The Caxley Chronicles by Miss Read Page B

left, to live in a smaller and more up-to-date house where repairs and upkeep would probably be less than half the present sum. Also, Hilda was right in saying that they would find it healthier. Not only would they be on higher ground; it would be a good thing to leave the business behind, at night and get right away from its responsibilities.
    He presumed that he would be offered the managership. In that case there would be a steady income, with no worries attached. Bender, gazing unseeingly across the snowy fields, lulled almost into slumber by the rhythmic swaying of the trap, began to feel that selling North's might be the best way out of his many difficulties. But not yet, he told himself. He would hang on as long as he could, and who knows? Something might turn up. He'd been lucky often enough before. There was still hope! Bender North was always an optimist.
    He put Billy into the shelter of a stable and tramped across the snowy yard to the Miller's back door.
    He was greeted warmly by the family, and he was put by the fire to thaw out. The usual vast tea was offered him, but Bender ate sparingly, with one eye cocked on the grey threatening sky outside.
    'I mustn't be too long,' said Bender, his mouth full of buttered toast. 'There's more snow to come before morning, or I'll eat my boots.'
    They exchanged family news. Ethel's youngest was running a temperature, and was upstairs in bed, 'very fretful and scratchity', as his mother said. Jesse's pigs were not doing as well as he had hoped, and he had an idea that one of his men
was taking eggs. 'Times were bad enough for farmers,' said Jesse, 'without such set-backs.'
    He accompanied Bender to the stable when he set off.
    'And how are your affairs?' he asked when they were out of earshot of the house. Bender gave a reassuring laugh, and clapped the other man's shoulders.
    'Better than they have been, Jesse, I'm glad to say. I hope I shan't have to worry you at all.'
    The look of relief that flooded Jesse's face did not escape Bender. It certainly looked as though Tenby's would be the only possible avenue of escape if the business grew worse.
    Ah well, thought Bender, clattering across the cobbled yard, we must just live in hope of something turning up! He waved to Jesse and set off at a spanking pace on the downhill drive home.

    The snow began to fall as Bender turned out of Jesse's gate. It came down thickly and softly, large flakes flurrying across mile upon mile of open downland, like an undulating lacy curtain. It settled rapidly upon the iron-hard ground, already sheeted in the earlier fall, and by the time Billy had covered half a mile the sound of his trotting hoofs was muffled. He snorted fiercely at the onslaught of this strange element, his breath bursting from his flaring nostrils in clouds of vapour. His dark mane was starred with snow flakes, and as he tossed his head Bender caught a glimpse of his shining eyes grotesquely ringed with glistening snow caught in his eyelashes.
    His own face was equally assaulted. The snow flakes fluttered against his lips and eyes like icy moths. It was difficult to breathe. He pulled down the brim of his hard hat, and hoisted
up the muffler that Hilda had insisted on his wearing, so that he could breathe in the stuffy pocket of air made by his own warmth. Already the front of his coat was plastered, and he looked like a snowman.
    A flock of sheep, in a field, huddled together looking like one vast fleece ribbed with snow. The bare hedges were fast becoming blanketed, and the banks undulated past the bowling trap smoothly white, but for the occasional pock-mark of a bird's claws. The tall dry grasses bore strange exotic white flowers in their dead heads, and the branches of trees collected snowy burdens in their arms.
    And all the time there was a rustling and whispering, a sibilance of snow. The air was alive with movement, the dancing and whirling of a thousand thousand individual flakes with a life as brief as the