The Nipper, page 3
Half an hour later Sandy unbolted the front door and stood looking out onto the fells. Everything looked clean and bright; the sun was warm, the sky was high, but there was a terrible stench from the ruined houses to the left of him. The animals on the farm never smelt like this; he would have been ashamed to let the pigsty get into this state. He turned and looked at his mother who was taking off her hessian apron and smoothing her hair back. He watched her pick up her black shawl from the top of the chest and put it over her head as if she was going on a visit, as indeed she was. As she came to the door she said with a half smile, ‘When your da was dealin’ with an unruly bull he always said look it in the eye, poke it in the chest, and bawl your head off…Come on.’
They walked side by side past the eight houses, holes gaping in the walls where the window frames had been, all of their doors missing and everything resembling wood stripped away, and when they came to the end house Sandy touched her arm and whispered, ‘Look, Ma, let me deal with him…I can hold me own.’ And she smiled at him tenderly and proudly as she said, ‘I know you can, lad; but there’s more ways of killing a cat than drowning it. We’ll try my way first.’
Her way brought Sandy’s eyes wide when she took her fist and hammered on the door. When there was no response to her first hammering she repeated the process, louder this time; and there came a series of grunts and mutterings and a loud oath followed by a command, and when the door opened and the eldest boy stood there blinking in the strong sunlight Norah Gillespie went straight into battle. ‘Is your da not up yet?’ she demanded. ‘Eight o’clock on a Sunday morning!’
The boy gaped at her, glanced back into the room, then looked at her again as she went on, ‘He wanted to have a decko at me. Well I’m here; where is he?’
There was dead silence in the room behind the boy, then two small figures appeared standing in short, ragged and dirty shirts. They too stared up at her, and in more surprise than they had done yesterday they stared as if they were looking on an apparition. Now there came a movement behind them and a man pushed the boys aside and stood blinking in the strong sunlight.
Sandy’s first impression of Big Mullen made him want to burst out laughing, for Big Mullen was hardly any taller than himself, nor had he any width. It was only when he said, ‘What the hell?’ that Sandy realised how he came by his name, for his voice was deep and thick and gave the impression of power.
‘I’ll thank you to mind your language, drunk or sober. You woke me out of me sleep last night. You wanted to see me. Well, here I am.’
Sandy looked from his mother to the peering, blinking man and his muscles tensed and his own fists clenched for he fully expected the man’s fist to come out at her. He had seen men like this before, ignorant, uncouth men whose only answer to a woman when she stood up for herself was a blow. But Big Mullen just continued to stare at his mother, and Sandy looked from him to her. He saw that the shawl had fallen back from her head, and her bright brown hair was gleaming, and two curly bits had escaped from the tight bun at the back of her head and were dangling on her cheek.
When Big Mullen now said slowly, ‘Why didn’t your man come?’ he watched her hitch the shawl back onto her head; then she said stiffly, ‘My man is passed on; this is my man now.’
When she put her hand on his arm Sandy wished he were taller and broader, but he met the eyes of Big Mullen, and unflinching he held his gaze until his mother’s voice broke in again, saying, ‘We’re not for stayin’ here long, but as long as we do I want to be left in peace, you and your brood at one end, and us at t’other. An’ I’ll thank you to get some of the filth cleared up.’ She thumbed towards the derelict houses. ‘You’re askin’ for a fever if this heat keeps up.’
There followed a short silence; then she nodded briefly at him and said, ‘Good day to you,’ and as one, she and Sandy turned away and walked along the Row, knowing that four pairs of eyes were on them. But no word of abuse was flung at them.
When they entered the cottage again Sandy closed the door and, leaning against it, he put his head back and quietly began to chuckle. And the chuckle grew into a spasm of agonising laughter until he had to throw himself face downwards onto the bed and smother it in case it reached the Mullens at the other end of the street, and all the while his mother stood over him, saying, ‘Ssh! Stop it now, boy.’ Yet she, too, was laughing; but when at last he rolled over and looked at her his face was wet and sober looking.
