MY FATHER TOOK SERLE HUNTING WITH HIM AGAIN today, but I had to stay at home because I helped Gatty to save our two bulls from killing each other.
After studying with Oliver, I saddled Pip and rode him round the Yard ten times. Except I didn’t ask him to climb the ladder. Not even horses should be asked to do that.
My uncle William told me how he and his reeve once played a practical joke on one of their neighbors. They hoisted one of his cows into the hayloft and then removed the ropes and pulley to make it look as if the cow had climbed the ladder, but when he got home, the neighbor was very angry because he couldn’t get his cow down again; he had to kill and butcher her up in the loft.
While I was in the Yard, I saw Gatty and Dusty stagger behind the butts with sacks of mast and bean-squelch for the pigs. So I rode over to them.
“Go on, Dusty,” said Gatty. “I’ll catch you up.”
Dusty grinned at me.
“Go on!” said Gatty more sharply.
But Dusty still didn’t move, because he doesn’t understand words, and isn’t any good at doing things on his own.
So then Gatty pushed him and his bean-squelch a few steps in the direction of the pigsty, and I dismounted.
Gatty shrugged. “Same as usual,” she said.
“I mean, he beat you with a twig-broom.”
“Better than a stick. A stick he’s got sometimes.”
“My father uses willow rods,” I said.
“Or a whip,” said Gatty. “My father’s got a whip.”
“Without you,” I said, “one of our bulls would have been killed.”
“Harold,” said Gatty.
“Yes. And I told my father how brave you were.”
“Your brother didn’t do nothing,” said Gatty.
“Exactly,” I said. “We got the bulls apart, and we got punished. It’s Serle who should have been punished.”
“Gotta go,” said Gatty suddenly. “Dusty’s no good on his own.”
“I haven’t forgotten our expedition,” I said. “Upstream. This summer we’ll do that.”
“What about the fair then?” Gatty asked, and she lowered her eyes. When she does that she looks quite pretty because she has long eyelashes, and they tremble.
“That too,” I said. “We’ll go to the fair at Ludlow.”
“You’ll get beaten,” said Gatty.
“So will you,” I said. “But it’s worth it.”
At the end of the afternoon, I went up onto the hill with the hounds, Tempest and Storm. As soon as you’re past the orchard and the copper beech, the ground arches its back. The hill makes my calves and thighbones ache. I’m stronger than it is, but I’m always panting by the time I get to the top because I try to get there as fast as I can.
The light was so strong and bright that away beyond Pike Forest and the wilderness, I could see violet hills. And beyond the violet hills, I saw—or thought I saw—the shadowy dark shapes of the Black Mountains. I have never traveled that far west, and my father says it would be dangerous to ride so deep into Wales and that, anyhow, there is no reason to go there. But each time I stand on Tumber Hill and stare, I think there is a reason, and I know that one day I’ll ride west; I’ll climb the violet hills and cross the Black Mountains, and gallop beyond them until I come down to the western sea. I would like Gatty to come with me, but I don’t suppose that is very likely.
Today Storm chased a doe rabbit, and actually caught her. When he brought her back to me, she was still screaming, so I wrung her neck.
Later, I gave the doe to Slim.
“What about baking two pies with crusts like rabbit hutches?” I asked him. “One for his doe, and one with Sian’s white rabbit alive inside it.”
“I never boil the same cabbage for pigs twice!” Slim replied rudely.
While Tempest and Storm raced around, I sat down on the crown of the hill. I thought about my tailbone a bit, and then about Serle. He pretends he likes me when we’re in company, but he’s mean to me whenever we’re alone. Sometimes he twists my arm behind my back until I have to get down on one knee and my arm almost breaks, but mainly he hurts me with what he says. I know Serle tells on me as well, especially to my mother, and she doesn’t stop him because he’s the apple of her eye.
After a while, I began to think about my father’s plans for me. What are they, and why won’t he tell them to me now? When I talked to him, he didn’t say I could go away into service. He didn’t promise I could be a squire at all. Is this because I’m not good enough in the Yard? Or because of something I don’t even know about?
Everything is difficult now in my life but, all the same, I was more happy when I ran down Tumber Hill than when I climbed it. It helps to ask questions, even if I don’t know the answers.
When I reached the bottom of the hill, I saw my father had come back from hunting, and he and Merlin were sitting under the copper beech. My father was out in the soft sunlight, but Merlin was dapple-dressed with yellow spots and purple patches of shadow.
“Too much sunlight turns today into tomorrow,” said Merlin. “And it pickles the brain.”
I know Merlin and my father were talking about me because they stopped talking as soon as they saw me.
“That’s a fat doe,” my father said.
“Storm caught her.”
Then Storm began to bounce, and that made Tempest bounce.
“So,” said my father, and that meant he was getting impatient.
“I’m going,” I said.
“You were saying, John,” said Merlin. “Your brother…”
“Sir William!” I exclaimed.
“Arthur,” said my father. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
“I don’t mind what you thought. I’m talking to Merlin, not to you.”
Then Merlin winked at me. He winked so fast that I wasn’t quite sure whether he had winked or not.
“Yes, father,” I said.
“I do know an old charm,” said Merlin, “which makes second sons vanish.”
“Huh!” exclaimed my father. “You must teach it to me.”
What were my father and Merlin talking about when I interrupted them? I don’t think my father can know what I know. What Lady Alice told me. Because she said she would never tell anyone else at all.