A Last Goodbye Page 2

  Glancing up, she smiled a welcome.

  ‘Come away in and sit down.’ She indicated a chair by the fire.

  ‘Is there owt I can do to help? After all, I’ve been sitting all day and I think I’d rather be standing.’ He also had no wish to be too near the fire, which was pumping out yet more heat into an already stiflingly hot room.

  ‘Aye, you can reach down three mugs from the shelf there and you'll find a jug of milk in the pantry. Oh, and there’s a fruit cake in the tin… the one with the flowers on. Bring that out, will you?’

  When Tom had done her bidding, his eyes took in the neat room… the floor swept clean, the row of boots inside the door, the absence of any dirty dishes cluttering up the draining board. He pondered the whereabouts of Ellen’s mother, who must have made the cottage so pristine prior to his arrival.

  ‘Is your mother not joining us?’ he said, to fill the long silence that accompanied their preparations.

  ‘I don’t have a mother. Well, of course I had a mother, but she died giving birth to me… so I never knew her.’

  Tom, taken aback, immediately wished he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,’ he stammered.

  ‘Why not? It’s only natural to ask. I’m sorry too… sorry that she wasnae here to look after me. But it’s all right. I’ve always had my father. Him and me get along just fine.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Father says I’m just like her, so I suppose that’s nice for him. My mother was called Janet.’

  At the frankness of her information, Tom was lost for words. He pondered her as she went about her jobs, trying to imagine, and failing, what it must be like to be brought up without the comfort and care of a mother. He had always been very close to his and that closeness had remained, even when his sister had been born several years later.

  ‘Did you stay with your parents before you came up here?’ Ellen asked.

  He smiled at this indication of how their thoughts had proceeded along the same lines. ‘Aye, I did.’

  ‘It will be hard for you with no one to look after you. I’ll come and help you sometimes if you like.’

  ‘Oh, happen I shall manage well enough,’ he said and then, because the words sounded overly blunt, added, ‘But thank you for the offer.’

  ‘That’s all right. Anyway, I shall bake you a cake next time I do one for us.’

  She stopped in her preparations and looked at him frankly.

  ‘Don’t you have a sweetheart in England?’

  Tom felt himself blushing. This young lass was far too straightforward for comfort.

  ‘No… no,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Leastways… no, not really.’

  ‘That’s a shame. It would be nice to have a lady living nearby. There’s Mrs. Douglas… that’s the farmer’s wife. But she’s a bit above the likes of us! And there’s Margaret Murdie… but she’s along the valley a mile or two. Do you have brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Aye, I have one sister… Annie. She’s much younger than me. I shall miss her though. We were reet close.’

  Ellen filled the teapot and placed it in the middle of the table. ‘I shall have to pretend to be your sister then. I sometimes think I’d have liked a brother or a sister. But then I’d have to share my dad with someone else, instead of having him all to myself.’

  The object of her affections could now be heard taking off his boots in the porch and a moment later he appeared in the doorway.

  Ellen ran over to him and kissed him.

  ‘Come along, Feyther. Tea’s ready. Sit yourself down.’

  He responded by enveloping her in a bearlike hug. He regarded the newcomer over his daughter’s head. ‘She’s a good girl, this one… looked after me since she was old enough to stand, she has.’

  Ellen laughed, pulling away from her father’s embrace and crossing to the table, where she started to pour the tea. ‘I think you were looking after me for a good while first.’

  ‘Aye well, you were my little ray of sunshine in a dark sky in those days.’ His eyes misted over and then, himself again, he went on, ‘Now, how about offering our visitor some of that delicious cake you made specially. He must be thinking you’ve only put it there for decoration!’

  *

  After their meal, the two men strolled down the hill to meet the farmer, who had by now returned from market.

  ‘Did you have a good day, boss?’

