A Dinner Of Herbs (79 page)

The goat had butted him into the ditch. But it was no laughing matter;

if he hadn’t come down that way, the great Mr. Roystan could have died in the snow. His thoughts

were cynical at the moment as they suggested that that would have been a solution.

“Are you in pain? Can you sit up?” he asked, attempting to put his arm around the older man’s

shoulders. But Hal shrank from his touch and made a sound like an angry animal; then in attempting to

rise he let out another long groan that touched on a yell, and after gasping for a moment, he muttered,

The . me leg’s broke. “

Instantly now, Ben unbuttoned Hal’s long coat. The corduroy breeches below showed no

distortion,

but the top boot on his right foot was lying at an angle, and when he touched it, and only gently, Hal again

cried out.

“Your ankle’s broken.”

The ankle? “

“Yes.”

“Not me leg?”

“No.”

“Bloody goat!”

“How does your head feel?”

“I don’t know. Thick.” His voice was a mutter now, and he closed his eyes.

“I’m spinnin’ a bit,” he said. Opening his eyes again and looking up into Ben’s face he added, “What

you goin’ to do with me?

Leave me here? It would be a way out, wouldn’t it? Eh? “

“Don’t talk stupid.” Ben’s tone held disdain.

“What?”

“You heard me. I’ve got to get you up to the cottage.” And he could not help but add,

“Get you fit

enough again to use that gun.”

“Aye, well’—the head moved slowly ‘don’t think this changes anything. I mean what I

said. There’s

nothin’ altered.”

“As you say, there’s nothing altered.”

Hal now lowered his lids. His head was spinning; he felt rotten, real bad. He forced

himself to look up

again, saying now, “You could get down the hills, get help.”

“Not until I get you up out of this. It will take a couple of hours before help comes; you would be stiff

by then.”

Aye, he was right, he would be at that.

He shivered visibly now and Ben said flatly, “Are you feeling cold?”

“A bit.”

“Well, we’d better try and make a move.”

Hal made no protest when Ben buttoned up his coat again. But when his body was racked

with a fit of

coughing and he shivered now from head to foot, and Ben took off his own greatcoat and put it around

him, he clumsily thrust it aside, muttering between gasps, “I... I don’t... want... that.”

Ben said nothing, but he kept the coat tight around Hal’s shoulders for some minutes.

Then when the

shivering did not ease he said roughly, “Now look here. You’ve got to make an effort and get onto your

feet... or foot. It isn’t all that far to the cottage. The worst part is the incline just outside the door here.”

Hal stared up through the murky light into the thin face and into eyes that looked black and hard, and he

thought:

Make an effort, he said, Who did he think he was talking to? He’d show him.

As he pulled himself up into a sitting position his head spun, then his body seemed ripped apart by a

flame of pain. He would have lain down quickly again but the fellow’s knee was pressed between his

shoulders, and now he felt his arms go around him, pushing him upwards.

God Almighty! He couldn’t bear this. He was back in the loft again.

His bones were snapping; the ropes were cutting into his flesh; the gag was stopping his breathing. And

it was all through one of the hated Bannamans. Them buggers. Them evil buggers.

“Now hop. Grip my shoulder. Bend your back until we get through the door. There, that’s it. We’re in

the open. Come on, come on. You can’t lie down here.”

The fellow was yelling at him. By God! nobody was going to yell at him, especially that bloke.

“Look, just hop. Put all your weight on me and hop.”

The voice sounded to Hal now as if it were coming from a great distance, like an echo

over the hills. He

saw the white field before him, the rise that the fellow had talked about. It got higher and higher, and

when he had hopped three times it came on him and felled him to the ground.

Oh my God! Ben drew in a long icy draught of air. This was a situation. How was he to

get him up that

slope? Drag him as he had done before? But that had been on the level. He certainly

couldn’t carry

him. He was a dead weight to drag, but drag was the only thing he could do.

