Caradoc.
The candle snuffed out, the darkness
smothered the light in a battle that was lost before it had even begun, Jake
slid slowly under the goose down duvet and pulled it right up to his chin, he could
barely see out as he rolled to one side, his one eye buried in the soft pillow and his other staring
into the dark abyss. Jake looked across
the room at where he knew his window should be and slowly, his one sight adjusted and the huge window slowly took shape, he could just make out the hills and trees that surrounded the farm and beyond, appearing as
if by magic across the moonlit countryside he knew so well.
As Jake lay there he could hear his parents
talking in the kitchen below, he couldn’t make out what they were saying but it
comforted the 7 year old to hear their low murmuring voices, his huge farmhouse
bedroom was a very daunting place for such a youngster, not helped by the fact
that down the hallway from his bedroom he had witnessed his great granddad pass
away in a gasp of sudden breath and groans that would stick with
this young farm boy for many years to come. Right now however, Jake was trying
hard to not think about that, he needed sleep as sure as day follows night, for
the next morning his father was expecting him downstairs at six sharp to help
feed stock and fetch the sheep off the hills that surrounded the small remote farm
he and his parents called home, in his father's words he had to earn his ‘keep’.
The darkness slowly transformed its evil
stare into a warm maternal-like smile that welcomed Jake into that sub-conscious
world of dreams and adventures our imagination holds safe for us, cast into dreams that run as wild as any thought or idea we would dare to think of.
Downstairs, as ever at this time in the
evening, Jake’s mother Eileen stood up from where she was sat comfortably in
her large wooden backed chair, she trudged to the hearth and picked up a huge
log and placed it on the brightly glowing but slowly disappearing embers of the range fire, the
embers flew up all around as she grabbed a metal poker and stirred the fire
with a purpose.
“That should keep it going ‘till morning
Sam”
She commented wearily as she dusted down
her hands on her apron. Eileen always wore an apron, she was always working, her forehead glistened against the backdrop of the fire from cooking bread and scones for the last few hours,
she was a loyal housewife first and foremost and though her hands were
calloused and bleeding from the harsh cold and never ending workload, she never
complained. Sam was her husband and she had to ensure she played her part in the
running of the farm.
“Well, we can expect a tough time of it
tomorrow lass, that sky was full of snow when I came in for supper” Sam said wearily.
He spoke in a deep, slow, matter of fact
way. Sam only knew how to work, pray and
eat and always in that order, he was a very straight honest man. He stood over
six feet tall with wide shoulders and a square, chiseled-like face that was
stern looking but in a strange way still welcoming. Chapel raised and
God fearing with a deep respect for life that would be so out of place as to be
almost mythical in today’s rush to get to the grave. Sam had seen many things
in a lifetime spent on the green Shropshire hill’s, it had been a harsh, rough and
tumble, poverty stricken existence, but a sense of loyalty and duty ran
through his veins like an army would march to battle.
“They have talked snow all week in the
village” Sam growled in his thick Shropshire accent.
“That being the case we are in
a whole world of trouble with the lambs all due” he added.
“They always say it’s going to be a lot
Sam, it rarely comes to much I shouldn’t worry too much if I were you” Eileen
piped up.
“Well you didn’t look too hard mother! The
sky was as red as a beetroot this morning, a sure sign we will get a hooking
of snow”.
“Oh really Sam James! You know as well as me that snow is
all part of living where we do, we have always coped!”
Eileen spoke out with a sternness that was
meant to diffuse a clearly worried Sam and to reassure him that
everything would be fine, but Sam was not quite so sure and the evidence was
written clearly all over his face.
“It’s nigh on ten mother, it’s time I went
to bed or that boy will be up before me and I shan’t hear the last on it”.
With that Sam got up from his chair by the
range and walked across the kitchen to place his cap on the hook at the back of the kitchen door. In seconds there was a rustle of clawed feet upon the stone tiles from under the
huge oak kitchen table that suddenly produced two scruffy mud covered Border Collie sheepdogs deperately trying to be the first to get to Sam. They almost ran over top of one another,
such was their loyalty to the big man.
“Steady! Ya daft buggers!” Sam shouted, “you’ll break your bloody legs
scratching out from that table, come here and get your supper and don’t get
fighting over it”.
Sam scraped the remains of that night’s dinner in to an old chipped bowl on the floor from the saucepan filled by Eileen as she cleared up the table earlier, the left over potato’s veg and some rabbit meat were all mixed up in a thick gravy, the dogs dived into the pot with their snouts, growling at each other as they feverishly ate, the pot moved along the stone floor of the kitchen clanking and rattling and both dogs and the bowl soon ended up in the corner midst muted growls and slurping noises, which brought a broad smile to Sam’s face as he made his way up the stairs to bed.
Sam scraped the remains of that night’s dinner in to an old chipped bowl on the floor from the saucepan filled by Eileen as she cleared up the table earlier, the left over potato’s veg and some rabbit meat were all mixed up in a thick gravy, the dogs dived into the pot with their snouts, growling at each other as they feverishly ate, the pot moved along the stone floor of the kitchen clanking and rattling and both dogs and the bowl soon ended up in the corner midst muted growls and slurping noises, which brought a broad smile to Sam’s face as he made his way up the stairs to bed.