Rubbing at his cheeks, he got up from the bed and said, ‘I’ll make the mud to clag the crack; then I’ll dig a midden at the bottom of the yard,’ and his mother answered, ‘Do that. Aye, do that.’ Then she added on a deep laugh, ‘Did you see the look on his face?’
It was in the early afternoon that Sandy, after a dinner of pea soup and rye bread, said, ‘I’m going out for a while,’ and his mother turned sharply to him and asked, ‘Where?’ Her eyes dropped to the bulge in his pocket as she spoke, and then she added quickly, ‘Be careful now. Anyway it isn’t a good time; you know they come in from the towns on a Sunday rabbit snaring. But whatever you do don’t go on anybody’s land.’
‘All right, Ma.’ The sharp movement of his head seemed to add, ‘I’ve heard all that afore,’ and her voice raised now, she cried at him, ‘What you’ve got to remember is that wherever you go nowadays you’re on somebody’s land.’
‘Not on the fells, Ma,’ he said patiently; ‘it’s common land, you know it is.’
‘Common land, huh!’ she said. ‘And the gentry enclosing it in lumps every week. We’ve got common land no more, lad, so I’m tellin’ you, go careful.’
‘All right, Ma; don’t worry.’ He nodded at her, then went out, glad to get away from Ballast Row for a while.
Out on the fells the air was clean, the distant hills showed warm brown though they would shortly turn to mauve and purple with carpets of new heather.
He told himself he’d make for the hills in the far distance. He could just see a sloping copse with mounds and hillocks at its foot; that was where the rabbits would be.
The distance to the copse was much longer than he had gauged, almost a mile, but when he reached it, he was rewarded by the evidence that there were lots of rabbits about. Some of the mounds were dotted with their holes. He took the wire from his pocket, prepared his crude snare, and placed it at the entrance to a hole; then carefully retreating, taking the lead wire with him, he lay down behind the cover of an outcrop of rock and, his finger held trigger-wise through the end loop of wire, he waited.
After twenty minutes lying thus his arm was in a cramp and his fingers were stiffening, and he was wondering humourously whether the rabbits were all having a nap or had gone out visiting when he was startled, not by a tug on the wire, but by a cry, a protesting cry that ended in a whimper, and he looked quickly up to the copse on the hill behind, then towards the land to the right of him where there were more hillocks, then to the left where the land dipped away; and when the cry came again he knew it was from that direction. Reluctantly he withdrew his finger from the wire and got to his feet, and very cautiously, his body bent now and taking shelter behind the boulders as he went, he approached the ridge of land from which the valley dropped.
His cautiousness was inbred, for a cry such as he had heard could mean a fight, possibly between the Irish and the miners because the miners hated the Irish, as did any unemployed farm worker, for it was the Irish who came over in their boatloads to work for less money, and not only to take men’s jobs but their homes. There were fights almost to the death with the Irish, and so his head came cautiously above the mound. But what he saw wasn’t a fight between the Irish and the miners, but a one-sided battle between two small miners and an old man.
From his position he was looking down into a cul-de-sac in the hillside and at the far end in a clump of bracken lay an old man, peculiar for three things. He had a tremendous amount of hair not only hanging down in a beard but also down his back, and one leg was cut off below the knee, and one of his hands was a hook. What was more, he was protecting himself from pieces of flying rock.
Sandy’s eyes now flashed to the point from which the missiles were being thrown, and there were the two youngest Mullens, their faces impish, hurling the stones every time the old man tried to rise.
Sandy didn’t stop to think. Still bent low, he made his way swiftly along the side of the ridge; then darting between boulders he came up from behind the two boys and, grabbing their shoulders, startled them in their devilish play.
‘What d’you think you’re up to?’ He twisted them round, and they looked comical in their surprise and in the fact that they had been washed, after a fashion, for their ears were still black rimmed, as were their eyes. He was seeing them clearly for the first time. He said again, ‘What d’you think you’re up to?’
‘Havin’ a game,’ the younger one muttered. ‘It’s only Mad Mark. He was asleep; we pinched his crutch.’
Sandy looked to where the boy was pointing and saw a home-made crutch; and now he glowered at them, crying, ‘For two pins I’d belt you with it.’
