The Farm by the Lake

Chapter 13

Flo regarded Mr. Nadin’s disappearance seriously, but none of the others seemed to. Mrs. Nadin kept remembering how he had gone, and for a moment or two called him all the names she could; but then she would veer off, describing things seen and persons met. She seemed to have enjoyed herself. Mr. Nadin, so Flo gathered, had disappeared almost as soon as the pair had got off the train.

“I were lookin’ at a cape trimmed wi’ dyed cat as they caws skunk-opossum, or summat, an’ I says: ‘Non so bad . . . for two-an’-six, eh?’ An’ ’e says, ‘Ay.’ Next time I looked ’e’d mizzled ’isself. I’ll mizzle ’im!”

“He’ll non miss th’ last train; I reckon I’d better meet ’im,” said Clem.

“If you do I’ll hamstring you; let the old fool walk. If ’e gets run in, bread an’ water’ll clean ’is gizzard!”

The talk went on then as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Flo wondered if there was another family as queer anywhere. How had they ever come to marry? She couldn’t imagine the tall quiet farmer courting Mrs. Nadin. More likely it was she who had bullied him into it. Flo felt sorry and wondered where he was.

“Coming with me?” asked a voice, and she started because of its closeness, and found Bert standing behind her chair. “I’m just going round . . . if you want a change.”

She got up hurriedly. None of the others seemed to think anything about it. Bert left the door open and she went after him. She was surprised at the whiteness of the side of the barn, and then realized that it was the moon shining full on it from over the house. The cracks between the stones showed as clean black lines more clearly picked out than in sunlight. Going down the path out of the tilted shadow from the roof was like walking through something palpable, say a dark canvas awning. Going on into the field they had the moon very nearly in front, and Flo gazed up and thought how it looked like a bubble filled with white light. Sometimes it was so hard to think of the moon as anything but a flat disc pasted, as it were, on a flat black ceiling; but now, surrounded by miles of faintly luminous air, it was so obviously round and buoyant that she wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen it float along just as a bubble would to the slightest breath.

“Grand night,” said Bert with a gentle sort of purring appreciation which she had never heard from him before.

He had a stick only and no gun, and walked slowly and did not seem to wish her to say anything. The whole valley showed familiarly, yet completely different; all the hills more remote and smaller, dwarfed under the tremendous height where the stars were. Even the moors and cliffs of Moss Edge were smoother, as if they were no longer peat and gritstone, but had been changed into some kind of blue-grey aluminium alloy. Bert took the shortest route towards the willows, reaching them exactly where a narrow path went through. He whispered her to tread carefully. He stopped just in cover, pushing against the branches to make room for her at his side. Some of the lissom twigs touched her hands and cheeks with coolness and gentleness. She could smell the water fresh and slightly weedy. In the water was the moon, now as calm and round as in the sky, the next moment elongating in a ripple, breaking in two, then recovering its perfect shape without effort. As the ripple moved towards them it brought on its crest a stolen gift of moonlight, but lost it just as it touched the beach. Other ripples followed, making sometimes a continuous convoy of moon bits, but they ail went out at the edge of the land. Bert pointed, and she saw to the right about twenty yards out a flotilla of dark dots led by what was unmistakably a duck. She looked closer along the beach, and as far as she could see there were ducks dabbling or preening, or floating headless and motionless.

“Worth seein’, eh?” said Bert, so low that she could scarcely tell.

He turned, pushing past, and led back into the field. They were in shadow again, the broken shadow of the willow rods, which made a queer mottling across their eyes as they walked on. Roughly at fifty-yard intervals there were other narrow paths. Bert knew all, though Flo would have passed most of them, because they started at an angle and curved and were not obvious like the first straight path. Bert led down each one, and every time that they stopped, just in hiding, Flo saw more ducks. At least she thought that they were all ducks till Bert whispered, “Water-hen and coot as well.” And suddenly he jerked up his stick silently, and she saw crossing the moon three flying ducks. They circled and dropped with a simultaneous ploughing splash, surprisingly loud though they were a score of yards out. One of the ducks gave a challenging Quark-quark! which echoed as off a sounding board.

