Spirit of the Highway by Swift Deborah

Author:Swift, Deborah [Swift, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-09-24T07:00:00+00:00

12 - THE HUNT

At mother’s cottage I was up early, unable to sleep. The events of the day before rolled round my head over and over. Everything was going wrong. I knew I should not go near the Manor, but Kate drew me there as if I was bewitched. I prayed to God he’d take away the longing in my heart, but it burned there still.

I put my spade over my shoulder and crept out past Cutch’s curled and sleeping shape.

The land had always been my solace, and hard physical work my comfort. I did not know what else to do to ease my heart, but dig. Maybe that was why a Digger’s life spoke to me so. In the pale dawn the view was so beautiful, it made me catch my breath, the sight of the deep belt of green oaks beyond the meadow, the heat haze shimmering over the dew. A few orderly stooks of corn marked where the gold had been shaved to a soft brown, and where after yesterday’s events, all work had stopped.

I inhaled a deep breath, sighed. I wished it had been me, not Downall, coaxing the land back to its seasonal cycle. The land being worked was the only sign that order might at last return to England. After the King had been beheaded and even his distraught son could not scramble an English army to defend him, it seemed like England herself had lost her head. In the last six months, my life had been turned upside-down by war and my father’s death.

But even more so by love.

The very sight of Kate was still enough to set a tremble in my chest. It was as if my eyes were caught to her by a string, wherever she moved I couldn’t help but watch. Her grace and strength in equal measure wrung out something deep inside me.

Yet I had to confess, I was no longer certain who or what Kate was. Before I left for Worcester, she had been set on the Diggers ideals of freedom, but in just a few short weeks the tug of her aristocratic past had begun to draw her away from me. How could I compete with all those generations of tradition and power, the sheer weight of her forebears? And now I was weakening too. I was being worn down by the needs of society for dowries and certainties. I felt as if I was grasping after shadows.

But I would not be defeated. There would be setbacks, perhaps. But I would fight for Kate and for my vision of the future for as long as I had the strength.

I struck my spade deep into the soil until I felt the crunch of it under my boot. Stood on its edge to feel it slice deeper, turned over the rich brown earth. The land in front of me was unchanging. The trees still grew, the river still flowed, despite the wars of men. As if to keep me company, the early blackbird sang its sweet, sharp song.

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