It took a full fifteen minutes to inch him up the slope. Time and again, he slipped and found himself flat

on his back, his legs to each side of Hal’s shoulders as if they were on a sleigh.

He did not know how long it was before he finally dragged the unconscious body through the gate and

towards the door of the cottage.

And when at last he managed to pull Hal into the room he fell down beside him and lay

exhausted for

some time.

Slowly rising to his feet now, he again put his frozen arms underneath the still form and pulled it towards

the mat in front of the fireplace. Then taking the bellows that he had never expected to handle again, he

blew up the dying embers, put on more wood, filled a part of water from a bucket and

placed it in the

heart of the fire.

Only then did he kneel down beside Hal and, patting his cheek again, say, “Come on.

Come on.

You’re all right now.” But w|ien there was no response, he unbuttoned his topcoat and

gently eased it off

him. Then taking the blankets from the bed, he covered him up; and lastly he placed a

pillow under his

head. It was as he did this that Hal groaned and slowly opened his eyes. Then a fit of coughing dragged

him into consciousness and, turning his head, he looked to where the fire was now

blazing and he sighed

and muttered something. And Ben, bending over him, said, “What did you say?”

They’ve come . help? “

“No.”

“No?” His eyes opened wider.

“How... did ... I get... here?”

“On the back of the goat, of course.” Ben’s voice was cynical, and Hal, looking up at

him, thought, Oh

no, not that. Not to have to be thankful to him for anything. Anyway, he couldn’t have got him up that

slope on his own he remembered the slope but he was here. God Almighty! Things were

taking a turn

that he didn’t want, and he was going to have nothing to do with it. Nothing was altered.

It was some minutes later when Ben, holding a hot drink in front of Hal, said, “Can you sit up to drink

this?” and he answered, “What is it?”

Tea. “

“Tea?”

“Yes, tea. I’ve lived quite a civilized life up here.”

As Hal went to raise himself on his elbow, his head swam again, and the movement of his leg caused him

to hold his breath and to grit his teeth. And when Ben said, “I should look at the foot,” he made no

protest, but, taking the mug, he drank the scalding liquid, then lay back again.

Gently now Ben undid the gaiter, then as gently as he could he pulled out the laces of the boot. But it

was when, gripping the upper shin bone tightly with one hand, he went to ease the boot off the foot with

his other hand that Hal let out a long scream and his hands clawed up handfuls of the mat to each side of

him.

The boot off, Ben looked down in dismay at the point of bone piercing the stocking. Then glancing to

where Hat was lying, his eyes screwed tightly shut, he added, “It’s a bad break.”

“What you intend doin’?”

What did he intend doing? Well, yes, what did he intend doing? The only thing he could do was to go

down and get help, but that would have to wait until he thawed out himself, for he, too, was now

shivering. The room, in spite of the fire blazing, appeared cold. But he wasn’t afraid of catching cold; he

couldn’t remember having a real bad cold in his life.

He looked at his watch. It was half-past one. The light would be gone by four o’clock, and with all the

candle lanterns in the county it would be madness for any rescue party to attempt the hills after dark.

That left only two and a half hours at the most to get down and get back. It couldn’t be done. In

ordinary weather, yes, but not under these conditions. Anyway, there was still hope that quite shortly

someone would appear on the hills, because surely the boys would have come out by

now, thinking

perhaps that their father had met up with him and likely had carried out his threat and had killed him

without the aid of a gun.

“Are you going down?”

“I... I don’t think it’s any use. They wouldn’t get back up here before dark. It looks as if we might have

to make a night of it.”

“She’ll be worried. Mary Ellen.”

“She’ll not be the only one.”

Before he could answer, Hal was overcome by a fit of shivering, and Ben asked, “Are

you still cold?”

His teeth chattering, Hal nodded; then after a moment he asked, “Don’t have a drop of the hard, whisky

or anything?”

“No. I’m sorry. I finished it off last night. Will you have another cup of tea?”