“Careful; don’t scare ’em,” warned Bert, leading the way back.

They reached the point of the field and turned along the inside of willows hedging what Flo guessed must be a long arm of the lake reaching back almost to the road. Here they were in full moonlight once more. It was so bright that Flo imagined that she could feel it warm like sunshine. Bert sauntered slower than before, but did not lead through the bushes. Flo was scared by a sudden whickering, but it was only a peewit which flew close above them with a pulsing, rushing sound and skirled noisily. Bert cursed and moved a little quicker. As the bird turned and tossed there was a glinting reflection off its neck or back. Just before they reached the lane where the bridge was Bert burrowed leftward and the bird flew higher, still crying, but less agitatedly, until it forgot them. The willows made a caging overhead. The ground sloped quickly and was soft. Bert paused to warn her, then went ahead with five long strides, balancing with his stick. Flo made out dimly the black back of a partly drowned branch. It was roughly knuckled, and the knuckles were the stepping places. She felt with her foot. The branch seemed greasy and a nervousness spread up her legs.

“Come on,” ordered Bert sharply, “there’s no depth.”

She reached for the first place quickly, knowing that if she hesitated she would never dare it. Her shoe slipped forward, leaving her balance backward, and her rear foot to save her went down quickly into four inches of water. But it touched solid, and she covered the rest of the crossing in four desperate splashing leaps. Without comment Bert turned and went on. Her feet were soaked and felt muddy, but she was relieved at being safe, and hoped that they would not have to go back by the same path. They reached higher, dryer footing and walked out of the willows into a larger field, also roughly triangular. Here the willows had a rearguard of sycamores and alders. Bert passed slowly in their shadow, the meadow looking white in the moonlight. At the far side were lines of little slant shadows low down which for a moment puzzled Flo. Then she realized that there were muck lumps awaiting spreading, and that by a moon trick the shadows showed more than the lumps. She had just solved this when she noticed movement beyond. She stopped to make sure, and Bert at once looked the same way and exclaimed, “The young devil!”

He touched her sleeve for her to keep motionless. From the far willows she saw a man or youth walk out. He paused temporarily, looking keenly about, his face showing up as a pale disc; then he turned quickly towards the point, but after fewer than a dozen paces went out of their sight again in the willows.

“Stay here,” ordered Bert. “If it’s Jack Knight, I’ll cripple the bastard.”

Swiftly whispering he told her to keep in shadow and watch, He would go back and across the bottom side and work up from behind. “If he breaks cover to run, shout.”

Too excited to speak, Flo nodded. Bert went deeper into the shadow by the willows and disappeared. Flo concentrated on the far side, but the intruder kept hidden, too. She listened till she fancied she heard her ear-drums creaking. The night was as silent and still as a photograph, and her excitement gave place to doubt. Suppose it were Jack Knight and he were to break out of the bushes behind her! She glanced back, then laughed uncertainly and stared rightward, hoping to see Bert. When she looked across again there was the intruder walking more slowly. Her lips opened. She stopped only just in time, for he was still going towards the point. She stared, trying to make out if it was Jack. He was two hundred yards off, and the light, which seemed so clear, held a baffling mistiness only apparent when one made an effort to pick out details. Nevertheless, she thought it was Jack’s figure. She remembered that Bert had said that Jack would trade in anything. But this was thieving . . . she had not thought him a thief. No, that was wrong. Poacher, not thief. But was poaching, stealing? She recalled having read somewhere that wild birds and animals couldn’t possibly belong to anybody while they were free to fly and run; not until they were dead. And then they ought to belong to the person who shot them. Perhaps that was what Jack thought. She remembered the blue of his eyes when he had spoken with her, and found that she couldn’t think of him as a thief.