  ‘Aye, Duncan. Not bad, not bad at all. They fetched a good price, most of the lambs. I bought half a dozen good-looking hoggs to replace the ewes we lost during lambing. They’re over there in the bottom field.’ He turned to Tom. ‘Is this the new shepherd, then?’

  ‘Aye, this is Thomas Fairclough. Tom, meet Kenneth Douglas – your boss and mine,’ Duncan smiled.

  The farmer held out his hand to Tom. ‘You answer to Duncan here… he’ll be your boss. If he’s happy with your work, that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘I reckon he’ll have no cause to complain. I’ve always been a steady worker,’ Tom offered.

  ‘You’ll find it a bit different in these hills from what you’re used to. The weather comes in bad during the winter months… and it’s not so good in the summer at times.’ The farmer gazed into the blue sky and shook his head. ‘We don’t see this kind of day often, do we, Duncan?’

  ‘We don’t. If it’s warm, it’s usually wet with it.’

  ‘Oh, Yorkshire weather can be pretty bad,’ Tom volunteered. ‘There’s been plenty of times me and me dad have had to dig the ewes out of snowdrifts… and lost a few as well.’

  Kenneth Douglas stared into the distance thoughtfully. ‘There was plenty of talk in the market today about possible war… not that it’s likely to affect us around here, I don’t suppose. Is much being said about it down in England?’

  ‘Only that, if it comes, it won’t last long. It doesn’t seem as though it will make any difference to us farming folk. Yorkshire’s a bit like round here… away from the big cities. We only get to hear of these things at market, like you.’

  ‘What’s brought you up here, then, lad? Won’t your father be missing you?’

  ‘Aye. But I need to gain experience of different areas and different kinds of sheep. These black-faced hill sheep are new to me.’

  ‘I think you’ll take a liking to them. Canny wee creatures, they are… full of character. Anyway, you’ll get to know soon enough. You best go and let Duncan show you your cottage. It’s plainly furnished, but no doubt better for that, when you’ve no lady around to keep it clean for you. How old are you, by the way?’

  ‘Twenty-two, sir.’

  ‘Twenty-two! Well, you’ve a good set of muscles on you. Not that you won’t find sheep farming uses every one of them, as you no doubt know!’

  Bidding the farmer goodbye, the two shepherds made their way up the path to their adjacent cottages. Duncan pushed open the door to Tom’s and they stepped inside. It was, as Kenneth Douglas had hinted, lacking in adornments. Through a scullery they entered the main room, in which were four chairs round a wooden table. Two more chairs with horsehair-stuffed cushions and wooden arms were arranged at either side of a fireplace with a built-in oven. A bookcase, containing several dusty volumes and a pile of well-thumbed farming magazines, stood along one wall and a picture of cattle on the banks of a river, with a backdrop of rugged mountains, softened the bareness of another. Through a door, Tom could see a chest of drawers and a bed decorated with a tartan rug.

  He looked around in satisfaction. The spartan appearance of his quarters suited him well enough. His eyes came to rest on the fireside oven and he frowned, doubting his ability to make good use of it. Duncan followed his gaze.

  ‘Ellen’s a good girl. She’d no doubt be happy enough to give you a hand with cleaning… and cooking maybe.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind… thanks,’ he said, regretting his earlier refusal of Ellen’s offer of help. ‘But hasn’t she her schoolwork to do?’

  Duncan smiled. ‘She left school well over a year ag
o. A clever wee lass she is – that’s what her teacher told me. Gets it from her mother, not from me.’ He grunted. ‘I suppose by rights she could have got a job anywhere… but there’s always so much to do on the farm… and me with no wife to help keep things nice around the house… I need her here. Fifteen years me and her have been here together.’

  So the girl was fifteen. Tom was surprised. She was small for her age, lacking the sophistication that some young ladies of his acquaintance began to accrue as they passed into womanhood. His own sister, a similar age to Ellen, seemed much older than Duncan’s daughter.

