Emily Read Online Free Page A

shook his head in a commiserative kind of way. He shook a finger as he spoke and they both turned their heads towards the building next door.
    A young boy came across to Emily. ‘Thou’s little lass that got lost down by ’river!’
    Emily nodded in agreement. ‘I shan’t get lost again,’ she said defensively. ‘It was only ’cos it was foggy.’
    ‘It’s allus foggy down there.’ He looked down at his boots. ‘If tha likes, we’ll tek thee next time we go. Mebbe next Sat’day if it’s fine.’
    She looked towards Granny Edwards, who was bearing down on her. ‘I’ll have to ask,’ she whispered. ‘If she says I can, I will.’
    The boy scooted off towards the group of other boys and girls who were waiting for him and sheturned to ask the question, but was forestalled by Granny, who was saying, ‘Well, that’s got that settled. Minister says he’ll put in a word for thee wi’ schoolmistress. Now our Sam is in regular work we’ll be able to manage. Tha’s nearly six, so all being well tha’ll start school after Christmas.’
    She couldn’t wait to start. Some of the children who called for her the following Saturday said that they went to the Thorngumbald school. The boy, Dick, who had spoken to her outside the chapel, another boy, Jim, and two girls, Dora and Jane. The girls were both aged seven and were only allowed so far from home under the safe keeping of the boys, who were eight and had been threatened with the strap if they came to any harm. The other boys in the group said that they didn’t go to school because their parents hadn’t any money, but in any case, said one, ‘Larning is a waste o’ time, I already know how to plough.’
    Granny agreed that Emily could go with them as long as they were back before dark. The morning was sharp, frost lay across all the marshland and when Emily took a deep breath she could feel the icy air freezing her nostrils.
    That winter morning was the start of friendships and quarrels and of a discovery of life on the river bank, when they dug in the mud for crabs and shrimps, fished for flounders and gudgeon with homemade rod and line, or stole eels from the baskets laid out on the mudflats. They chased foxes and rabbits and whispered together if they spotted a solitary heron or stood silently watching the mass influx of wildfowl, brent-geese and waders.
    They clambered in and out of the small boats moored in Stone Creek, which in daylight was peaceful and no longer threatening as it had been on the night she had been lost. They made believe that they were sailing away over vast oceans and the girls had to be lookouts and bailers whilst the boys were captain and mate who planned the voyage. They were only disturbed by the shouts of men on the shore to, ‘Get off those boats, tha young peazans!’ and they scuttled away laughing to find other pleasures on those lonely shores.
    That first winter came on hard and fast and the other children stopped coming for almost a month when the fields were thick with snow and the road was impassable and even Granny couldn’t make her usual visit to chapel. Sam stayed on at the farm, for he couldn’t get home and Emily and Hannah made the best of their time together. The pump in the yard froze and to get water for their cooking they had to break off icicles which hung from the door lintel.
    They brought in more wood and kindling which Sam had stacked by the house wall and the cottage was warm if smoky. Hannah taught Emily to knit and to bake, and sat during the long winter evenings and spoke of her own childhood spent much as Emily was doing, in the depths of the Holderness countryside. She told her that after she married, her husband was made manager of a farm and she had taken over the running of the house, feeding as many as eleven to fifteen men three times a day as well as bringing up her own daughter.
    ‘Old Mr Francis ran the estate then and later,when his father died, young Mr Francis said I’d allus have a