Free Kate's Progress by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page B

walking home along the track, perhaps, passing out of sight behind the trees. Nothing to get antsy about.
    She hurried inside, closed the door behind her, told herself not to be foolish – and made a mental note to leave a light on inside next time she went out in the evening.
    On Sunday she decided to take a break from work, and went for a long walk over the moors. It was a fine, breezy day of sunshine and shadows, and she thought it would be absurd to move all the way to Exmoor and not sample its outdoor pleasures.
    First she tried to discover exactly where her five acres were. She had seen it marked on a map, but it was not so easy to identify in reality. The fences had gone – or perhaps in some places had never existed – and the wild had crept – or rather rushed – back in. She could see a difference in vegetation in the part immediately across the track from her house, which presumably had been cultivated for longer than the rest, and she discovered a rusty iron water-trough hidden in the bracken which seemed to mark one corner of that field. But that was all. Standing back to get an overall impression of it, she saw that her five acres – if she was guessing right about how much an acre was – occupied the flat top of Lar Common, just about the only flat land in the immediate vicinity. But without any hope of planning permission, it was valueless – except to a member of the Irish diaspora suffering from land-hunger, of course. A vague thought wandered through her mind that, in deference to her people, she really ought not to waste it, she ought to clear the land and cultivate it …
    At that point reality kicked in and she snorted.
Yeah, five acres of potatoes ought to do it! What are you, Scarlett O’Hara? ‘As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!’
    Anyway, stupid girl, you’re not staying here. This is a Cinderella project, that’s all. You’re doing up the cottage and selling it, and moving back to real life, in London
.
    But as she tramped away down the track, gazing across the wide moors, dappled with shadows of the fast-moving clouds, she felt a pang at the idea of leaving this place. It was so beautiful … Yes, she told herself, but that’s now, in May, with summer ahead. Think of winter here, cold and wet, shut indoors week after week with nothing to do. You’ll do up the cottage and get out just in time. Enjoy it for what it is – a working holiday.
    She had been walking for some time, enjoying the fresh air and the wonderful smells; she had spotted two groups of ponies at a distance, seen buzzards circling overhead, heard the trilling of skylarks, and underneath it the singing silence of the high lands. She had been following a sheep-trod, and the land under her feet began gradually to fall away from the flat top of the common, the drop growing steeper until she found herself at the edge of a coombe, on the other side of which there was a craggy rise to a green hillside, where a flock of sheep was peacefully grazing.
    It was at that point that Kate heard the whimper. It came from somewhere below her, on the side of the coombe, which was thick with heather, bracken, whin and gorse. She turned her head out of the wind and listened. After a moment it came again, a whimper that turned into a long-drawn-out whine of distress. It sounded like a dog. She craned her neck, moved a little way along the valley edge in each direction, but she could see nothing. But she was a dog-lover, and if there was one in trouble, she had to go and see if she could help. Perhaps it had slipped and fallen, or got itself stuck in a rabbit hole, or – well, something. She had to find out.
    She looked for a suitable way down, and found the faint mark of a trod through the vegetation which she began to follow. It was all very well for a sheep, but it was tricky going for a human, trying to find sound footing through the wiry heather-roots, loose stones and concealed hollows. And where was the dog? She