  ‘Right.’ The shepherd’s voice jerked Tom out of his reverie. ‘I must do some jobs before nightfall. You get yourself moved in, and I’ll see you first thing… half five, I usually start.’

  *

  The sun was setting behind the hills at the back of the cottages. Those strung out along the other side of the valley were topped with golden light that crept up the slopes till only the tips were lit, the rest being plunged into obscurity. It was different here, the landscape, Tom thought. Yorkshire was a land of drystone walls, dividing the fields this way and that and running up hillsides so steep that he wondered how men had ever been able to build them.

  He had always marvelled how these walls stood the test of time, some of them as much as a hundred and fifty years old, and it was only when he had spent a week of instruction with an elderly farmhand, who had made it his life’s work, that he understood the reason for their longevity. He could build them himself now, though neither so well nor so fast as his instructor.

  There were walls here, though much less numerous. ‘Dykes’, Duncan called them. The stones were dark grey and much less picturesque than the limestone around his former home. He gave a slight smile. It was unlike him to wax lyrical about the appearance of the countryside. When all was said and done, a wall was there to keep sheep in or sheep out and its colour didn’t matter one jot.

  He thought of the parents and sister he had left behind and then his musings moved naturally to the girl he had moved to be near. Had he done the right thing in making this journey? What he had said to the farmer was the truth. He did need to get away from his parents’ protection and gain experience elsewhere. But the real reason he had travelled this far from home was to be near to the girl he had loved since childhood, with an unswerving, unquestioning adoration. And she had no idea of his proximity. His mouth went dry as he wondered what she would say when he presented himself on her doorstep. He would spend a bit of time getting to know the farm and satisfying Duncan that he was a reliable and good worker… and then he would seek her out.

  3

  Along the Valley

  The scenery of the remote area chosen by Tom as his initiation into Scottish hill farming was on a scale, the like of which he had never seen before. The entire countryside was so far above sea level that the tops of the hills were bare of trees. The growing season was short and there was a constant worry whether the grass would give sufficient nourishment to sustain the flock through the harsh months of winter. Only the knotty heather seemed resilient to the vagaries of the weather. From his viewing point on top of the hill behind the cottage, it was exhibiting its short-lived display of colour, painting with subtle shades the hills that stretched away in all directions.

  Tom sighed with satisfaction. It had been a good decision to come here. He loved the wildness of the terrain and the bareness of the hills. He was used to hill country, but where he came from, there was always a homestead or two sheltering in the comparative gentleness of the next valley. Here, farms were few and far between.

  Every day, Tom covered several miles or more on foot, checking the flock. Within a month of the three he had been here, he was acquainted with the geography of the hills, the natural contours of which had led to the development of the ancient system of hefting. Sheep born and raised on a particular hill developed a homing instinct for it. Tom knew that even if the sheep were brought into the in-bye for shearing or dipping, he could release them from the pen, safe in the knowledge that they would make their way back to their own hill, even if they took their time doing so. This impulse to return meant that the land belonging to the farm was grazed evenly, the rough along with the smooth, barren parts as well as more fertile areas. Tom’s daily trek over the land had also enabled him to establish where the dangerous parts of the terrain were to be found, those gullies and crevices and steep drops where a sheep could get stuck or lose its footing.

  Although he had already walked the hills in the early morning, Tom liked to climb the hill behind his cottage when the day’s work was done, taking the steep rise at a more leisurely pace. His sheepdog Nell would bound ahead and flatten herself against the grass, long pink tongue lolling and eyes alight with the joy of it, as though he were one of the ill-behaved sheep who needed bringing into line. He had climbed most evenings in the summer, clouds of midges rising from the long grasses at his measured slow steps up the steep incline. He wouldn’t stop to look until the summit was reached, and then he would stand perspiring and study the view in all directions, while he caught his breath. It was autumn now, but he was loath to curtail his evening walk, though the nights were drawing in.

