One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard

Author:Caradog Prichard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2010-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

And I knelt down by the side of the bed to say Our Father before going to sleep. Our Father which art in Heaven, I said. Thank you for Your potatoes and roast meat, and bread and butter and sugar and cheese and ham and eggs and everything else.

There was a real miracle for you, eh?

10

THIS IS ROBIN DAVID’S Field, the one on the right here that runs all the way down to the Riverbank. Dew, it’s a miracle I’m alive, too, after what happened that day when the Wanderers came down from Holyhead to play our Celts in the cup.

That was on a Saturday. In mid-week, we used to go over the wall and across the field to play on the Riverbank after school. Little Ivor Top Row nearly drowned one day when we went there, Huw and Little Ivor and me, to play horses with the reins that Elwyn, Little Ivor’s big brother, had made for us out of all different colours of wool.

Little Ivor was the horse and Huw was the driver holding the reins, and he had a stick to beat Little Ivor with, instead of a proper whip. And I was running behind them as fast as my legs could carry me across Robin David’s Field right here. There were stepping stones to cross the River at the bottom of the field and that’s where Huw was driving the horse to, and Little Ivor was galloping like mad across the field.

And Huw was shouting: Gee up, Poll. Fast as you can now over the stones and across the River.

Poll was the name of Little Owen the Coal’s mare. That’s where Huw got the name from.

The River had been flooded by the rain, and you could only see the tops of the stepping stones. But Huw kept driving Little Ivor onwards, whipping him like hell.

Over the River now, Poll, said Huw, with me behind him. And Little Ivor leapt onto the first stone and from there onto the second stone and from there onto the third. And when he was jumping onto the fourth, right in the middle of the River, he went flying on his backside and slid straight into the water. The reins were long and Huw was only on the first stone behind Little Ivor and I was still in the field by the Riverbank when Little Ivor fell in. But the reins were weak, too, and they broke as soon as Little Ivor slipped.

Jesus, what will we do? said Huw, and he jumped back off the stone onto the Riverbank. Ivor was being carried downstream by the flood, and I was running along the Riverbank to keep up with him.

Huw started shouting Help as loud as he could.

Help, I shouted at the top of my voice. And who did we see jumping across the wall from Post Lane and running like lightning across the field but Elwyn, Little Ivor’s big brother.

Ivor’s in the River, said Huw at the top of his voice, still running for all he was worth.

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