The Wilding Read Online Free

Something about her rightful . Aunt Harriet’s rightful what?
    Poll, whose job it was to bring out the bread and cheese, was not long in noticing. ‘What’s that, a love letter?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘It is! Let me see.’
    Martin winked as she plumped down next to me in the straw. I was pretty sure neither of them could read, so I passed her the scrap of paper and let her pore over it.
    ‘It’s from a girl,’ she pronounced, watching me like a cat.

    I swiped it back out of her hand. ‘It’s from my uncle that died. Not much of a scholar, are you, Poll?’
    Martin laughed and Poll flushed scarlet, not because she could not read but because I had mocked her in front of the hired man. After that she stayed away, and we got on faster. When everything was done and I was ready to leave, she did not come to wave me goodbye.
    * * *

    My next stop was at Little Leigh, where I made not much more than a few costrels of cider, and then I pressed for some cottagers in the village of Brimming. None of these households could find bed-space for me so I put up at the inn, a frowzy, mouldy place where I was obliged to go into the stables to make sure Bully was looked after. The ostler did not like me, but I cared more for Simon’s good opinion than for his. Then on to West Selsden, where I pressed for another three or four cottages and slept in the rector’s barn.
    During the time I passed there, I crawled each night to my sleep, tired as I was with labour and softened with the cottagers’ drink, yet no sooner did I drop off from the world than I began to dream, and always the same. It seemed I was setting out again, the horse jolting away in front of me. Through the morning mist I saw a man standing by the roadside, and as the cart came up he pulled off his hat and began to gesture towards me. Seeing the bright hair, I was seized with that childish dread that comes only in dreams. The dead man was holding out a paper, seemingly intending that I should take it. I knew that if I once touched it I should never be free of him, so I whipped up the horse and drove past without looking into his face. When at last I dared glance back I saw him crumpled in the road as if I had driven over him, and at this point I always woke, oppressed with guilt and shame. I would lie awake a while, making myself think of the apples pressed and the money I had pocketed, but as soon as I went back to sleep there would be the horse’s head again and in the distance a grey figure in the mist.
    *

    The pressing at West Selsden brought me to the extreme end of my journey in one direction; in order to reach the others who needed my services I must now double back. I finished up the work, loaded the cart and bedded down for the last time among the rector’s sweet hay, where I suffered my worst night so far; in addition to the dream, I had to edure the ghostly calls of owls above, and once a bird swooped down near me so that I woke in a great fright – there was a beggar at Spadboro who had been blinded by an owl. I laid my hat over my face for protection and lay thinking about Uncle Robin, picturing the handsome youth who had courted and won Aunt Harriet. Did he bring his secret, whatever it was, to the marriage altar with him? Or did all that come later?
    When I woke the following morning the hat was fallen away but the owls had left me my eyes. The light streaming from the barn windows was shot through with dazzling flecks – ‘angels’, we called them at home – and as I lay admiring them I was aware that at some point during the night I had come to a decision. My father was gentle and trusting; he had returned home too soon, given up the chase too easily. It was understandable in a man oppressed by a brother’s death, but another man, loving Robin less, might serve him better.
    I came out from the barn into a fine autumn day and harnessed Bully to the cart. He seemed, like me, eager to be off: I had only to lay the reins on his back and he sprang