if to give permission to come beyond the gate of the field and to him. His smiling mouth, like full leather, like smooth upholstery.
– Beautiful afternoon. If I could draw, I’d take it down also.
The man’s accent was northern, but milder than that of the men and women of this valley to which he came. He did not turn the corners of his words so sharply. Levell lifted a long hand upwards in acknowledgement. Then he turned and loped away, his feet occasionally cracking through a shallow drift of snow blown into the corner of the field.
The suited man walked on into the heart of the village and there he stood in the frozen, rutted road, smoking another cigarette. A group of boys spilled out of the doorway of oneof the cottages and began trying to scrape together enough compacted snow to form a ball worth throwing. The stranger watched them. After a while they came up to him, nervous, but their timidity overlaid with curiosity, the boldness of the very young.
– Mista, mista, yer lost in’t ya, mista?
– No. I’m sure not, fellas. Boy, it is cold though.
He laid it on for them. The use of such language had the boys whispering among themselves about gangsters and guns. The man noticed their ruddy complexions, the absence of city reflections in their eyes. These children lacked the pageantry of Manchester orphans, the youngsters with their theatre of wide-eyed hunger, their articulations of distaste and misfortune. They were not any heartier, indeed some seemed more gaunt, but it was the difference between a thin working dog and a ragged stray, the man thought. They were quiet at play, their shouts few and to the point.
– Fetch us that. Gan ova bridge, will ya? Cy, Cy, gan ova bridge.
They were templated from an entirely different press. He told them to fetch their fathers, and their mothers, the rest of their families too, if they wished. He needed to call a meeting. At first the children would not go. The man was too much of a peacock, too great a spectacle for them not to observe him. Just as he studied them, so he in turn was evaluated. His polish, his pressed creases, the tight, symmetrical seams of his tailored suit, a thing from beyond the gamut of Westmorland. They found him intriguing and lingered around him, stroking the hem of his coat as if to spy a pistol kept under the garment. He handed out Saskind’s peppermints from a tin to them, promising more when they returned, rattling the box in his gloved hand. He scruffed the hair of the boy nearest as he ran past him and winked, his eyelashes flickering like the dark, pollened wings of a moth.
At the cottage on the end of the row was a red post-office sign. He entered the building and encountered an old lady,with raisin-brown skin and hooded eyes, with the flesh of her face shrinking in all directions, a soaked neck. After a brief discussion he found out that there was no village hall in which to conduct a meeting, and even the church could not house all members of the village at once. It would have to be done outside. Though the woman pressed him for more information he gave her none, even as she gathered up her coat to accompany him outside. The two stood in the widest part of the village near to the church and the stranger listened to an account of one of the brawls which had occurred in the village of Shap the weekend before from the old grey gargoyle of a woman. She spoke to him casually, name-dropping and expecting him to know those individuals mentioned as if he had lived here all his life. Slowly, within half an hour, the village assembled, in the hard mud road next to the bridge over the river, in the waning light.
Let them be assured that none of this was within his control, this they must understand before all else. He was simply a messenger, he said, come to tell them of their future. By the second sentence the locals had him pegged as a salesman, not the first to make it down into the valley and not a very good one, however well dressed.
– Beautiful afternoon. If I could draw, I’d take it down also.
The man’s accent was northern, but milder than that of the men and women of this valley to which he came. He did not turn the corners of his words so sharply. Levell lifted a long hand upwards in acknowledgement. Then he turned and loped away, his feet occasionally cracking through a shallow drift of snow blown into the corner of the field.
The suited man walked on into the heart of the village and there he stood in the frozen, rutted road, smoking another cigarette. A group of boys spilled out of the doorway of oneof the cottages and began trying to scrape together enough compacted snow to form a ball worth throwing. The stranger watched them. After a while they came up to him, nervous, but their timidity overlaid with curiosity, the boldness of the very young.
– Mista, mista, yer lost in’t ya, mista?
– No. I’m sure not, fellas. Boy, it is cold though.
He laid it on for them. The use of such language had the boys whispering among themselves about gangsters and guns. The man noticed their ruddy complexions, the absence of city reflections in their eyes. These children lacked the pageantry of Manchester orphans, the youngsters with their theatre of wide-eyed hunger, their articulations of distaste and misfortune. They were not any heartier, indeed some seemed more gaunt, but it was the difference between a thin working dog and a ragged stray, the man thought. They were quiet at play, their shouts few and to the point.
– Fetch us that. Gan ova bridge, will ya? Cy, Cy, gan ova bridge.
They were templated from an entirely different press. He told them to fetch their fathers, and their mothers, the rest of their families too, if they wished. He needed to call a meeting. At first the children would not go. The man was too much of a peacock, too great a spectacle for them not to observe him. Just as he studied them, so he in turn was evaluated. His polish, his pressed creases, the tight, symmetrical seams of his tailored suit, a thing from beyond the gamut of Westmorland. They found him intriguing and lingered around him, stroking the hem of his coat as if to spy a pistol kept under the garment. He handed out Saskind’s peppermints from a tin to them, promising more when they returned, rattling the box in his gloved hand. He scruffed the hair of the boy nearest as he ran past him and winked, his eyelashes flickering like the dark, pollened wings of a moth.
At the cottage on the end of the row was a red post-office sign. He entered the building and encountered an old lady,with raisin-brown skin and hooded eyes, with the flesh of her face shrinking in all directions, a soaked neck. After a brief discussion he found out that there was no village hall in which to conduct a meeting, and even the church could not house all members of the village at once. It would have to be done outside. Though the woman pressed him for more information he gave her none, even as she gathered up her coat to accompany him outside. The two stood in the widest part of the village near to the church and the stranger listened to an account of one of the brawls which had occurred in the village of Shap the weekend before from the old grey gargoyle of a woman. She spoke to him casually, name-dropping and expecting him to know those individuals mentioned as if he had lived here all his life. Slowly, within half an hour, the village assembled, in the hard mud road next to the bridge over the river, in the waning light.
Let them be assured that none of this was within his control, this they must understand before all else. He was simply a messenger, he said, come to tell them of their future. By the second sentence the locals had him pegged as a salesman, not the first to make it down into the valley and not a very good one, however well dressed.
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