The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

The obvious goal of an out-of-work in the midlands at that time was Coventry, an ancient city then rising on the third of its great industrial booms, the manufacture of motor-cars. There was always work, and well-paid work, to be had in Coventry. The journey was short, and Abner had no money to waste on railway fares. Even so, the idea of merely moving from one side of the black-country to another did not seem to represent the kind of radical change that he had intended. He wanted to make a clean start in a new country. It suddenly struck him that, after all, there was no real reason why a man should spend the whole of his life in the dust of coal and metal or the smell of fire. This joy of sunlight and fresh air seemed too good to lose.

He knew nothing of the conditions of labour in the country beyond the fact that many black-country families migrated every autumn into the fields of Worcestershire for the gathering of hops. He remembered how he had seen these sun-browned companies returning, men, women, and children together, carrying their household goods in old perambulators, looking happier and more healthy than the majority of Halesby people. He had no very definite idea when the ‘hopping’ season began; but whether he were too late for it or too early he knew, at any rate, that he had a store of strength and health to sell. He wasn’t afraid of work. Why shouldn’t he work in the open air? For the summer at least . . . after that he might go down with the money he had earned into the Welsh valleys and take to the pit again. He knew that between him and Wales lay a vast green country in which a man might live as well as anywhere else. Even now the sun was drinking up the mists that concealed it, revealing sombre woodlands heavy in leaf, yellow cornfields, the smoke of hidden towns or villages, and, here and there, a shining bend of river. From that high post, indeed, he gazed upon the pastoral heart of England, the most placid and homely of all her shires; but the national schools had taught him nothing of these things, and, as the mists ascended, showing the cliffs of Cotswold long and level, Bredon an island dome, May Hill and Malvern, Abberley, Clee, and all the nearer hills of Wales, he only knew that it was green and big and that it promised freedom.

He decided on Wales, and began to take stock of his possessions, counting the change that remained in his trouser pocket—seven and ninepence ha’penny in all—and untying the bundle into which he had put a change of socks and underwear. He wished, now that he came to think of it, that he had changed into his working clothes, for it did not seem right to him to look for work in his Sunday best. He turned out the pockets of the coat, wondering what tokens of his past life it would disclose. In the breast pocket, to his great surprise, he found a small packet of paper that he couldn’t account for. He opened it, and found that it contained two sovereigns. He stared at them incredulously and laughed aloud. Alice must have slipped them in when she said good-bye to him. He felt suddenly tender toward her, and immensely pleased at this striking turn in his fortunes. He scraped out of his side pocket some dry remnants of tobacco, filled his pipe, tied up his bundle, whistled to Tiger and set off down hill leaving the brow of the Uffdown between him and the blackness of Mawne.

It was all new ground to him. The hills that he was leaving behind formed a lip of the saucer in which the midland coal measures lay, and their line had always marked the limit of Abner’s curiosity as boldly as they defined his physical horizon. Now he was passing quickly to the unknown plain. The path grew rough and precipitous. For a hundred yards it cut into a plantation of larches fully grown. His feet and Tiger’s made no sound on the drift of needles. The wood was dry, warm, fragrant, and as quiet as a church. One would have thought that no living creature was there, till Tiger scented a squirrel, and Abner heard above him the thin alarm note of the wood-wren. From the wood they crossed a stone stile into a sunless lane, steeper even than the path across the hill, grass-grown for want of traffic and now possessed by a company of solemn foxgloves. This lane, though unfrequented, was the favourite picnic-place of Mr Willis of Mawne Hall, who always called it ‘our little Switzerland.’ The only thing that struck Abner about it was its steepness. A stone that he dislodged in his walking bounded on as though it were falling over the roof of a house, and Tiger scuttled after it full-pelt. Abner also found that it was easier to run than to walk.

At the bottom of the hill they came to a deserted watermill, fed by a stream that here issued from the hills. Near it stood a large farm-house that had fallen from its state of ease and comfort, and was now partly inhabited by a labouring family. A small boy was sitting playing with stones and eating a crust on the green in front of the house. Tiger ran up and sniffed at him, and he dropped his crust and ran screaming up the garden path. A pale woman with red hair rushed out to see what was the matter and comforted him with her apron. Abner said good-day to her, but she pulled the child inside the door as if she were frightened. He heard her bolting herself in, and laughed, for he didn’t realise what a ruffian he looked with his bruised, unshaven face and his swollen lip. Tiger, however, had the crust of bread and was thankful. He was no less hungry than his master.

Down the valley they passed. A hundred yards below the mill the trees receded and the stream widened into a neglected fishpond half-covered with water-lily leaves. The air was full of glittering blue dragon-flies, and the roadside littered and scorched by the signs of an abandoned gipsy encampment. The fishpond ended in a patch where the stream gushed through narrow sluices into a pool of brown, clear water. Sunlight, beating through the leaves above, lit the bottom with floating patches of golden brown, showing the shadows of trout that lay there gently swaying with their heads toward the sweet water. The coolness of this bathing-place was so alluring that Abner stripped and washed the slippery sweat from his body. Tiger, who was used to this kind of performance but hated water, watched him from the bank. When Abner had dried himself with his spare shirt they set off again down the sunny road.

He hoped that they would soon come to a village, for the bathe had only served to sharpen his appetite. As yet there were no signs of human habitation, but from the fields that chequered the hills on either side of the road came many country sounds: the creaking of invisible cart-wheels, the crack of a whip, the lowing of cattle and voices of men that echoed in the closed valley. A little lower down they met a man riding bareback on a pony, driving a flock of sheep before him. His legs hung straight down so that they nearly touched the ground. Tiger and the sheep-dog exchanged inquiries, but the horseman took no notice of Abner, who stood against the hedge while the flock stampeded past him with frightened brown eyes, raising a dust that was laden with a hot smell of wool and sheep-dip. The farmer’s man appeared to be riding in a dream, mechanically switching the pony’s flanks with a branch of hazel. Abner woke him by saying good-morning. He stopped the pony with a kick and turned to look.

‘Any pub handy hereabout?’ Abner asked him.

‘Pub? . . . Ay, you’m close on it. Ten minute’ll bring you to the Barley Mow.’ Abner had some difficulty in understanding him, for the language that he spoke was not that of Mawne. He thanked him. Then, after a long scrutiny, the horseman informed him that the nearest workhouses were at Bromsgrove and Kiddy, five miles to the right or left of the inn, said good-bye and kicked his pony into an amble again.

By that time the sheep had long since pattered out of sight; but this was an easy country in which hurry had no place. It amused Abner, and did not in the least offend him, to be taken for a tramp. In a few days, but for Alice’s final bounty, he might easily have become one. The labourer had made an estimate of the distance of the pub in accordance with his own leisurely way of progress. In less than half the time that he had predicted Abner found himself in front of an old red-brick inn shadowed by an immense horse-chestnut whose leaves already drooped with heat. As Abner reached the door, a man whom he took to be the landlord was starting to drive off in a yellow dog-cart, probably to some market, for a small pig was netted in the back of the trap. A big, blowsy woman whom he called ‘mother,’ but who appeared to be of his own age and was no doubt his wife, saw him off. ‘Don’t forget Emily’s stays, dad,’ she called. He waved his whip in answer and went bowling down the road into the sun. The woman returned with a sigh that sounded as if it betokened relief, to the wide, semi-circular steps where Abner was standing waiting for her. She had not seen him arrive, and appeared not to be pleased at the prospect. When he began to speak she cut him short with: ‘No, the master never gives anything. We have to make it a rule on this road.’