Free Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield Page B

interfering considerably with the efforts to save her.
    Two young men about Will’s age were digging out the collapsed soil and geology; closer to the alarmed animal they had to work with their hands. An older man, standing in the ditch, patted the animal’s shoulder soothingly. He was a strong-built man, cut short by the muddy water that hid his lower legs, and his fair hair was dark around his face where the sweat had run into it. “We can’t budge her,” he said. Man or cow, it was hard to judge which knew the greater anguish.
    Will took off his jacket and clambered into the ditch. “Clear the landslide enough to work something underneath her and lift her out? Is that it?”
    “Only way, I reckon.”
    Will turned to the boy. “Got more shovels?” Off he ran again.
    They labored. For the first hour they were hindered by the cow herself, flailing her free foreleg constantly, unable to recognize the help she had. Once they had got the leg strapped down—a harness, adapted, did the trick—the cow complained, but they made faster progress.
    The boy returned with shovels. Next Will set him to work hammering at the broken fence, working the posts free, while the men first shoveled and later with their bare hands reached under the cow, into the cold muddy water, to clear debris and stones. They worked in silence, except that every once in a while the neighbor straightened his back with a grimace, rolled his shoulders, and murmured to his animal, “Don’t you fret, my lovely,” he told her. “All will be well. You’ll see.”
    A cluster of boys, scenting drama, appeared on the bank and were fascinated. “Back!” they were ordered, and five minutes later, “Back!” again. But curiosity got the better of them. Nearer and nearer they edged, until the ground beneath their feet threatened to crumble and bring all the men’s efforts to naught.
    Will muttered a suggestion to the owner of the cow, and the man nodded.
    “Boys,” he said. “Run up to my wife at the farm. Tell her what I want, and she’ll give you the tools. I need the cellar door off its hinges and brought up here, quick as you can.”
    A job! A door to be taken off its hinges! Off they went.
    In the third hour they got the fence posts under the cow and a sturdy door made its way horizontally over the field on a dozen legs. Six men raised the cow, two per post. It was out of the question to bring her up into her home field: the bank would only collapse under them. So they raised her to the wrong side and laid the door across the ditch like a bridge, and the cow—“See my lovely? Didn’t I tell you so?”—when she had found her legs, needed little encouragement to cross it and return to her own field.
    She looked about her with a surprised air, then put her nose to the grass and began to eat.
    “She looks right as rain, to me,” Will’s uncle said.
    The men blew out their cheeks and arched their backs.
    “Will, this is Thom Weston. Thom, my nephew Will.”
    “Pleased to meet you.”
    Hands were too wet and dirty to want shaking, and after what had passed, it was superfluous anyway.
    “You’ll come up home?” Thom Weston raised a closed hand and tilted it toward his mouth. An invitation.
    ·  ·  ·
    At Thom Weston’s farm a woman ran out to meet them. Nice blue eyes with friendly creases round them, and not a bit of gray in her fair hair. A good-looking woman, only worried. “Is she up?”
    Yes, yes, she was up and out, she would go on all right now. No harm done, only a lot of time lost and six thirsty men. Oh, and this is William Bellman, Geoffrey’s nephew, over from Whittingford.
    She smiled in relief and then at Will and her teeth were set straight but with gaps. It made you like her all the more.
    “Rose!” she called into the house. “Set the table. Bread and butter and get out the cured ham. And peel cake!”
    In the kitchen the men stripped off their shirts to rub themselves dry and unlaced their sodden boots. Thom’s