Dunt the Ploughman

The gulls, their bleached-bone, white bodies standing out against the iron-clouded, pre-storm shy herald what is to come. They circle and mewl over the ploughman who trudges at this end of the day behind his pair of horses. Patient at yet another headland turn, as the ploughman adjusts the coulter for another furrow, the horses, gentle-giant Clydesdales, wait. Rain is near, thay can all smell it. The copse of trees that sheltre the field to the east are bird-full. Distant thunder stirs the rooks to flight but only for an instant and soon they settle to wait. The ploughman ties the sacking across his shoulders, a meagre protection against the coming rain.
Walk on he calls and gently taps the horses' flanks with his guide reins. The first rain comes when he is halfway across the field: large medallions of water; single drops, slow-falling, to spatter the dry soil, fresh-turned, with pomfret-cakes. Across their backs and withers each horse twitches as the cold water lands.
Indiscriminate shafts of light penetrate gaps in the clouds; celestial spotlights that briefly pick out random patches of ground, a tree, the mottled grey flank of one of the horses and turns the ploughshare briefly silver only to be extinguished just as quickly when the cloud heals its tear.
The man croons to his horses, singing old songs; songs sung by his father and his father's father.
"Up Gem, good Jewel," he says, pride in his horses evident in the meticulous care given to the silk-white feathering of each foot, and the brasses polished bright and smooth to near oblivion. They flash briefly gold as each horse turns its head.
"Hey up our Dunt!" A man emerges from the wood's edge and calls to the ploughman. "What's that doin' 'ere our Dunt?"
"What's it luk like?" comes the answer.
"Does thar know what day t'is?"
"Aye, it's Friday; fish-fur-dinner-day."
"Nay, balmpot! 'Tis that weddin' day; and thy lass is waitin' for thee as we speak!"
"I know that better than most but this field should ha' been ploughed last week and't mayster is reet meeth'ed about it." There is anger in his voice as Dunt feels agrieved at being kept from his bride by the demands of his master; Farmer Macmillan.
Dunt the ploughman stands to look at what is left to do. Gem and Jewel have worked long enough with their master to know what to do without being told and they, too, stop and look.

The two men are drenched through by the time they reach the church porch. "Thar'll catch thee deeth o'cold, our Dunt," saus the other.
"Mey'bee," is Dunt's reply.
"leave thar sackin' 'ere and best be gettin' in." The sack, heavy with rainwater, is dropped on the floor of the whitewashed porch as the two men shake themselves like errant dogs before tramping into the church. Their boots echo on the tiled floor as they make their way down the nave towards the small group gathered by the altar rail. Dressed in her Sunday clothes with a ring of wild, autumn flowers in her hair Mary stands and frowns while her mother fusses and the vicar taps a tattoo with his fingers on his prayer book.
"Best be gettin' on wi' it," says the other man.

Windblown rain rattles the casement, making the ancient glass moan in its frame. From a section of broken guttering water cascades into the back yard and spreads out from the wall to form an impromptu pond. FRom the barn door Gem looks solemnly out at the world as he is forced to spend anothre day indoors. Dunt is sat at the kitchen table working the point of his awl through a strip of leather; fashioning more holes for the pin of a bright, brass buckle. He has been married now for ten months and his life has taken on a rhythm of its own: home from work to a hot meal; time with his Mary sitting by the black-leaded range while she reads to him and he fettles some piece of equipment. Now pain has come to his fireside.
"I was too late," says the doctor. "Sorry lad but she lost the babe." Dunt looks up and into the doctor's face, making certain that he has heard right but says nothing. "Mary will be fine. She's small but very strong. Your lass has iron in her." The doctor pulls down his sleeves and puts on his overcoat. "Ther'll be othre chances," he says as he picks up his fee from the kitchen table and then, patting Dunt on the shoulde, he leaves him alone.
Within an hour of the doctor leaving Mary is in the kitchen preparing their evening meal. "Should thar be doin' that?" he asks.
"I'll not stay abed when there's my man to be given his dinner."

