. He could not be contented with this peaceful static existence into which he found himself sinking. The silence of Mary Malpas lay on him like a heavy spell. He had rested enough and could no longer be contented to drowse before the fire with a child in his arms. The peace of Wolfpits could tempt him no longer when the chill autumn air stimulated him to action and the natural violence of youth. He felt that what he wanted was the society of men and the pursuits of manliness. ”

“ The few labourers who moved about the fields, the solitary teams at plough, seemed glued to the frozen surface of the land, stirring sadly as in a dream. In spite of the kindness of their neighbours, so delicately shown in the gifts of roots and bundles of wood that old Drew carried home on his bent shoulders, the family at Wolfpits felt the pinch of cold and want. Mary, true to her resolution, uttered no word of complaint, but her face told Abner what she was suffering so plainly that he could not bear to look at her. ”

“ Slowly, methodically, Abner locked the kitchen door and put out the light. A moment later he himself went upstairs in the dark. Morgan was still sobbing, mechanically, for the sake of hearing his own voice, and as Abner passed the door he was aware of a soft moaning which told him that Mary was crying too. His heart ached, his body yearned for her; but in his brain George Malpas’s words re-echoed: ‘By God, you’re the only pal I’ve got that I can trust!’ In a day or two George would be home, and then the situation must be faced. He could not be a man and run away from it. ”

“ At the side of the Royal Oak, on Saturday afternoons, the entrance to the football ground swarmed with black coats; and the crowd of small boys, of whom Abner made one, peering through cracks in the match-board palings could see nothing but the backs of other black coats, or perhaps, above the tilted heads of the spectators, the sphere of a football leaping gaily into the dreary gray that passes for heaven in a black-country winter. ”

“ Elder blossoms and slender umbels of parsley flower gleamed like dull ivory. Light, and more light came welling over the world. When Abner had reached the plank bridge over the Stour where Susan first had kissed him, the edge of the woodland rose up black beyond the stream, the water gleamed beneath the alders, and the hills, that had lain folded in night, lifted their heads. Now the birds were silent. Only the larks still sang. Walking behind the ecstatic Tiger through a green lane in Uffdown Wood, Abner saw the peak of Pen Beacon before him smitten with fire. ”

“ It was difficult to believe that they had emerged a little below the crest of the hills, for the precipitous wall behind them rose magnificently black into the mist with fleeces of cloud entangled in its surface like wisps of wool in a winter hedge. Beneath their feet a lake of white vapour hid the trough of the Teme valley lapping the bases of other wooded hills. Nothing could they see but dark masses of trees thrown into fantastic folds and pinnacles by the shapes of the hills that carried them: an amphitheatre of savage stone fleeced with unending woods. ‘That’s Wales,’ said Mick. ”

“ There was only one woman in the Pound House: Susie Hind, the fine, strapping girl whose presence had disturbed him on his first visit to the inn with George. Mrs Malpas’s hints had led him to believe that she was an old flame of George’s. He found himself comparing her with George’s wife and thinking of the silence and remoteness of Mary he felt it was easy to understand why George had been led away. The freedom of Susie’s manners had suggested that she was attainable. Abner, listening to the gunner’s adventures, brooded on this, and the more he did so the more desirable Susie became. ”

“ A mild January did little to dry the sodden workings, and the task of shovelling earth was heavier to Abner than his old labours in Mawne Pit. His mate, Munn, who lodged miserably in a leaky labourer’s cottage on the river-bank at Mainstone, was taken ill with bronchitis, and Abner worked alone. Up to his ankles in reddish clay he toiled, his hands were rufous and his trousers caked with it. The burden of the wet earth weighed on him. It was like a sullen enemy that made his feet leaden and strained against the muscles of his arms. All the labourers felt it. ”

“ Wolfpits had become a black island in the surrounding whiteness. From the drift upon the doorstep the snow lay smooth to the tops of the hills which dawn illumined with a rosy light. Never had the mountains seemed so near to the house, so beautiful, and so little threatening.
Abner woke early and looked out on this transfigured world. In all the house no one was astir. Even old Drew, who worked in all weathers, had not yet emerged from his snowbound door. George and Mary still slept. It was very cold, and Abner threw his coat over his bedclothes. ”

“ Her father were a thief and a swindler and a suicide, and God visits the sins of the fathers. Like father, like daughter! That’s the sort of bedfellow my George has had, and this is what she’s brought him to, poor lamb! But don’t you think, young man, that God don’t remember! If you done it to the least of these you done it unto Me! Don’t you think you can push a young man into hell and not fall into the fire after him. You and her together. . . . You can trust God for that!’ She exhausted her breath and stood panting.
‘Come on, missus,’ said Abner heavily. ”

“ Sometimes a wind that could not be felt would stir the tops of the trees to a commotion and then the drops would fall like hail on the soaked leaves of the forest. The fire died down; there was no more wood in the hut, and drops of water began to fall from the roof into the hissing embers. It was hellishly cold, but Mick still slept like a dog, though his left leg twitched in his sleep. At dawn Abner woke him. He grumbled because Abner in his vigil had finished the tobacco. ”

“ In half an hour he came to Chaddesbourne, a village of black and white half timber that was already engaged in the midday coma with which it supplements its normal sleep of centuries. In all the length of the street Abner saw no human person stirring, nor any sign of life more violent than that of lazy butterflies sunning their wings upon the yellow flowers in cottage gardens. All the half-timbered houses had long strips in front of them behind which it seemed to be intended that they should sleep for ever in security. In a sandstone church some one was playing the organ. ”

“ He walked fast, impelled by an unconscious energy, and all the time one dominant thought possessed his brain. ‘Curse women! Curse all women! Curse the bloody lot of them!’
He passed through Chapel Green and Mainstone, dead villages both. Not a light in their windows. As dead as Wolfpits. The poplar under which he had trysted with Susie hung above him. The moonlight broke in ripples on its lofty crown. He saw nothing at all, heard nothing but the steady rhythm of his feet and the monotonous burden of words in his brain. ”