Free Haweswater by Sarah Hall Page A

ships and armaments in preparation for the forthcoming war, should there be one. And there would surely be one, said the man, bigger than the first. The city would be a defender of this country. Its growth was beneficial to the country entire. It should be nurtured, with pride, with sacrifice, hard though that may be.
    Here was the village. Not insignificant but it was a smallplace, with no more than thirty habitations, only four or five of which were owned outright. The land suitable for cultivation within its catchment area was almost negligible. And here was a scheme to benefit the whole nation.
    The original proposal had outlined a scheme to trap and transport water south from the lakes. It had been met with the perfect location. And it had already been authorized by an Act of Parliament some years before, in the spring of 1921. The Haweswater Act. So yes, a name had already been decided upon for the project. The Haweswater reservoir. The lake and the surrounding land had been acquired by Manchester City Waterworks under Parliament’s backing, and the owned properties had had compulsory purchase orders placed upon them. There was no question of appeal. There was no higher authority. It was signed and sealed; a done deal, so to speak.
    The proliferation of water which came down into the valley and was then lost to other, lower-lying, valleys, wasted in rivers, would soon be spilling into a bowl holding nearly twenty thousand million gallons. More. Imagine that. Water would be kept, used, driven. Water would be built. The water that presently sat in a little lake in the valley bottom was slothful, idle. Soon, it would be fattened to an enormous belly of water, it would be sucked up, and sent roaring in pipes down to the city. It was all fact, it was done and dusted. It was regrettably not within his control any more, nor theirs. This they must understand. He was simply a messenger.
     
    At the side of the crowd stood Ella Lightburn, tall, gaining inches to her height, even. Her jaw began to work involuntarily. She knew about messengers. The Bible was full of them. They came in bright armour or in rags. She knew that the messengers of the Lord came in many forms. She understood that He, in His divine ways, often gave signs which needed lengthy interpretation, that His ways could be mysteriousand hard to fathom and that blind faith was sometimes required. Often as not, these prophets were thrown to the wolves. She also knew that the Devil had his messengers too. Black messengers who wrapped up their evil in beautiful words. Who were riddled with insects under their beautiful faces.
    She stood to the side of the small group of villagers and listened to this man who was calling himself a messenger. Her mind worked quickly to come up with some conclusions. She sifted out the facts. He had on what was no doubt his best suit. It was not a Sunday. He was beautiful and she knew instinctively that this meant he was dangerous.
    Ella closed her eyes momentarily. The man was speaking to the villagers gently, religiously, in a voice that could have calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee. And it rose, steadily, becoming richer, fuller, spreading like a dome above them, then grew quiet. It was the voice she had waited for in the Sunday sermons which never came. As she opened her eyes she saw the man reach to the ground and pick up two objects. On the scales that he made out of his gloved hands he placed, consecutively, a small piece of blue slate and a large lump of frozen clay. He gave a speech about potential human equilibrium. He showed them with his hands that in this example there was no balance. There was spontaneity to the man, but also calculation. And something else. It was as if noise travelled at the back of the man, or he carried it ahead of him, out of sight. Noise like the wailing of inhuman voices, a loud, disparate chorus, shuddering through the air. Concentrating hard, she could almost hear it, almost feel it as the sound