Their second child lives but a few hours. The babe is a girl ans named Elizabeth, after Mary's mother, but there is no time to call the vicar so the baby dies without the benefit of baptism and is buried later in the day, over the churchyard wall. The third child, another girl, goes the same way and is buried next to her sister. This time there is no heart to give her a name. Mary grieves, but not in front of her husband. If there were tears then he is not a witness to their falling. Secretly, once she is certain that Dunt is asleep, she cries herself to sleep nigth after night for a week and more before resigning herself to their loss.

During the heat of a late spring day Mary feels life once more move within her. At first she dare not hope but after a few more days she is certain. She carries on and tells no one her secret, not even her mother. Talking too soon had laid a curse on her other children. She won't let that happen this time.
Dunt always comes home tired and does not notice the slow gathering of dust on the old oak coffer or the dulling of the brasses and the copper pots. He does, however, notice the change in what is on offer for his meals. Bread is baked less often and what he has is sliced thinner. The cheese comes in smaller portions. He works hard and has always boasted to the other men how good a cook his wife is. To one or two of his closest friends he tells them how wondrous his Mary is and how his life has never been so good but he does not tell his wife. Mary is a small woman, petite in modern terms, but, in the eyes of her husband she is as near perfect as makes no odds. He has to smile when they go to church on Sunday and, after the service, they meet in the churchyard to share gossip and Mary stands beside the cooper's wife, Mrs Jarman. Mrs Jarman is homely but not over-large. The difference really lies in the coarseness of the one and the angelic features of the other. Mary is Dunt's angel and looks it; her fragile beauty is highlighted even more when she stands next to Mrs Faraday (the vicar's wife). With her fine, copper-thread hair and her delicate face Mary is certainly the belle of the district.
When Mary's fathre was alive he was the postmaster thereabouts and she had a good education. Reading and writing are no problem for her, not as they are for Dunt. To Dunt, the reason why Mary should have chosen him has always remained a mystery. What he doesn't know and what Mary will never tell him is that she saw him walking his Clydesdales down the village street. A child, one of the many shoe-less and threadbare children of the local workers, ran out into the road and shyly asked for a ride. With a radiant smile Dunt bent down and gracefully took up the girl and placed her on the broad back of the horse he called Gem. The horse slowly turned to look at the child and accepting its burden carried on. Mary watched as the strange little group travelled along the road: the child hanging onto the horse's backband and the bow-legged man gently leading the tow two huge horses. Dunt had asked her once why she'd chosen him but she'd just smiled and said something about there being no telling why the heart does what it does.

In all villages there is a tendency for rumour to spread faster then the chicken pox. There are good and bad people as there are everywhere but being compressed into a small space such qualities are often exaggerated. Mary ahd a past before the beginning of our story and that past included two of her school friends: Harry "in a hurry" Brownlow and the crippled Reuben Fairing. Reuben had been the dear boy everyone loved until he fell from a tall ladder while helping his builder father mend a roof. The fall broke both his legs and they never mended satisfactorily. Ever since he was condemned to walk crab-like. To the outside Harry was always the noisy one, dominating conversations and what the three of them did. To the more perspicacious the true heart of the trio was the gentle relationship between Mary and Reuben.
In the bar of "The Chequers" Harry Brownlow draws a pint of Northallerton's best ale from one of the three barrels that lie behind the counter. Reuben occupies his customary place at the trestle table and sips the dark liquid. Harry towers over the diminutive Reuben and is still regarded by many a single lady (and widow) as the handsomest and most eligible of the district's bachelors, though his hair is thinning a little and his frame is thickening. Since Farmer Macmillan has married the Frobisher girl from York Harry is now the wealthiest catch in "the Wolds".
"Trade good?" asks Reuben.
"Aye, can't complain. Rain on market day spoilt the takings but still can't complain." The two men talk while other customers come and go. Harry's tavern is one of the place to go if gossip is what you seek and Harry always has a lot to share. Most of it is common place tittle-tattle but there can be the occasional vitriolic gobbet that is designed to enervate any conversation. Harry always keeps his sources secret but some believe that he is the author of some of the most damaging.
"Heard about Dunt?" Harry leans forward and half-whispers to Reuben but in a voice loud enough for othres to hear. "I hear he's been beating Mary. That must be why she lost the two little nippers."
"Dunt'd never do a thing like that," protests Reuben.
"Whan it comes to what happens between a man and his wife behind closed doors then we know nothing. An angel in public can just as easily be a devil in private."
"I still don't believe it," says reuben but Harry just shrugs.