The intruder had gone again, but now far to the right she saw another figure, which she guessed was Bert, stooping and moving quickly. Her speculations stopped; she stared half-right, then half-left, wholly occupied with watching. Little tremblings shook her, and she touched the rough alder bole for steadiness. Bert went in among the rods and was lost again. The intruder came out and looked about. Because he was so obvious in the open she felt that she must be obvious, too, and therefore she, cringed back behind the trunk. But after a moment he went out of sight once more. Eventually Bert reappeared much nearer, moving more slowly. He stared across as if trying to locate her; only he had been explicit that she was not to betray herself.

He crept on, pausing every now and then in the bent attitude of a listener. He went into the rods once more, and once more she was solitary in the still world. She did not see anything more of the intruder, and many moments passed. Perhaps they had grappled in the bushes and were fighting. She wondered if she ought to rush across. She listened, taut as wire, but she could not hear anything. Then surprisingly Bert came out and waved and she crossed through the moonlight.

“Must have seen me, or heard me, the damn blighter,” he exclaimed while she was still ten yards off.

“Got away?” asked Flo incredulously, yet with a sensation of relief.

“Ay; but he got a soaking,” said Bert with some satisfaction.

“Was it Jack Knight?” she asked, unable to stop herself. Bert turned into the willows, pushing through and letting them whip back so that she had to hold her hands to her face and got three stinging slashes on her wrists. She missed his reply. He went on down the little slope of beach, and she saw a slurred black track in the mud just by the water.

“Gone straight across. Swum in the middle; couldn’t ha’ got without,” commented Bert, staring. They were on another long arm of the water that went in rightward to a point completely shut in by willows. “Cheekiest little bugger of a poacher in the valley. If I lay hands on him I’ll wring his bloody neck.”

Flo didn’t like to ask again if it were Jack. She thought it couldn’t be; but she was not sure.

“Come on, I shouldn’t wonder he’s lookin’ at us. The tale’ll go all over,” said Bert disgusted, starting round.

He led back into the bushes with long strides. Flo felt that in part he really blamed her, though she couldn’t think that the intruder had seen her. In the field again Bert turned right and they went on to the point where Flo was surprised to see the outline of a hut about twenty feet long set well in among the bushes, as if in hiding. Coarse tussocks grew to the step. It was as plain as could be with a door in the middle and one window at either side. Bert looked in first through one window, then through the other, and seemed satisfied.

“Let it out to parties in summer,” Bert answered her unspoken question. “Sometimes Dick Goldbourn stays.”

“However does he get?” she asked, remembering her wetting and instantly feeling her feet starved again.

“Oh, there’s a way off the main road,” Bert explained. “But it’s surprisin’ what he can do.”

They turned back down the side up which Bert had stalked. An owl went over, about fifteen feet up, unseen by Flo till unexpectedly its broad body and wide wings momentarily cut out the moon. “Oo, I wondered whatever it was,” she exclaimed, wondering why she hadn’t heard its flight as she had heard the peewit’s. Bert did not answer, going on with long paces which made her hurry. His mood had completely changed; as if now she was a nuisance and he regretted having brought her. When she judged that they had reached the end of the arm of the water he swung leftward, and she saw a travelling light and heard a rumble and knew that they were nearing the main road. They came to a wall which he vaulted, leaving her to get over as best she could. Then they were going leftward faster than ever, and soon he got back over the wall and they were behind more willows with the moonlight towards them broken between the rods.

“You never know; he’s such a blighter he may be helpin’ himself this side,” said Bert.

“Wet through!” exclaimed Flo. “He’d catch his death.” She shivered from her feet upward.

“Not if there was chance of eggs . . .” said Bert. “He’s tough; he wouldn’t burn in hell. But I’ll not wait next time; I’ll put some shot in his buttocks. Happen he’ll be glad to cool hisself in the water then. Cuss ’im!”

But whoever the intruder was, he had gone. They went back by the road. Clem was alone in the kitchen and the clock showed ten to twelve.

“This is a gay time,” said Clem with mock disapproval, appraising her downward to muddied boots and ankles.

“What about lettin’ me take you next night?”

She bent to untie her laces and did not speak.