The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

He told her that he was ready to turn his hand to anything, and she confessed, a little dubiously, that he might possibly get some casual employment with one of the farmers. ‘If I was you,’ she said, ‘I should go on through Chaddesbourne and ask at Mr Cookson’s—he’s the biggest employer round here—but you’re a bit too early for the harvest. Everything’s backward in these parts after the bad spring.’

He thanked her, and while she went out to change his sovereign, put aside a hunk of bread and a slice of bacon that he had not eaten for Tiger. They parted cheerfully and Abner set his face towards Chaddesbourne.

The heat of midday now lay heavy on the land, but in this wooded country-side one might always be certain of shade. In half an hour he came to Chaddesbourne, a village of black and white half timber that was already engaged in the midday coma with which it supplements its normal sleep of centuries. In all the length of the street Abner saw no human person stirring, nor any sign of life more violent than that of lazy butterflies sunning their wings upon the yellow flowers in cottage gardens. All the half-timbered houses had long strips in front of them behind which it seemed to be intended that they should sleep for ever in security. In a sandstone church some one was playing the organ. Abner had no ear for music and so he did not stop to listen.

At the end of the village he heard a more welcome sound: the clinking of a blacksmith’s hammer on his anvil and the hoarse wheezing of bellows. It was very different from Mawne with its vast hydraulic presses, but it showed the same process on a small scale, and the smith in his leather apron, working through the heat of the day, with the sweat tracking through his coal-dust, was more like a man of Abner’s own race than the labourer in the lane. He seemed glad of an excuse to stop work and talk to Abner. He offered him a drink of beer from a bottle, drank himself, and wiped the froth from his red lips with the back of his hand.

‘Looking for work!’ he said. ‘Well, I can tell you straight Chaddesbourne’s the wrong place for that. Not even at harvest time. You see, this is a dairy country, properly speaking. All the milk’s drove to the station and sent into Brum by train. Mr Cookson? Yes, Mr Cookson’s a very nice gentleman as every one knows; but I reckon he won’t be harvesting for another fortnight, being late-like. Still, there’s no harm in trying.’ He pulled on his coat and put a padlock on the door of the forge, for his home was a couple of hundred yards away in one of the long-gardened cottages. He said good-bye to Abner cheerily, and gave him directions for finding Mr Cookson. ‘If I was you,’ he said, ‘I should cut across the fields behind the house. It’ll save you some sweating on a day like this. Third gate on the right and follow along the hedge on your left hand.’

Abner took his advice, and calling Tiger to follow him entered the field. A quarter of a mile away on the hill-side he could see the red roof of the building that the smith had pointed out to him as Cookson’s farm. Tiger was in his element. He had never been in a field more rich in rabbit smell. Abner, following the smith’s directions, kept to the hedge on the left. It ran along the margin of a little wood that sheltered him from the sun and intrigued Tiger with prospects of infinite sport. It was impossible to keep the brute to heel, and though Abner cursed him till he came out of the wood he could not resist the temptation of running ahead of his master, sniffing the enchanted air. Suddenly, at the corner where the spinney ended, he stood stock still. Abner also stopped and watched him, for he too scented sport. There was a slight rustle in the hedgerow and a white creature, a little bigger than a stoat, put out its head. In a second Tiger had it by the neck and silenced its squealing with a shake. The next moment the owner of the ferret appeared round the corner of the hedge, a florid man of forty dressed in a prosperous greenish cord, carrying a gun. He fired at Tiger, who stood looking curiously at the ferret as though he still expected it to get up and run away. Tiger rolled over without a yelp, and Abner ran straight at the man who had shot him.

‘What you done to my dog?’ he cried.

‘And what the hell are you doing here, you poaching blackguard?’ He saw how ugly Abner looked. ‘Keep clear, or I’ll put the other barrel in you!’ A stupid-looking labourer slouched round the hedgeside and picked up the ferret, pinching it as if he were appraising its value as an article of food. Then, mumbling something, he thrust it into a sack that he carried and gave the dead body of Tiger a vicious kick. Abner would have flown at him for he needed something on which to vent his rage, but Mr Cookson again threatened to shoot. He had to content himself with cursing the farmer for his brutality. ‘The dog didn’t mean no harm,’ he said. ‘You’m a coward to shoot a dog like that.’

‘Not so fast, my friend,’ said the farmer. ‘I’ve not finished with you yet. I want to know what the devil you were doing skulking along my hedge. Thought you’d pick up a rabbit, eh? I know that game . . . taking the dog a walk. What were you doing on my land, eh?’

‘I’m lookin’ for work,’ said Abner.