Soon, news of Dun't supposed behaviour towards his wife spreads thoughout the village. Farmer Macmillan even hears about his foreman's supposed misdeeds. "Dunton, I hear sad takes about thee! I ask the now, as man to man, master to servant, if there is any truth to what is being said about thee?" Dunt looks blankly at his boss.
"I know nowt about what thar's saying mayster."
"That thee beats thy wife, that's what folks are telling me." A tear wells up in the corner of Dunt's eye and a leaden lump in his chest makes it impossible for him to speak.

"Mary, my dear, how are you?" Harry Brownlow stands at the open kitchen door and watches as a few shafts of afternoon sunlight catch Mary's copper-coloured hair.
"Why, Harry Brownlow, what are you doing here?" She looks up from her sewing and smiles. She has such beauty thinks Harry, see how she lights up this tawdry room.
"Came a-calling just to see how you are. Is that not allowed an old friend?"
"Why, of course you can come calling. Sit you down and I'll make us some tea.
He sits at the table and watches her pour tea from an old brown teapot. The lid is chipped and as is one of the willow-pattern teacups. You deserve better than this he thinks. But you betrayed me; you left me and married that dunce. I could have offered you everything you ever wanted and you settled for this hovel and a broken teapot!
"How are you?" he asks.
"We've already covered that," she says. "I am very well thank you and is business good?" This is not the conversation he wants. He needs her to know what a mistake she's made, not marrying him when he asked her.
"Dunt will not be home for a while if it's him you need to see."
Damn Dunt! "I was just passing and I'd heard you weren't well." She colours and he wonders if there is something wrong; perhaps another child. God, he hoped there was; another child and another death and that'd be another wedge driven between them.
"Any love in your life?" she teases him.
"There only was ever one," is his answer but she only looks down at the tea in her cup and says nothing.

People begin to shun Dunt. He walks to church on Sunday as always with Mary's arm through his and guides her with great care especially when she begins to show but people still ignore him. In whispered converstions after church it is Mary who is blamed by some of the women. "She deserves a good beating, it never did anyone any harm, her with her stuck-up ways!" says one and her gossips agree. Those who are jealous of Mary and her looks feed the gossip as do the two or three village girls who still carry a torch for Dunt. Apart from Farmer Macmillan, no one is prepared to challenge Dunt openly; that is until a drunken carter from Linton shouts at Dunt calling him names and askes if violence makes jig-a-jig more pleasurable. Dunt understands only too well and advances upon the drunk with the intention of flattening him.
"Stay where you are John Dunton!" It is Reuben who hobbles between the two men. "Go home Dunt, he's nothing more than a drunken gobshite and not worth your bother. Go home, Mary'll be waiting for you. Go home man!"