‘You lay a finger on us an’ da’ll rip you up.’
‘I’m not afraid of your da or anybody else, an’ you can tell him that.’ His anger was making him brave, and now he thrust them from him, crying, ‘Sling your hook while you’re able. Go on!’ And they scampered away, their bare feet seeming not to feel the sharp-edged shale that covered the path.
Now Sandy picked up the crutch and, his own bare feet slithering on the grass, he reached the bottom of the hollow and made his way to the old man. Within a few feet of him he stopped and, laying the crutch on the ground, pushed it towards him, saying, ‘They’ve gone; you’ll be all right now.’
He was looking into two pale bright eyes which were staring at him from the tangle of grey and white hair, and when the man did not make any comment, he said, ‘Are you hurt?’
For answer the old man grabbed at the crutch and lumbered up onto his foot, but still he did not speak, he just stared at Sandy, and Sandy, now embarrassed, began a fumbling explanation of his own. ‘I…I was rabbitin’ up yonder.’ He pointed to the top of the hill. ‘I heard them.’ He did not say he had heard the old man’s cry. ‘They’re young devils. We’ve come to live next to them, an’ goin’ to have trouble I think. Well.’ He now backed two steps from the silent weird figure, saying, ‘Have to see about a rabbit. They’re…they’re wide awake the day, not havin’ any. So long.’ He backed another two steps before turning about and climbing out of the hollow.
When he was on the ridge he looked down and to his amazement there was no sign of the old man. He looked about him. It was as if he had flown away. To get up yon side of the hollow he’d have to be going like a young hill-climber, and he was an old man with one leg and a crutch, aye, and only one hand. He shook his head, then made his way back among the boulders and took up his position once more with his finger through the wire.
Within the next hour he set his trap in three different places without a rabbit even coming within yards of it.
He was lying now behind a mound and was just about to get to his feet and give it up as a bad job when something heavy came out of the air above him, hit him on the shoulder, then fell in front of his knees.
He had cried out in surprise. And now with his hand across his mouth he stared down at the fine hare lying on the ground; then quickly he looked upwards to the top of the high boulder but he could see no-one.
Scrambling to his feet he ran round the boulder but there he was confronted by a wall of rock rising from the ground not six feet away and this merged into the hillside further up and became covered in brush. There was no movement, nothing.
He came back and picked up the hare. He had never seen a bigger or fatter one. He looked upwards towards the hill again and now, his face bright, he cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted, ‘Ta! Ta! Thanks!’ Then rolling up his wire and thrusting it into his pocket, he pushed the hare up under his coat and ran for home.
‘I tell you, Ma, that’s how it happened; it came out of thin air. It was the old fellow, I know it was.’
‘What did you say the boys called him?’
‘Mad Mark.’
She nodded at him now. ‘That rings a bell. There’s an old fellow lives in the hills, I heard tell of him years ago, but he was just like a bogeyman, you know.’ She nodded, her face spreading into a smile. ‘Me mother used to say, “You behave yourself or else I’ll pack you off to Mad Mark,” but that’s many years ago.’
‘He’s very old, I should say sixty.’
‘Oh, he’ll be more than that, more than that.’
‘Well, he could be; you can’t really tell.’
She looked at the hare and stroked its silky skin; then looking at Sandy again she exclaimed softly, ‘It’s strange where you meet up with friends,’ and punching him playfully in the shoulder she said, ‘By! We’ll have a meal the night, eh?’ And to this he said, ‘Give him here till I clean him.’
It was early evening before the meal was ready, and they had just finished big platters of the stewed hare when a knock came on the back door. They stared at each other, startled. Swiftly gathering the bones together, they threw them into the fire and Norah Gillespie raked some wood over them, then nodded to Sandy, and he went and opened the door.
Surprised, he saw standing there the biggest of the Mullen boys. They looked at each other for a full minute before the boy said in stilted tones, ‘Thout to come an warn you. Me da’s comin’ along the road. He’s got a skinful; hasn’t slept it off. The lads told him that you belted them; I would clear out for a time if I was you.’
