gamekeeperâs gibbet, pick at scraps of carrion from the hedgerows. Plump dun doves peck around the woodland floor.Â
At dusk, moon-eyed owls wing along the hedges, hunting mice. The squirrels are all at their nutting, stripping the bark from branches for more food, where no more beechmast or filberts can be found. They dash across the road in frantic patterns, now and then jumping out in front of the cartâs wheels. They seem so confused at our journeying up and down the lane.
With few birds to catch, scavenging cats abound in the Bartonâs yard in these lean weeks, loitering for scraps and stolen morsels of food. The largest was a creature I called Red-Jersey; a red-furred tom with four white feet that looked as though someone had pulled a rusty doublet over his head, leaving only his white toes showing. And that head of his was the size of a foxâs, his red eyes rimed, his fur clumped and torn away in patches where heâd made arguments with other ferals, wild boar and badgers.Â
This year he didnât turn up.Â
Perhaps the world had finally got the better of old Red-Jersey.
Spring awoke on the second day of February with a service of Candlemas in our village church. The priest, our upright Peter Lock, preached the Mass with fervour, befitting the purification of our Blessed Virgin. I could listen to father Lock forever and never tire of his heavenly message. His words lifted me out of my body, off the ground and into exalted realms, joining me to the heavenly spheres, as though Iâd left this base existence and was present at the foot of the rock, listening to the Lordâs sermon itself. Only the divine mysteries of our Church can open up these revelations. Itâs only the Mass that connects with the soul and leaves the body on earth, silencing the senses and speaking to the spirit within.Â
As his words always were, father Lockâs Mass was salve to us on Candlemas. No one understood his people better. Heâs always preached and administered the sacraments of baptism, marriage and burial, with honesty and openness. The rock of our village. A middle-aged man, of medium build, he took the middle path in all his ways; never extreme, always considered. His was an approachable face; an open, moon-browed air of wisdom. He presided over our church for longer than I remember. His hair and beard were both milk-white, the fuzz on his chin hanging low on his smock. It framed his face beneath his velvet cap which had, if truth be told, seen better days. His nose was fine and arch, sloping down from close-set eyes, lending him a look of constancy. For sure, I never feared him for his looks, nor did I have reason to fear him for his judgments. In the confession box heâd always listen well and his advice, or punishments were mete and exact. Children and women trusted him implicitly, some say the women too much, against his ministryâs forbidding, God shrivel their wicked souls for such indictments.
After his sermon that day, we sang like songbirds to hear of the cleansing light that shines upon us in this world. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto , he intoned for our prayers and we all repeated the Latin words as best we could. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper . Our heads were bowed down low in pious concentration. Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen . His service preached light and renewal.
To fit the day, the songbirds began returning to our fields. The weeks of crows and doves, it seemed, were over. Blackbirds and robins, blue-tits and fieldfares, great tits and goldfinches picked at the seeds from last seasonâs teasel heads, each kind returned to us that morning, as if a gift from Heaven. All over the fields, tiny black specks of fowl pecked at the morning stubble after the long, cold night. In the trees beyond the orchard, a great woodpecker hammered out its territory, drumming its bill into the wood as hard as the woodsmanâs hammer and
At dusk, moon-eyed owls wing along the hedges, hunting mice. The squirrels are all at their nutting, stripping the bark from branches for more food, where no more beechmast or filberts can be found. They dash across the road in frantic patterns, now and then jumping out in front of the cartâs wheels. They seem so confused at our journeying up and down the lane.
With few birds to catch, scavenging cats abound in the Bartonâs yard in these lean weeks, loitering for scraps and stolen morsels of food. The largest was a creature I called Red-Jersey; a red-furred tom with four white feet that looked as though someone had pulled a rusty doublet over his head, leaving only his white toes showing. And that head of his was the size of a foxâs, his red eyes rimed, his fur clumped and torn away in patches where heâd made arguments with other ferals, wild boar and badgers.Â
This year he didnât turn up.Â
Perhaps the world had finally got the better of old Red-Jersey.
Spring awoke on the second day of February with a service of Candlemas in our village church. The priest, our upright Peter Lock, preached the Mass with fervour, befitting the purification of our Blessed Virgin. I could listen to father Lock forever and never tire of his heavenly message. His words lifted me out of my body, off the ground and into exalted realms, joining me to the heavenly spheres, as though Iâd left this base existence and was present at the foot of the rock, listening to the Lordâs sermon itself. Only the divine mysteries of our Church can open up these revelations. Itâs only the Mass that connects with the soul and leaves the body on earth, silencing the senses and speaking to the spirit within.Â
As his words always were, father Lockâs Mass was salve to us on Candlemas. No one understood his people better. Heâs always preached and administered the sacraments of baptism, marriage and burial, with honesty and openness. The rock of our village. A middle-aged man, of medium build, he took the middle path in all his ways; never extreme, always considered. His was an approachable face; an open, moon-browed air of wisdom. He presided over our church for longer than I remember. His hair and beard were both milk-white, the fuzz on his chin hanging low on his smock. It framed his face beneath his velvet cap which had, if truth be told, seen better days. His nose was fine and arch, sloping down from close-set eyes, lending him a look of constancy. For sure, I never feared him for his looks, nor did I have reason to fear him for his judgments. In the confession box heâd always listen well and his advice, or punishments were mete and exact. Children and women trusted him implicitly, some say the women too much, against his ministryâs forbidding, God shrivel their wicked souls for such indictments.
After his sermon that day, we sang like songbirds to hear of the cleansing light that shines upon us in this world. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto , he intoned for our prayers and we all repeated the Latin words as best we could. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper . Our heads were bowed down low in pious concentration. Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen . His service preached light and renewal.
To fit the day, the songbirds began returning to our fields. The weeks of crows and doves, it seemed, were over. Blackbirds and robins, blue-tits and fieldfares, great tits and goldfinches picked at the seeds from last seasonâs teasel heads, each kind returned to us that morning, as if a gift from Heaven. All over the fields, tiny black specks of fowl pecked at the morning stubble after the long, cold night. In the trees beyond the orchard, a great woodpecker hammered out its territory, drumming its bill into the wood as hard as the woodsmanâs hammer and
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