Saint Christopher and the Gravedigger by Catherine Cookson

Author:Catherine Cookson [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781477823910
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

It was quarter to ten when John left the house and he was glad to be outside. His mother was too quiet and Florrie was too sad to be natural. He had told himself a number of times this morning that he wasn’t going to the crossroads. It had even come as a surprise when he had heard himself telling Florrie that he was going to take a dander along there. The crossroads was the last place he wanted to dander to, for within a few yards of it McNally and his gang were working. Yet here he was, going in search of the Devil, as it were.

He took side cuts and turnings out of the village for he did not want people stopping and enquiring how he was, and the nearer he came to the crossroads, the more intense became his feeling of well-being. As this feeling grew, he looked from side to side expecting to encounter the reason for it, but he saw no one.

When he came to the end of the Downfell Hurst road he took up his position near a farm gate and from there he had full view of the intersecting roads. Straight ahead at the other side of the crossroads, the men were at work and he could make out McNally’s huge frame shaking under the pressure of the drill. He turned his eyes away, for even in his present highly elated state, McNally still had the power to irritate him.

He hadn’t been standing by the gate more than a few minutes before his interest became taken up with the traffic. It was thick at this time of the morning: large, heavy-laden lorries making, he supposed, for Newcastle; farm tractors; vans and private cars of all shapes and sizes; and sprinkled among them, motorcycles and a very occasional pushbike. Within a few yards of passing him, all the traffic was forced to slow down and he found his eyes searching each vehicle. He could not see into the high cabs of the lorries. Anyway, he supposed, they’d have more in common sense than to carry superstitious junk around with them—the men on the big lorries had their work cut out and had to depend on themselves, not on bits of tin.

It was at the very moment this thought presented itself that he saw him again, standing not a yard away, leaning against the oak post of the five-barred gate. John closed his eyes then gulped. The first glimpse of the Saint still had the power to knock him off balance.

‘How many have you counted?’ asked St Christopher.

‘None so far,’ said John bluntly.

‘Oh, I’m peeved at that.’ The Saint was smiling broadly. ‘I reckon that eighty per cent of things on wheels have me as a passenger.’

‘And that’s when the trouble starts.’

‘I’m out to prove you wrong, John.’

‘All right, go ahead. I’m ready to be convinced but I know full well that I won’t be.’

The roar that the Saint let out almost deafened John; it certainly drowned the noise of the passing traffic.

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