Again they stared at each other; and now Sandy said, ‘Thanks for tellin’ me, but…but I’m not going to run.’
The boy shook his head now, then muttered under his breath, ‘He’s dirty, me da, I mean in a fight.’
‘I’ll risk it.’
The boy still stood, then after a moment he said, ‘Me name’s Stan.’
‘Mine’s Sandy.’
They nodded at each other and half smiled, then the boy looked to where Mrs Gillespie was now standing behind Sandy, and he gulped in his throat as she said gently, ‘Thank you, lad.’ And she added, ‘Don’t be afraid for us.’
‘He’s mean.’ The boy had his head down now and Norah Gillespie looked pityingly on him for having to admit this about his own father. She said, ‘Don’t worry; we can take care of ourselves.’ And on this he nodded and was about to turn away when she ended, ‘You’ll be welcome in here any time, boy.’
The sad grey eyes were turned on her and then on Sandy, and when Sandy nodded, confirming his mother’s invitation, Stan drooped his head still further, then hurried out of the yard.
They had hardly entered the room and had no time to discuss any plan they might use when there was a bawling in the street outside and Big Mullen was hammering on the door again.
When Norah Gillespie, after straightening her shoulders, made to open the door, Sandy pulled on her arm, saying, ‘Let me deal with him.’
‘Don’t be silly, he’s dangerous.’
‘Look!’ Sandy was hissing into her face. ‘You’ve told me often enough in the last few days I’m a man. Well, now let me act as one.’
They stared at each other in the dim light and Norah Gillespie’s face worked with the pain of indecision; but it was as he said, he was coming on sixteen years old, and a man. She stood aside.
Sandy pulled open the door as Big Mullen had his fist raised to bang on it again, and he held it in mid-air as Sandy demanded in a voice from which he could scarcely keep the tremor, ‘What you after?’
‘Aw! It’s master big-boy himsel’, is it? I’ll tell you what I’m after.’ Big Mullen swayed back and forward. ‘I’m after your hide an’ I’m go-nna get it, I’m go-nna skin you.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
It’s possible to say that Big Mullen got the first real surprise of his life when Sandy’s hand came out and thrust him backwards. Through a blinking gin-bemused gaze he watched the young fellow move into the middle of the road, and when he said ‘Well, I’m ready for your skinnin’,’ his mouth dropped into a gape. But he didn’t laugh this time, he was being shown up by a skite of a youngster, and in front of his own lads at that. But the boy’s steady gaze and his stance, like that of a wrestler, stayed him and he blustered now, ‘I’ll teach ya to pick on somebody your own size, two bits of bairns out…out for a Sunday ramble…’
‘Sunday ramble!’ Sandy sneered now, and repeated again, ‘Sunday ramble! Bashing an old man with stones after pinching his crutch.’
The effect of Sandy’s words was surprising, for Big Mullen screwed up his eyes, straightened his body, lowered his fists, and now his bellow was ear-splitting as he turned on his sons. ‘What’ve I told ya, eh? What’ve I told ya? Leave him alone. I told you to lay off Mad Mark, didn’t I…? GET!’ He made a dive at the boys and they were off like lightning, scrambling in different directions.
Big Mullen now looked at Sandy; then, his head rolling on his shoulders, he spat into the road, turned on his heel and went his wavering way down to the end house. And Sandy, perplexed, full of relief and feeling not a little sick, followed his mother into the cottage: and there they looked at each other and Norah Gillespie said, ‘Well, what do you make of that?’ And Sandy answered, ‘You’re asking me.’
‘By!’ She drew her body up to its proud height, and her eyes passed over him lovingly as she said, ‘He’ll know who he’s got to deal with in future, eh?’ And he answered her, ‘Aye, he will that.’ But to himself he only hoped so, for Big Mullen drunk and Big Mullen sober were two different people, and although equally vicious he didn’t know whom he feared the more.
His mother was saying now, ‘Big Mullen or no Big Mullen, we must get ready for the mornin’; it’ll be an early start. I only hope we don’t sleep in because we must be at the crossroads by four o’clock.’
