the May sunshine. She loved the way the pale green stalks grew from the flat rosettes of leaves, so like living pen wipers, soft and fleshy, half hidden in the springy grass of the downland.
The children made cowslip balls as well as bunches to carry home. Some of the mothers made cowslip wine, and secretly young Amelia grieved to see the beautiful flowers torn from their stalks and tossed hugger-mugger into abasket. They were too precious for such rough treatment, the child felt, though she relished a sip of the wine when it was made, and now tasted it again on her tongue, the very essence of a sunny May day.
On those same slopes, in wintertime, she had tobogganed with those same friends. She remembered a childhood sweetheart, a black-haired charmer called Ned, who always led the way on his homemade sled and feared nothing. He scorned gloves, hats, and all the other winter comforts in which loving mothers wrapped their offspring, but rushed bareheaded down the slope, his eyes sparkling, cheeks red, and the breath blowing behind him in streamers.
Poor Ned, so full of life and courage! He had gone to awater-filled grave in Flanders’ mud before he was twenty years old. But the memory of that vivacious child remained with old Mrs Berry as freshly as if it were yesterday that they had swept down the snowy slope together.
In those days a tumbledown shack had stood by a small rivulet at the bottom of the slope. It was inhabited by a poor, silly, old man, called locally Dirty Dick. He did not seem to have any steady occupation, although he sometimes did a little field work in the summer months, singling turnips, picking the wild oats from the farmers’ standing corn, or making himself useful when the time came round for picking apples or plums in the local orchards.
The children were warned not to speak to him. Years before, it seemed, he had been taken to court in Caxley for some indecent conduct, and this was never forgotten. The rougher children shouted names after him and threw stones. The more gently nurtured, such as little Amelia, simply hurried by.
‘You’re not to take any notice of him,’ her mother had said warningly.
‘Why not?’
A look of the utmost primness swept over her mother’s countenance.
‘He is sometimes a very rude old man,’ she said, in a shocked voice.
Amelia enquired no further.
His end had been tragic, she remembered. He had been found, face downwards, in the little brook, a saucepan in his clenched hand as he had dipped for water to boil for his morning tea. The doctor had said his heart must have failed suddenly. The old man had toppled into the streamand drowned in less than eight inches of spring flood water.
Young Amelia had heard of his death with mingled horror and relief. Now she need never fear to pass that hut, dreading the meeting with ‘a very
rude
old man’, whose death, nevertheless, seemed unnecessarily cruel to the soft-hearted child.
Well, Stephen Amonetti would have no Dirty Dick to fear on his homeward way, but he would have the avenue to traverse, a frightening tunnel of dark trees lining the road for a matter of a hundred yards across the valley. Even on the hottest day, the air blew chill in those deep shadows. On a night like this, Mrs Berry knew well, the wind would clatter the branches and whistle eerily. Stephen would need to keep a stout heart to hold the bogies at bay as he ran the gauntlet to those age-old trees.
But by then he would be within half a mile of his home, up the steep short hill that overlooked the valley. A small estate of council houses had been built at Tupps Hill, some thirty years ago, and thought the architecture was grimly functional and the concrete paths gave an institutional look to the area, yet most of the tenants – countrymen all – had softened the bleakness with climbing wall plants and plenty of bright annuals in the borders.
The hillside position, too, was enviable. The houses commanded wide views over agricultural
The children made cowslip balls as well as bunches to carry home. Some of the mothers made cowslip wine, and secretly young Amelia grieved to see the beautiful flowers torn from their stalks and tossed hugger-mugger into abasket. They were too precious for such rough treatment, the child felt, though she relished a sip of the wine when it was made, and now tasted it again on her tongue, the very essence of a sunny May day.
On those same slopes, in wintertime, she had tobogganed with those same friends. She remembered a childhood sweetheart, a black-haired charmer called Ned, who always led the way on his homemade sled and feared nothing. He scorned gloves, hats, and all the other winter comforts in which loving mothers wrapped their offspring, but rushed bareheaded down the slope, his eyes sparkling, cheeks red, and the breath blowing behind him in streamers.
Poor Ned, so full of life and courage! He had gone to awater-filled grave in Flanders’ mud before he was twenty years old. But the memory of that vivacious child remained with old Mrs Berry as freshly as if it were yesterday that they had swept down the snowy slope together.
In those days a tumbledown shack had stood by a small rivulet at the bottom of the slope. It was inhabited by a poor, silly, old man, called locally Dirty Dick. He did not seem to have any steady occupation, although he sometimes did a little field work in the summer months, singling turnips, picking the wild oats from the farmers’ standing corn, or making himself useful when the time came round for picking apples or plums in the local orchards.
The children were warned not to speak to him. Years before, it seemed, he had been taken to court in Caxley for some indecent conduct, and this was never forgotten. The rougher children shouted names after him and threw stones. The more gently nurtured, such as little Amelia, simply hurried by.
‘You’re not to take any notice of him,’ her mother had said warningly.
‘Why not?’
A look of the utmost primness swept over her mother’s countenance.
‘He is sometimes a very rude old man,’ she said, in a shocked voice.
Amelia enquired no further.
His end had been tragic, she remembered. He had been found, face downwards, in the little brook, a saucepan in his clenched hand as he had dipped for water to boil for his morning tea. The doctor had said his heart must have failed suddenly. The old man had toppled into the streamand drowned in less than eight inches of spring flood water.
Young Amelia had heard of his death with mingled horror and relief. Now she need never fear to pass that hut, dreading the meeting with ‘a very
rude
old man’, whose death, nevertheless, seemed unnecessarily cruel to the soft-hearted child.
Well, Stephen Amonetti would have no Dirty Dick to fear on his homeward way, but he would have the avenue to traverse, a frightening tunnel of dark trees lining the road for a matter of a hundred yards across the valley. Even on the hottest day, the air blew chill in those deep shadows. On a night like this, Mrs Berry knew well, the wind would clatter the branches and whistle eerily. Stephen would need to keep a stout heart to hold the bogies at bay as he ran the gauntlet to those age-old trees.
But by then he would be within half a mile of his home, up the steep short hill that overlooked the valley. A small estate of council houses had been built at Tupps Hill, some thirty years ago, and thought the architecture was grimly functional and the concrete paths gave an institutional look to the area, yet most of the tenants – countrymen all – had softened the bleakness with climbing wall plants and plenty of bright annuals in the borders.
The hillside position, too, was enviable. The houses commanded wide views over agricultural
Similar Books