“Aye, aye.”

“How’s the pain?”

“Bearable, as long as I don’t move.. Why don’t you make an effort and go down? I’ll be all right. And

they ... they’re used to the hills, they’ll make it.”

“Yes, they might make it up, but never down, not carrying you, not in this. It’s coming down thicker than

ever.”

There followed a silence until Hal said, “What if we’re snowed up here for days? It’s

happened afore.

We could starve to death then.”

“Not quite. There’s some stale bread in the cupboard, and dried herring, and the end of a smoked ham,

and I could always manage to bring Biddy up. She mightn’t be a pleasant house-mate, but her milk

would be welcome.”

There followed another silence, then Hal, his voice almost inaudible now, said, “Life’s funny, the tricks it

plays on you. You know, if I’d had me gun with me earlier on, I likely would have shot you.”

“I have no doubt of it.”

“You’re a cool customer, aren’t you?”

“I don’t see myself in that light, anything but.”

“Tis pity you are who you are, because I won’t change me mind about you. Don’t think

this’ll make any

difference. Don’t get that into your head.”

“No, I won’t get that into my head. I know how you feel about the whole situation, but I would like you

to know how I feel about it too.

Under the circumstances of this morning, there was no hope that you would ever listen to me, but now

you’ve got no other choice, and I mean to tell you my side of it. “

“Twill be a waste of time.”

“I’ll chance that.”

Before he drew up a chair, Ben went to the bed and took the remaining rug from it and

put it round his

own shoulders. He felt cold to the marrow and he was finding it an effort to stop his own teeth from

chattering. But now, sitting close to the hearth, he looked into the fire before he said,

“You don’t know

what hate is. Comparing your feeling for the Bannamans with mine for my mother is like comparing

plaster with a slab of granite.”

And slowly now, his eyes directed towards the burning and mushing wood, he told Hal of his life, as he

had Kate. And he ended with the words, “The only excuse I have for her is that she was insane.”

It was some time before Hal spoke; then quietly he said, “Aye, she was. But what you’ve got to

remember, lad, is that you’re part of her.”

Ben turned and looked at the man lying prone to his side and, his voice low, he said, “I’m well aware of

that, always have been, but I’m also aware that I’m my father’s son, and he was one of the best men

alive, as was my grandfather. And I can also say my grandmother, her

mother, is a good woman. She knew nothing of what her daughter had done until her son

told her. My

uncle was a partner in the barn affair, as my grandmother called it when she related the story to me, but,

as she said, he was a weak man and easily led. He had inherited none of his father’s

strength and little of

his evil; it was my mother who became a replica of the man who killed your father. You, I may say,

carry the scars of the Bannamans in your mind; I carry them both physically and

mentally, for like a slave

I bear the marks of a whip on my back, and not a simple horsewhip, but a thonged one.

So there you

are, that’s my side of it. “

The light was fading. Ben rose stiffly to his feet and, taking the tallow candle from out of a brass

candlestick on the narrow shelf of the mantelpiece, he lit it at the fire. Then replacing it in the stick, he

took it to the table and as he stood for a moment staring at it, Hal said, “Well, I’m sorry for you, lad, but

you see, in me mind, you’re still her son. Good, bad, or indifferent, you’re still her son.

And although I mightn’t take a gun to you in the future, I’ll still do everything in me power to stop you

and Kate coming together, because I couldn’t bear the thought. Funny, but I just couldn’t bear the

thought of her going to anybody that had any connections with a Bannaman. You won’t

understand that.

“

“Yes, I do.” Ben’s voice was quiet and he turned and looked at Hal and added, “All being said and

done, it leaves us both in the same mind:

you determined that I shan’t have Kate, and I determined that I shall.

Whatever happens, I shall. “

“We’ll see, lad. We’ll see. Let’s get out of this first, then we’ll see.”

The kitchen was crowded. Mary Ellen stood with her back to the fire, her hands joined