Haweswater Read Free

something unnatural, something beyond animal – female pain become self-conscious. They tried to know the situation, practically, and without speaking of it, their teeth clenched over curved pipes and their fingers gripping the backs of chairs.
    As Samuel passed them on his way to the front door, desperately looking out into the snow again for the doctor as he was, they placed, in turn, a simple hand on the back of his head, or on his shoulder. Thick hands, like pieces of beefsteak. There were no words. These were quiet men, economical with language, who spoke only in definites and who limited their actions to useful gestures or to work. Their individual faces wore a combination of expressions, each having many moods upon it at once, as if scowls and laughter, lines of concentration and hardship were weathered one on top of another in a single, permanent façade. Every expression set and roughened and deepened by the wind and the rain, the sun, so that one could not be accompanied without its partners. Mirth within a grimace. A frown grafted on to thebridge of lines created from squinting hard against the sun. And underneath all these encompassing masks was the suggestion, as common throughout the district, of unreachable, kept stone. Of distance.
    The men were friends and colleagues. It was a small, remote district and they were joined by proximity, by community. Their wives were no different, nor their children. In the Mardale valley the bonds were strong and necessary and abundantly understood. To an outsider it might seem that the men and women of this dale were insular, as silent and self-sufficient as monks, closing ranks to off-comers, and uncommunicative and sullen with it. A joyless lot perhaps.

    The villagers remained at Whelter Farm for as long as they were needed, as long as uncertainty remained, leaving only to fetch new equipment, or bring food for one another, or to check on their children and put them to bed under patchwork, woollen blankets.
    Again Samuel Lightburn looked out of the farm door across the village, which stood a little way off, down in the bottom of the valley. He cast his eye over the black water of the small lake to the forested hills on the horizon. Chimneys were smoking, windows were illuminated by lamps, but there were no car headlights winding down the concrete road to Mardale. No doctor. The snow was easing off. The sky’s yellow lessening, and the clouds parting. A few stars were beginning to appear. Night was coming on and that in turn would bring fresh problems. It would be bitter cold and harsh without cloud cover, the snowdrifts hardening into firm barricades, a night without the doctor’s instruction, for certain. This was the situation. There were no miracles in this dale.
    Nathaniel Holme, an old, wiry farmer, came to the doorway and stood beside Samuel. He brought a pipe out of hispocket and tapped it on the cottage wall to knock out the old, hardened tobacco. After filling it from a pouch, he lit the bowl.
    – No sign ova yonder?
    His voice was thick up from his lungs in the cold, and gravelly.
    Samuel shook his head, took out a rolled cigarette, lit it. Nathaniel spoke again.
    – Teddy’s gone fer Frithy. Nowt else to dyah but wait. Thowt aboot garn misell, Sam. Twa arms better un yan, eh? Even auld bugger like misell.
    The old man chuckled at the back of his throat and continued.
    – Aye, til be a wunder if he gits there alive, poower bugger. But he’s a gud lad, that Teddy.
    Samuel’s mouth moved a fraction upwards. His oldest friend had a way of lightening his spirits, even in times of trouble. Now the old man was laughing openly, deeply, his arthritic, busted hand gripping Samuel’s elbow for balance as he shook.

    Young Teddy Hindmarsh had left at two o’clock that afternoon with his motorcycle on the new road to the east of the valley. Twice he had lost control of the Excelsior in the snow, the second time breaking two fingers on his right hand but feeling the