– realising I was all right, of course, he hastily assured me. Not knowing us very well at the time he’d shut the window, warned Nero not to bark and laid discretionally low. Was he forgiven? he asked.
He was, though he hadn’t half caused us a mystery.
Minded he of when he were a lad, said Father Adams when he heard the story... Over Belton way he used to live then, in a row of labourers’ cottages. An’ in the next village – Whittle ’twas called, where they had the limestone quarries – some of the miners used to keep racing pigeons and fly ’em on Sunday mornings. Many a time, said Father Adams, his eyes misting at the thought 68
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of his tender childhood, he’d been set to watch for the pigeons coming over and to tell his Dad when they did.
‘He didn’t...’ I said incredulously. He did, said Father Adams. The blokes in Belton fair hated the Whittle lot.
Many a Sunday dinner they’d had like that. Used to stand in their porches and take potshots when the Whittle birds come over. And when the copper came pantin’ up, on about disturbin’ the Sabbath, the guns was up the chimney and the blokes all busy diggin’ their gardens... Hoping it wouldn’t put ideas into his head – all we needed was Father Adams shooting out of his bedroom window as well – one night we thought it had. We were having supper when, from out in the lane, a gun went off like a thunderclap. The cats were in, Annabel was safely stabled... after a moment’s pause with forks half-raised to our mouths we unfroze and went on eating. Some ten minutes later the gun went off again. This time I upset the coffee. And later on while I was washing up – so much later that I’d given up listening for further shots... Wham! Wham! went the shotgun again and I nearly went through the ceiling.
‘The silly old fool,’ said Charles, preparing to go out and tell Father Adams what he thought of him... we knew it wasn’t Sam this time; he was away on business...
At which moment, to complete the wrecking of my nerves, the telephone shrilled like an alarm clock.
It was John Hazell from up the lane. Had we heard those shots? he demanded hotly. Without waiting for a reply – John, when roused, strongly resembles a charging Highland bull – it was those damfool Biggs brothers, he said. Shooting pigeons along at the Trammells. Kept waking up the baby and making Janet jump. He’d had enough of it and he was going out to fire back.
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‘Now listen, John,’ began Charles in agitation.
‘Not at them, mon!’ said John in his rich Scots voice.
‘I’ll be firm’ at the old limekiln, just to gie’ ’em a taste o’
what it’s like... I thocht I’d tell ye so ye won’t imagine war has broken out.’
It was just as well he did warn us. Wham! a few minutes later went the Biggs’ brothers’ echoing shotgun. Wheeee!
like a fast-winging bird, came John’s gun in reply. And Whooooosh! (we weren’t expecting that one) went a car up the hill within seconds, with Bert Biggs, white-faced, at the wheel and Ern crouched low beside him.
Stopping at the Rose and Crown for succour, and with Father Adams an ecstatic listener, they sweatingly told their story. Mr Trammell’d got pigeon trouble, reported Bert. Eatin’ his sprouts, they was, confirmed Ern. So Bert had brought his gun... Mr Trammell’d said they could... and there they was, bangin’ peacefully away in the lane, when this other bloke opened up.
‘Bloody maniac whoever he was,’ said Ern, his glass trembling like a jelly at the thought of it.
‘Only just missed I,’ said Bert – which was quite untrue but countrymen like their excitement.
‘Hard luck, that,’ said Father Adams ambiguously, his eyes raised innocently heavenwards.
The Biggs brothers didn’t bring their gun again. All the same, with so many new folk about and this craze for random shooting being apparently catching, it was obviously politic to keep an eye on Shebalu, whom we envisaged trekking into firing range at every opportunity.
In point of fact not only did she, for weeks when we first let her out, stay happily on the lawn, but, to our amazement, Seeley solicitously stayed with her. We 70
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could leave them for minutes at a time – and when we went out there she’d be, as prominent as a snowdrop in a winter garden. Chewing off the grape-hyacinth leaves most likely, or busily demolishing the lavender
– but always there, where we couldn’t possibly miss her. And by her, wearing a look of doting benevolence, would be Seeley – or, if he happened to be out of sight (having decided, like us, that it was all right to leave her for a moment), even then he’d be no further than the vegetable garden, from which, if we came out and spoke to her, he’d come hurrying, full of anxiety and nattered Mrrr-mrrrs, to assure himself that all was well.
Only once he took her into the lane. To introduce her to Annabel presumably, because when I went tearing out to look for them, there they were across the track, peering in through the stable bars.
‘In,’ I ordered sternly – and Seeley, who’d learnt that command when young, belted guiltily back across the lane and over the garden wall. ‘In!’ I ordered Shebalu and, desirous of doing everything that Seeley did, she too dashed across the lane, leapt into the air – obviously without a clue as to why he’d done it but just because he had – and came down plop in the stream. Didn’t Matter, she said, scrambling valiantly out. But that Seeley certainly did some funny things...
Apparently it was a favourite crossing place just there.
A night or so later we happened to be going out. I was sitting in the car with the headlights on, while Charles closed the cottage gates, when suddenly across the lane in front of the car sped a fieldmouse going like a racehorse.
Returning from sharing Annabel’s supper, most likely, and obviously late for some other appointment. At the 71
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spot from which the cats had jumped, he took off into the air.
Up, across the stream and, with his stomach glinting silver in the headlights, straight as a well-aimed dart into a tiny hole in the wall. The ditch is a good three feet across. It was a clever jump for a mouse. I hoped the cats wouldn’t spot that he as there, I said, and Charles said he was sure that they wouldn’t. A mouse with enough sense to have a moat around his home, he said, was more than a match for cats.
So there we were. Back from our holidays, the snake season pretty well over, Shebalu apparently happy to stay in the garden and Seeley (we could hardly believe it) happy to stay in with her as well… At which otherwise peaceful point in our existence Miss Wellington noticed the dog lady.
We didn’t know her name. Only that she came past the cottage occasionally with four or five dogs, that she seemed very nice and that the dogs were very well controlled. Sometimes on leads, sometimes loose, when presumably they answered to the whistle she wore round her neck, though as yet we’d never seen her use it. She’d certainly got them organised said Charles – it must save time in exercising them. Which apparently occurred to Miss Wellington because in next to no time she too was sailing past with a collection of dogs on leads.
They weren’t hers. Miss Wellington had a large black cat who wouldn’t have stood for that. But she was fond of all animals. It was Miss Wellington who, years before, convinced quite wrongly that he wasn’t getting enough exercise, had insisted on bringing a neighbour’s mastiff down to the Valley, where she’d let him off his lead – he 72