by someone in the dark doorway on the upper floor of an old stone barn.
Adam had no intention of following the lane round and entering the farmyard in full view, surrounded by the inevitable barking dogs as if he were a salesman. Instead he adroitly vaulted the barbed-wire fence, placing his two hands on the top of a post to take some of his weight, then ran across the pasture to the shelter of a line of trees. From there he approached the farm, moving from trunk to trunk each time the man at the top of the barn (the look-out in the crow’s-nest) disappeared inside to fetch out another bale of hay. His absences grew slightly longer each time, as the dwindling stockpile receded away from the doorway.
At last Adam stood just ten metres behind the back of the farmhouse, yet raised almost roof-high by the steep contours of the ground, with a view down and across the yard itself, of the buildings that surrounded it and of a small vegetable plot beside. With ducks foraging in and around a muddy stream, hens respectfully taking the long way round the dogs that lay snoozing in the yard, and with a litter of unsightly receptacles and redundant hardware scattered about, it was a scene familiar from nearly a millennium of literature and paintings, yet relatively new – and sadly unfamiliar before this year – to Adam with his modern upbringing in the English suburbs.
Standing in the yard, taking the hay-bales off the bottom end of the elevator as they descended and stacking them on a small cart attached to a tractor was a middle-aged man. He looked quite sane and normal at this distance. He had all his clothes on for a start. His only unusual feature was the leather helmet he wore on his head. Reminiscent both of a rugby scrumcap and of an infantryman’s headgear circa Agincourt, it featured especially hefty ear-muffs and a stout chinstrap. No doubt it was a godsend on achingly cold winter mornings. But today was warm and springlike. Perhaps the rule about casting clouts before May were out was applied with particular rigour in the capricious climate of this high region.
Adam supposed, for want of any evidence to the contrary, that the man he scrutinised was Fox’s father. A little way off, on the far side of the vegetable plot, a woman was moving to and fro among beehives. She was taking off lids, bending over and peering briefly in, businesslike and unfussy. She wore no veil and carried no smoke-gun, as far as Adam could see. She was a short stumpy creature in gumboots, wearing a nondescript apron over a mud-coloured skirt. She had long brown hair which fell to her shoulders where it finished raggedly, evidently not having been trimmed for some considerable time. Was this Fox’s mother? he wondered, with something of a frisson. Everybody had a mother, of course, as he had realised with the same frisson when hearing the story of Beowulf at school and reaching the point when the mother of the slain monster, Grendel, came toddling out of the foggy fens to take her revenge. Even monsters had mothers then. Though Fox was no monster…
Adam peered up at the doorway high in the stone wall of the barn where the half-seen other man was still loading bales in the gloom. Could that be Fox himself? All that could be seen was a pair of brown hands which, seen from this distance, could belong to anyone. Suddenly, his task presumably complete, the unseen person stepped from the shadows and climbed onto the elevator himself, crouched down on it and descended slowly to the ground. Adam could see just enough to see that it was a young man who might have been Fox’s brother but was clearly not Fox himself.
At that moment Adam found himself suddenly and comprehensively surrounded from the rear by a small army of ragged children and two – though it seemed for a moment more like twenty – barking dogs.
Alarm lasted only a second while Adam spun round and the children called the dogs to heel. Embarrassment lasted longer. He had difficulty in
Adam had no intention of following the lane round and entering the farmyard in full view, surrounded by the inevitable barking dogs as if he were a salesman. Instead he adroitly vaulted the barbed-wire fence, placing his two hands on the top of a post to take some of his weight, then ran across the pasture to the shelter of a line of trees. From there he approached the farm, moving from trunk to trunk each time the man at the top of the barn (the look-out in the crow’s-nest) disappeared inside to fetch out another bale of hay. His absences grew slightly longer each time, as the dwindling stockpile receded away from the doorway.
At last Adam stood just ten metres behind the back of the farmhouse, yet raised almost roof-high by the steep contours of the ground, with a view down and across the yard itself, of the buildings that surrounded it and of a small vegetable plot beside. With ducks foraging in and around a muddy stream, hens respectfully taking the long way round the dogs that lay snoozing in the yard, and with a litter of unsightly receptacles and redundant hardware scattered about, it was a scene familiar from nearly a millennium of literature and paintings, yet relatively new – and sadly unfamiliar before this year – to Adam with his modern upbringing in the English suburbs.
Standing in the yard, taking the hay-bales off the bottom end of the elevator as they descended and stacking them on a small cart attached to a tractor was a middle-aged man. He looked quite sane and normal at this distance. He had all his clothes on for a start. His only unusual feature was the leather helmet he wore on his head. Reminiscent both of a rugby scrumcap and of an infantryman’s headgear circa Agincourt, it featured especially hefty ear-muffs and a stout chinstrap. No doubt it was a godsend on achingly cold winter mornings. But today was warm and springlike. Perhaps the rule about casting clouts before May were out was applied with particular rigour in the capricious climate of this high region.
Adam supposed, for want of any evidence to the contrary, that the man he scrutinised was Fox’s father. A little way off, on the far side of the vegetable plot, a woman was moving to and fro among beehives. She was taking off lids, bending over and peering briefly in, businesslike and unfussy. She wore no veil and carried no smoke-gun, as far as Adam could see. She was a short stumpy creature in gumboots, wearing a nondescript apron over a mud-coloured skirt. She had long brown hair which fell to her shoulders where it finished raggedly, evidently not having been trimmed for some considerable time. Was this Fox’s mother? he wondered, with something of a frisson. Everybody had a mother, of course, as he had realised with the same frisson when hearing the story of Beowulf at school and reaching the point when the mother of the slain monster, Grendel, came toddling out of the foggy fens to take her revenge. Even monsters had mothers then. Though Fox was no monster…
Adam peered up at the doorway high in the stone wall of the barn where the half-seen other man was still loading bales in the gloom. Could that be Fox himself? All that could be seen was a pair of brown hands which, seen from this distance, could belong to anyone. Suddenly, his task presumably complete, the unseen person stepped from the shadows and climbed onto the elevator himself, crouched down on it and descended slowly to the ground. Adam could see just enough to see that it was a young man who might have been Fox’s brother but was clearly not Fox himself.
At that moment Adam found himself suddenly and comprehensively surrounded from the rear by a small army of ragged children and two – though it seemed for a moment more like twenty – barking dogs.
Alarm lasted only a second while Adam spun round and the children called the dogs to heel. Embarrassment lasted longer. He had difficulty in
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