She shook her head uncomprehendingly, but now he could see the back of the big new church towering over the huddled cottages. The bell was ringing as he passed the school, and a noisy gaggle of latecomers pushed past him to the open door. Just as well, maybe, that he couldn’t comprehend what they were calling as he passed. In no time at all Ben was back in the square with its fine town houses and the George facing the back walls of Castle Rushen. But it was quiet no longer. Even though there was no market today the fish-sellers had set out their wares on the slabs, and some brisk bargaining was under way. A group of red-coated officers on horseback clattered over the cobbles, narrowly missing a couple of girls bowling an iron hoop. Ben strolled across the square, enjoying the warmth of the sun. The morning was in full swing; it was time to find Young Archibald.
CHAPTER 5
BILLY OPENED THE OUTSIDE DOOR AND FASTENED IT BACK against the wall. The chickens scuttled forward, clucking for breakfast. Billy ignored them; they were not his job. He hooked the empty wooden buckets onto the yoke, swung it onto his shoulders, crossed the yard through a carpet of silverweed studded with papery yellow flowers, and headed along a narrow path among rushes and celandines. He stopped for a moment when he saw the snow, all sails set to catch the first whisper of a breeze. Even as he watched, the sails flapped. She was about quarter of a mile off the Creggyns, sailing directly against the tide. With so little wind she’d be there all morning. Later he’d look at her through the telescope and find out her name.
The spring flowed out from under a rock at the foot of a small cliff. It was built up at the back with an ancient stone wall. The wooden dipper was chained to a post. Billy knelt by the clear pool, and slowly lowered the dipper. He let the water swirl in over the rim, then lifted the dipper out as gently as he could. If the mud at the bottom of the pool got stirred up the water would be brown and murky, and he’d be in trouble. It was easy to be patient on a day like today, with the morning sun on his back, and the ground under his knees quite dry for once. An early dragonfly flittered above the pool, and buttercups, bogbean and forget-me-nots trembled at the edge.
Nine dippers made the buckets as full as he could manage without spilling. Billy squatted with the yoke on his shoulders, and hooked on first one bucket, then the other. Slowly he stood up, taking the weight. Coming back along the muddy path was a heavy, careful job. He lowered the buckets just inside the kitchen door and put their lids on. Emptying the ash bucket was much easier. Billy tipped the hot ashes out over the rocks. When he came back the chickens were gobbling scraps from the trough. Breesha, still holding their empty bucket, was squinting at the sundial.
‘It’s nearly at V – I – I,’ she said as he passed. ‘I mean seven. Mrs Black’s gone broody. She never lays anything. Just makes a fuss.’
‘Put her in the pot,’ said Billy.
‘That’s what your Mam says.’
‘Good.’
‘But not now. After the puffins have gone. It’s a waste till then.’
‘She’ll eat her head off,’ objected Billy.
‘Well, that’s what your Mam says, anyway.’
‘Well, I don’t care,’ said Billy. ‘I don’t mind going for puffins today.’
‘She didn’t say today.’
‘I might, anyway.’
The truth was that they both had to do what Lucy and Diya said, but Breesha didn’t bother to say so, which was kind of her. Billy opened the door of the coal shed cautiously because there were rock pipits nesting under the roof inside. A bright eye watched over the edge of the nest as he shovelled the coal. The birds were used to the noise. Billy stopped and listened for a moment, but it was still too early in the season for any sound of cheeping.
Diya was stirring the porridge when he got back to the hearth. The porridge smelt good, and Billy hung around.
‘You could put the bowls out.’
It would have been better to skulk in the yard. Billy laid out five wooden bowls, and five horn spoons.
‘Milk, Billy.’
He took the cloth off the earthenware milk jug and reached it down from the stone shelf, holding it carefully in both hands. It was yesterday’s milk, with thick lines of cream round the inside of the jug where it had stood at various stages since yesterday morning. Billy wiped away the top line of cream and licked his finger.
‘Mally, you watch the porridge till Breesha comes back. Don’t just stir the top. Scrape it off the bottom as well. Don’t tip the pot or you’ll burn yourself.’ Diya took some corn and the milking pail, and followed the path where Billy’s bare footprints showed clearly in the mud. She passed the well and the keeill, and trod carefully between the puffin burrows over spongy grass and mayweed. The puffins watched her through black-lined eyes, retreating a yard or so when she came close and flapping their wings in case they had to fly. The puffins in the burrows below protested with low guttural sounds like so many creaking gates. Diya stepped over a puffin’s carcass – two wings and the desiccated outline of a body torn open by a blackbacked gull – and climbed up to the white cairn above Baie yn Geinnagh Veg. In a hollow just below the rock there was a wooden yoke. She scanned the green patches between the rocks, and rattled the corn in the bucket.
Hooves clattered on pebbles, and two goats came scrambling up from the bay. Turk still had a length of seaweed hanging from her mouth. Mappy was slower getting up the rocks because of her bulging stomach. Diya pushed Turk aside and let Mappy have first turn at the corn. Any day now Mappy would appear with a kid at her side; it was almost five months since she’d been put to the billy over at Meayll. Diya whisked the pail from under Mappy’s nose and held it so that Turk stuck her head through the yoke. Diya put the bar across, and while Turk licked the pail clean she squatted beside her and began to milk. Turk was less docile than Mappy, and twice Diya had to shove her hind legs out of the way. Two jets of gleaming milk frothed into the bucket. Diya milked until both udders were empty, then released Turk, who went skittering away.
The children were scraping their porridge bowls when Diya got back. Diya dipped a jug into the milk pail, and gave each child half a mug of fresh warm milk.
Billy drained his mug noisily and wiped his mouth. ‘PleasemayIleavethetable?’
‘Whose turn is it to do the light?’ asked Diya.
‘Breesha’s!’
‘Mine,’ said Breesha.
Diya glanced at Lucy, who shrugged. ‘Off you go then. But Billy … Billy! … let me finish. Bring in some driftwood. And don’t be too long.’
Billy grabbed the telescope, swung himself round the doorpost, and ran.
It was one of the clearest days they’d had this year. Standing on Dreeym Lang, Billy focused the telescope on the Chickens Rock to the north-east, gradually emerging as the tide ebbed. Beyond it he could see the Calf lighthouses quite plainly, the high light on the left, and the low light on the right. The lights lined up exactly on the Chickens, so ships knew that when one light was right above the other they were in danger. Billy scanned the broken south coast of the Calf. Away east beyond the Burroo lay the low-lying coast of the Island. You couldn’t see Castletown from Ellan Bride, but you could see the tower of Castle Rushen rising over the low land in between. Today Billy could even make out, when he got it right in focus, the Governor’s flag flying over the keep. Mam said no one ever looked at Ellan Bride from the top of Castle Rushen because the castle was a prison, and you weren’t allowed to go in. If you wanted to look at Ellan Bride from Castletown, Mam said, you had to walk out to Scarlett Point, and on a very clear day, there it would be, a tiny blue hump on the horizon.
At this time of year the west side of Ellan Bride belonged to the birds. All day long their cries echoed across the whole island, and as Billy got close to the cliffs the noise grew deafening. The birds had their own lives, but with the telescope Billy was able to see a lot that would otherwise have been secret. He trained the telescope on