  Nell barked a warning and rose to her feet, tail wagging furiously. Tom followed the bounce and fall of her body as she raced across the heather. In the gloom, a figure was approaching. It was Ellen. He recognised her immediately. If anyone else had disturbed his solitude, he would have resented the intrusion. But not so with the girl. Perhaps because he was drawn to her down-to-earth nature, her habit of calling a spade a spade. Maybe it was her outlook on life, sunnier than his own, that he coveted.

  ‘Na’ then, lass,’ he greeted her, as she covered the remaining space between them at a run and flopped down panting in the long grass. ‘What are you doing up here? Haven’t you owt to do at home?’

  ‘Father says to ask you if I can come with you to market tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Happen so. But don’t you have jobs to do around the house?’

  ‘Oh, there are always jobs to do around the house. But I’ve some messages to fetch – some for Father and some for Mrs Murdie. And maybe, if I’m finished in time, I could creep in at the back of the market and watch the buying and selling.’

  Tom looked dubious. ‘That’s man’s work. Happen you won’t be welcome there.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! If I’m quiet, they won’t even see me at the back. Feyther lets me. Och, go on, Tom. Let me. Surely you don’t think that girls should stay at home and cook and clean and not do anything else?’

  The colour of Tom’s already weathered face darkened. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t believe that.’ He grinned at her. ‘All right… as long as you don’t make a noise.’ He became silent, gazing along the valley to where the hills folded in on one another.

  ‘It won’t look like this for much longer,’ Ellen’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘The valley… the reservoir. Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘I’ve heard nowt.’

  ‘They’re going to build a reservoir along the valley. They say that the big towns north of here haven’t enough water and this is the best place to collect it, the hills being so high.’

  Tom stared at her. ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. They’ve been talking about it for years. Feyther says there’s men coming down this week to talk to the villagers and to the farmers as well.’

  ‘But what about the bricks and… and everything? You can’t carry enough bricks to build a reservoir along that tiny road.’

  ‘That’s all been thought of too. There were plans to build a new road but now they’ve decided that there’s to be a railway as well.’

  ‘A railway?’

  ‘Yes. Isn’t it exciting! It won’t be for us to travel on of course, but even so….’

  ‘Well I don’t think it’s exciting. All those men and all t
hat noise and dirt… it’ll ruin the valley.’ Tom took a sudden step away and Nell, who had been sitting on a nearby hillock, jumped up and barked. ‘Come on, Nell. Let’s get back down.’ He glanced at Ellen. ‘And you better get to your bed,’ he said with a brief smile. ‘We’ve an early start in the morning.’

  *

  Tom, who was reluctant to acknowledge the advantages of what others saw as progress, was further dismayed by the words that were on everybody’s lips at market the following morning. Talk of the war was everywhere. And although the general feeling was that the conflict that had started only six weeks earlier would be over in a few months, Tom’s natural pessimism led him to consider what would happen if this were not so. Surely troops would be needed… more than those foolhardy individuals who had joined up the moment war had been declared. Reinforcements would have to replace those who, God forbid, did not return from the battlefields.

  His fears were confirmed as the day progressed. News was filtering out from the city. Glasgow Corporation, it seemed, had asked for volunteers from the tram workers to raise two battalions of men. Over a thousand had responded. Maybe it would have been safer to stay in Yorkshire. But no! There were cities not far away from the Dales farms too. He had no doubt that these cities would be encouraging the strongest and fittest young men to enlist.

  Tom took comfort in the thought that it was foolishness for farm workers to abandon their homesteads in favour of the battlefield, for food would always be necessary. Besides, Duncan Simpson and Kenneth Douglas could not be expected to manage things by themselves. Hill farming was a young man’s job. It needed the strength and stamina of youth.

  So he went to and fro among the farmers and shepherds at the market, Ellen skipping by his side. He heard much and said little, convinced of his arguments but with a bleakness in his soul, as he considered the future and the intended proposal that he would make to the girl in the city from which all these stories were flowing.