It was old Drew. They were not surprised. By this time they were used to the labourer’s visits. Often, in the evening, he would drop in with the excuse of having a talk with Abner, though most of the talking fell to Mary, and then, just as he was on the point of leaving, he would produce from one of the vast pockets in his coat some article of food that he had picked up at the farm. They knew so well this delicate subterfuge! At first Mary had been amused by it, and more than a little touched. Now she only waited impatiently to see what the old man had brought.
That night it seemed as if he would never go; but just when they had reached the point when it seemed that the eggs or turnips must appear, he turned to Abner and told him that he had some good news for him.
‘Good news?’ said Abner. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve heard anything of that.’
‘I was talking about ’ee to Mr Willums,’ said Drew, ‘and told en that you was in a purty bad way. “Well, Drew,” says he, “if it’s as bad as that, I don’t say we mightn’t do something. There do be a heap of stones scattered over the top fields as us might well be rid on. It do be a boy’s work, ’tis true, but Fellows might be glad of it.”’
Mary flushed with pleasure and clasped her hands. ‘I’d be glad of anything,’ said Abner.
‘Well,’ the old man went on, ‘I do reckon that there be no more’n a fortnight’s work there, and a poor, niggling job that’s like to break your back at that. But I thought you’d be glad of it, and I told en so. So up you comes along with me at six o’clock to-morrow morning, for I told en you’d come for sure. Threepence an hour he’ll pay ’ee. That makes twelve shillin’ a week. ’Tis not much, but ’tis something.’
They thanked him without reserve, but he shook his head at them. ‘I don’t know as it’s me you have to thank,’ he said. ‘’Tis your old mother down to the Buffalo as you’d ought to be grateful to. Mr Willums have took it into his head as giving Abner work would make her mazed. He’ve never forgive her over that cider, and never will. He’s a long memory, Mr Willums.’
When he left them Mary was so full of an emotional thankfulness that she could not speak. Abner went to bed cheerfully. She heard him whistling in his room above her.
Next morning his work at the Pentre began. As Mr Williams had said, it was a boy’s work by rights and unfitted to a man of Abner’s strength. At first sight it seemed like one of those labours which malignant kings impose upon their daughters’ suitors in fairy tales. The Pentre was a large farm of miserable land. Its uppermost cultivated fields reached nearly to the crown of the smooth hills at the valley head, ending abruptly at the foot of stony screes. From these unstable precipices the winter torrents rolled down many stones, flat rocky fragments that impeded the plough. Nor were these all, for the soil was so thin, that every ploughing turned up thousands more, and in winter the fields were overspread with a pale bloom of stones.
At this season of the year the uplands were always cold, enwrapped in icy vapours or glistening with frost that glued each fragment to the ground. Abner’s task was to clear these stubborn acres of their surface stones: an endless labour, for no sooner had he picked the surface over than new stones appeared. No convict labour could have been more monotonous, more thankless, nor, as it seemed, more futile. From dawn to sunset he worked in loneliness. No single human figure approached him all day long except that of Mr Williams, whom he would see coming like a speck in the lower distance urging his pony upwards. When he reached Abner the farmer would stay scowling at him for a few minutes. He was a surly man, and rarely spoke except on Monday evenings after Ludlow market. Then, having satisfied himself that Abner was not shirking, he would turn away and walk his pony down the hill again.