All the dear faces Read Free Page A

of the wealthy landowners such as the Macauleys but still theirs, and though they had never managed to do more than 'hang on' from harvest to harvest and from lambing to lambing, it was still theirs. Still Abbott land. Joshua Abbott's land and if he could just get himself a son to pass it on to he'd die a happy man .
    The girl sat down beside him and Joshua's sheepdog crept up to her, leaning fondly on her shoulder, eyeing the oatcake she had taken from the basket.
    “ An' don't let me see tha' feedin' that dog."
    “ No, Faither."
    “ Ruined he is an' all because of tha' mollycoddlin' ways .
    See, woman, tek 'im down wi' thi' an' fasten 'im to t' chain in t' yard. I don't know what comes over the two o' you, pettin' 'im like he was some lap dog. A workin' dog he is an' when he's not workin' he stays in t' yard. Is that clear?"
    “ Yes, Faither."
    “ Yes, Joshua."
    “ Did tha' fetch me ale, woman?"
    “ Yes, Joshua, 'tis in t' basket."
    “ Well, then, there's no need for thi' to hang about here, is there. There's bound ter be summat for thi' ter do in tha' kitchen."
    “ Yes, Joshua," and, obedient as a trained animal, his wife moved off in the direction of the farmhouse which stood slightly lower down the sloping field so that its roof was on a level with where the man and the child laboured.
    “ Don't forget bloody dog, woman. ”
    His wife turned in a flurry, her face anguished at her own foolishness. What was she thinking of ? Daydreaming, he'd say, though her dreams were not dreams at all but galloping worries on how she was to manage the next four months with the burden she carried . . . oh, please God, don't let me lose this one . . . I must not give way to despair . . . but a boy, a healthy boy so that he will leave me alone. So that he will cast off the bitterness and harshness he shows to the girl, smile a little . . . all that work the child does and her not twelve yet .. . all that I do .. .
    It was hard to believe that she had once been pretty Lizzie Bowman from Cockermouth since those who had known her then could not remember it and her own child had never seen her other than timid, hard-working, patient, dumb, thin and anxious of face, her skin and hair a uniform greyish-brown. She was thirty-four years old. Her life and that of her daughter was one of unremitting labour from early dawn until they fell into their beds at dark. A hard life which was restricted not just to herself and Annie but was the lot of farm women everywhere in Cumberland. There was the clapbread to be baked, the ale to be brewed, pickling and bottling, baking, cooking and cleaning, rush making, cheese and butter making, the pickling of beef and mutton, the drying of the meat in the smoke of the chimney. There was washday when water must be brought from the spring ready for boiling. There was the vegetable garden, the herb garden and when all that was done there was the spinning of the yarn from the fleece of Joshua Abbott's Herdwick sheep and the weaving of it into the hodden-grey wool from which most of their serviceable clothing was made. She and her daughter milked cows and collected eggs, killed the pig, salted the meat and wrung the necks of chickens. They fed the cattle wintering in the cow shed. In the light of the rush lamps they themselves had made they all three knitted hosiery, fashioned birch-twig besoms and swill baskets to be sold at the next market. They both worked like men at lambing time, cut peat and stacked it for drying, helped at the 'boon clip' and at backend, as winter approached, helped to bring down the flock from the high fells and the moors to the lower 'inlands' which were fenced by dry-stone walls .
    Between the three of them, with the occasional help of Natty Varty who hired himself out as casual labour, they ran the farm of Browhead and now, with the growing child within her, already she was beginning to tire before the day was half-way through. She needed to rest, put her feet up now and again with a