Read Online Apples and Prayers by Andy Brown - Free Book Online Page B

message, raised my wilted spirits for, if the song was true, then more bad weather was set to come our way on the heels of this upturn. I reasoned that I’d have to cover over our beehives with straw, for warmth and protection, if yet more frosts and chill winds were afoot. I couldn’t bear to think of another winter stretching on throughout the length of March, or goodness knows til when. The commoners were crying out for a little good cheer and brighter days, what with current hardships and privations. I knew of these from my own experience and talking with John Toucher.
    John farmed his few strips of fields to bring forth wheat and root crops. The land is exceedingly heavy there, where it slopes down towards the river and John had to plough in plentiful straw and dung each year to break up the sodden clay. His arable land needed annual rest and he gave it over to grazing in the early part of the year. That way the animals dropped their dung and fertilized his marshy fields.
    His few ewes had been lambing in recent weeks and the cattle had been housed in the barns against the rougher weather. As soon as the cold lifted, he’d wheel out cartloads of their dung and spread it widely on the fields, to lie there on the earth for a month or so before digging in. That way he’d have an even crop and a good yield later in the year, or so he hoped. The dung, he scattered thickly in the furrows and thin on the ridges, his land being so wet until summer, needing good manure to bring it to proper condition. His few livestock were provided with only enough pasture to satisfy them, so they could graze and grow to good condition themselves without damaging the fields with their heavy hooves, as cattle left to freely roam surely will. It irked him when his neighbour’s animals jumped over his fences and found their way onto his strip, but he was never so angry for long. ‘Their shit for my grazing,’ he used to say.
    â€˜Good morning John,’ I greeted him that early February morning, as I walked back from our bittersweet Candlemas service. 
    John was already working in his field and I stopped to throw some playful words across the high hedgerow, where he stood shin-deep in mud. 
    â€˜Your land seems awfully muddy,’ I observed. 
    I hadn’t seen him for several days and it would be a pleasure, I hoped, to pass the time of day with him in sweet nothings.
    â€˜Aye, Morgan. But even this muddy land may soon no longer be mine,’ he replied, without so much as even looking up at me to bid me back good morning. He seemed in no mood for playing games, or wasting time in talk of love.
    â€˜The land you farm is yours by right and payment, John. It’ll be yours until they dig you into it.’ I’d been addressing my talk to the hedge until now, when he finally showed his broad brow above the bushes. 
    â€˜The voice, it has a face,’ I said.
    â€˜Indeed it does,’ he replied, ‘until they bury it, as you say. I’ll be lucky if the land’s still mine by then.’
    I reached across the hedge and squeezed his arm. ‘Who could take it from a man like this?’ I said. ‘No one could wrestle it from you, even if they came to take it by force!’
    â€˜Listen Morgan,’ he snapped and shrugged me off. ‘Put your ears and eyes to work instead of your tongue. Can’t you see? On land where many men have made their livelihoods, tilling the arable soil, now we only see more flocks of sheep. So many, the earth’s nearly blotted from sight. Look around you, Morgan. One man, the shepherd, will own all of this, where twenty men have yet endured by their own labours.’ His cheeks reddened in the chilly morning air.
    â€˜A shepherd can’t take your land from you, John! No man can. It’s nothing but rumour and gossip.’ 
    In some uncertain way, however, I feared he might be right. If Candlemas could go, then so might