Read Online Sun Dance by Iain R. Thomson - Free Book Online

shoulders to the collar. Callused hands gave a lift of the shafts and the plough point slid into sandy ground. Eachan strode the furrows of another season.
    Steady and straight, light the touch of reins on his pony’s neck. His white pony, one ear forward, one ear back, the digging of her hooves marked the plough’s next round. Sunrise fell obliquely across the land. Brown crests glistened, new made, damp and fresh. In the quiet of morning the man, a stooping figure, watched the living soil curl away from the plough board, heard the crackle of their turning as they broke over in countless tiny veins. On the clean air, fulsome with the smell of his pony, a tilt of the shafts, a click of the tongue and Eachan turned his plough on the end rig. A polished mouldboard would shine, bright as the early sun that warmed the backs of man and beast. Gulls circled from the banks of winter seaweed to strut and squabble at his heel. Lapwing left their tumbling flight to settle on the new turned crests, the lustre of their dark wings green and bronze in the brittle light. Soon hollows scraped in the fresh soil would hold three mottled brown eggs. And far out, thin lines of geese marked the edge of the Atlantic, northbound to retreating snows their voices clamorous on a young morning.
    Out of respect for the old ways Eachan sowed the corn with the slender moon of a Good Friday. A canvas sowing sheet hung across his shoulders, each handful of oats flew through his fingers in a curve of seeds at every measured stride. Ella, his wife, carried pails of grain to fill the sheet whenever he paused. By nightfall the field was sown and at first light his white pony would drag the harrows to cover the seed. Crying lapwing stooped, flapping wings beat about their heads. Sharp eyed as he walked the sowing, Eachan marked each clutch of eggs with a stick. A touch of the reins at the harrowing and each nest was safe. A month and green shoots of corn sheltered tiny, black legged chicks. Handfuls of crouching fluff, mottled as the shells from which they had broken.
    When the golden heads of grain crackled with ripeness, mower blades were sharpened and with her ears back, the white pony pulled Eachan’s chattering iron reaper. Standing corn fell in thick rows. Ella bent and gathered. Her deft hands took a few straws and heads and with a quick twist which made the harvest knot, she bound each sheaf. Their children ran home from school, threw satchels into the kitchen and set up the stooks. If an evening breeze held off the dampness Eachan would cut on until the great round moon fell golden on the sheaves and laughing children would hide in stook huts and long to sleep the night in the smell of fresh straw.
    By the moon of the returning geese, corn sheaves filled a neatly trimmed stackyard and hungry bills gleaned the stubbles. There was no grudging the feeding of other life about the croft whose worlds knew different bounds. Their arrival was greeted as naturally as the seasons. On a still February nights, Eachan, out at the byre to tend a calving cow, might catch the whistle of a dog otter. By May his cubs would be playing in the rock pools. By June, amongst the half grown oats the plover chicks could feed in safety. Seldom the loom of summer’s night without the grating notes of a corncrake, secretive bird, she hid amongst the beds of yellow iris and threw her voice with such skill few found her nest. The croft land reared many families, not least that of Eachan and his wife. They and their children in turn saw other life no differently.
    The cobblestone byre remained little changed since Viking times. It wintered the croft’s eight cows. Each knew its own stall and they appeared at the door always in the same order. A fondness for cattle came naturally to Eachan, he enjoyed their smell, gave each a scratch as he worked about them and in the way of animals, they knew it. A wooden pen, snug below the hay loft, kept the calves in the warmth of the byre.