felt as if he was back in his natural habitat. After years of confinement, crammed into overcrowded cells, the freedom was heady and invigorating and transcended any immediate physical discomfort.
At more than one point during the night, Mariner was disturbed by rain beating on the skylight of the bothy, but such is the fickle British weather that the next morning when he woke, his shoulder and hip bruised from lying on the hard surface, the sun was shining and a fresh breeze blew white fluffy clouds across the blue sky.
Mariner washed his face under the cold tap and packed up his things, not sure if he would be coming back this way again. His next planned stop was officially no longer listed as a hostel â it was possible that it may even lie derelict â but he was hoping one way or another to be able to stay there. If not it would be another bothy tonight. As he set off, a skylark trilled out in the sky high above him, and the sun was warm on his back, and today it felt more like June than April. After a while he entered the dense shade of a pine forest, the trees set out in regimented rows in one of the forestry commissionâs efforts to reforest after the deciduous trees had been torn up. Finding a shady spot, Mariner stopped for lunch. From his vantage point he saw hawks circling high above him, riding the thermals. He dug out his binoculars; as heâd thought, a pair of red kites searching for prey. He watched them for a while until his attention was snagged by a movement down below, too big and too dark to be a sheep; a deer perhaps, but it was gone before he could train the binoculars on it.
From here, the path began to rise higher and opened out on to a rocky ridge that climbed and dipped like the spines on a dinosaurâs back. After several miles of undulating footpath Mariner recognized the shape of the mountain that headed the valley, crested the ridge and saw the land spread out below him, strangely familiar and yet somehow different. Taking out his binoculars again he scanned the vale. Immediately below him was the patchwork of meadows of Abbey Farm, though for a while he struggled to make sense of the newly configured territory. Created from a monastery that was abandoned shortly after the reformation (Mariner knew this because when he had last stayed here heâd been reminded of its history every other day), parts of the original building lay in ruins, marked out by a series of crumbling walls and archways. The main farmhouse was distinctive; a plain red-brick building with Jacobean features, one of which had definitely not been the dozen or so shiny solar panels that now covered the roof like the protective shell of a tortoise.
The motley collection of rundown outhouses at the back of the main house had also been joined by a sleek prefabricated steel shed that had yet to tarnish in the elements. And alongside this were a couple of small and modest wind turbines. The absence of cows in the outlying fields was unsurprising; Mariner had seen enough evidence of the extent to which the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001 had decimated the dairy farming industry out here. But instead it looked as if the land immediately surrounding the farm was being cultivated; there were three or four fields covered with white poly tunnels that gave the illusion of a covering of snow. But the climate was so inhospitable here it was difficult to know what could possibly be growing beneath them.
Beyond the farm, running along the valley north-east to south-west, or as Mariner saw it, from left to right, the road and river ran in parallel, their course marked out by a wide band of dense deciduous woodland, broad at one end like the shape of a giant comma, the high branches dotted with crowsâ nests. Beyond that end of the woods the land opened out again onto Gwennol Hall, the estate and country home of Lord Milford, the rolling acres of parkland dotted with mature trees the clear indication of the wealthy
At more than one point during the night, Mariner was disturbed by rain beating on the skylight of the bothy, but such is the fickle British weather that the next morning when he woke, his shoulder and hip bruised from lying on the hard surface, the sun was shining and a fresh breeze blew white fluffy clouds across the blue sky.
Mariner washed his face under the cold tap and packed up his things, not sure if he would be coming back this way again. His next planned stop was officially no longer listed as a hostel â it was possible that it may even lie derelict â but he was hoping one way or another to be able to stay there. If not it would be another bothy tonight. As he set off, a skylark trilled out in the sky high above him, and the sun was warm on his back, and today it felt more like June than April. After a while he entered the dense shade of a pine forest, the trees set out in regimented rows in one of the forestry commissionâs efforts to reforest after the deciduous trees had been torn up. Finding a shady spot, Mariner stopped for lunch. From his vantage point he saw hawks circling high above him, riding the thermals. He dug out his binoculars; as heâd thought, a pair of red kites searching for prey. He watched them for a while until his attention was snagged by a movement down below, too big and too dark to be a sheep; a deer perhaps, but it was gone before he could train the binoculars on it.
From here, the path began to rise higher and opened out on to a rocky ridge that climbed and dipped like the spines on a dinosaurâs back. After several miles of undulating footpath Mariner recognized the shape of the mountain that headed the valley, crested the ridge and saw the land spread out below him, strangely familiar and yet somehow different. Taking out his binoculars again he scanned the vale. Immediately below him was the patchwork of meadows of Abbey Farm, though for a while he struggled to make sense of the newly configured territory. Created from a monastery that was abandoned shortly after the reformation (Mariner knew this because when he had last stayed here heâd been reminded of its history every other day), parts of the original building lay in ruins, marked out by a series of crumbling walls and archways. The main farmhouse was distinctive; a plain red-brick building with Jacobean features, one of which had definitely not been the dozen or so shiny solar panels that now covered the roof like the protective shell of a tortoise.
The motley collection of rundown outhouses at the back of the main house had also been joined by a sleek prefabricated steel shed that had yet to tarnish in the elements. And alongside this were a couple of small and modest wind turbines. The absence of cows in the outlying fields was unsurprising; Mariner had seen enough evidence of the extent to which the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001 had decimated the dairy farming industry out here. But instead it looked as if the land immediately surrounding the farm was being cultivated; there were three or four fields covered with white poly tunnels that gave the illusion of a covering of snow. But the climate was so inhospitable here it was difficult to know what could possibly be growing beneath them.
Beyond the farm, running along the valley north-east to south-west, or as Mariner saw it, from left to right, the road and river ran in parallel, their course marked out by a wide band of dense deciduous woodland, broad at one end like the shape of a giant comma, the high branches dotted with crowsâ nests. Beyond that end of the woods the land opened out again onto Gwennol Hall, the estate and country home of Lord Milford, the rolling acres of parkland dotted with mature trees the clear indication of the wealthy
Similar Books