One bitter February evening when Mary had carried the baby full term and the temperature had dropped lower than ever for that winter, when the rain had turned first to sleet and then to snow the baby came. A small, blue-grey baby boy slithered into the world and lay there on his mother's breast while the village midwife fussed and Dunt waited in the barn with the horses.
"Thar can cum in nar!" shouts the midwife and Dunt crosses the yard already covered by a thin layer of snow.
"There's a fine baby boy for thee," says the midwife but Dunt feels that she is lying. He bends over his wife and child and fights back his tears of joy while saying a silent prayer that this time, please God, this time the babe lives.
The baby coughs and Mary feels panic rise within her.
"Is he alright?" she asks.
"Best to be on the safe side. Go fetch the doctor will thee Dunt while I fettle thy bairn."
Once Dunt has run out into the snow Mary asks the midwife if her son will die.
"Not if I can help it lass," says the midwife and takes the wrapped child and places him in a roasting pan. She feels the outside of the stove and then opens the oven door. Giving the residue of heat time to dissipate she then places the child inside the oven.
"It's a reet cold neet and this wee bairn need to be kept warm. It's better for 'im in theer than out 'ere." says the midwife.

"He doesn't look a bit like his father," says Harry Brownlow are more rumours emanate from "The Chequers". "I'm not surprised she looks elsewhere with all that bad luck she's had. He can't be much use in that department what with two daughters not fit to live nor did they." The stockman from a farm in Flawith laughs then drains his pint and askes for another.
"Must be sad for't lass," says the stockman.
"Aye, but then she could still have the pick of any man in the Riding."
"She's that pretty is she?"
"Aye, she's more than pretty. Too pretty to be chained to a lump of nothing like Jack Dunton!"
"Now what's he saying?" Reuben makes his way to the bar counter.
"About how this reet bonny lass is tied to a no-good lump and she's had to luk elseweer for a bloke to giy 'er a bairn. That's reet Harry, isn't it?"
"How dare you!" shouts Reuben. "That's nothing but a black-hearted lie!"
"I think you protest too much Reuben. Perhaps you've had a hand in the bairn; you always were soft on Mary!"

It didn't take long for the rumours to spread. Now there was such speculation and most of it focused on Mary and Reuben. As if having an abusive husband wasn't enough the lass had turned for comfort to a cripple!
It is only when Reuben summons up enough courage to finally go and talk with Mary that he feels a measure of relief. She welcomes him like the old friend that he is. She sits him down and lets him talk but what he tells her only brings tears to her eyes.
"All those lies, they're terrible. How could Harry do such a thing?"
"How could Harry Brownlow do what?" Dunt stands in the kitchen doorway shaking the mud off his boots. "How's the bairn our Mary?" He walks in his stocking feet over to the crib and watches while his son sleeps in innocence. Only when he has had his fill of joy and contentment does Mary tell her husband about the rumours.
"What can we do?" she askes.
"I'll tell thee what I'm goin' to dee," says Dunt. "I'm goin' to tak thee, Reuben Fairing, fur a pint o' ale, that's what I'll dee."
"What good will that do," asks Mary.
"Thar'll see," he says.

Silence falls on the customers of "The Chequers" when Dunt and Reuben enter. "Gud day to thee, Harry Brownlow," says Dunt as the soon as the landlord raises his head from behind the counter. "'Ow nice to see thee. Thar's lukkin' grand for a lad." Harry remains silent and Reuben hangs back unsure what is happening.
"I'll have a pint of thy Masham best for me gud friend Reuben 'ere and a hal for meesen." The two men take their drinks and find a space on the long oak settle that runs the full length of one of the walls.
"It's a raw neet and no mistake," says Dunt in a loud voice but to no one in particular. "I was saying only just now to our Mary that it were a reet raw neet and she should keep our liitle fella reet warm and cosy like. As snug as a bug in a rug is our little lad and I'm reet proud of my son. I'll have it known he's mine and no other's. Some omne said that Reuben 'ere were his father but they only told part of the truth for my gud friend Reuben, and there's none finer, is goin' to be his God-father. Reuben is an 'onest lad and a gud friend. I can say now that he's never done anything to disgrace his name or that of my wife. The only onme who has is Harry Brownlow over yonder. He's the black-hearted one who wanted Mary but she turned him down fur a different man. You see, my Mary's no fool and that poor balmpot missed out when she rejected him for an 'ard wukkin' lump like me." There was no apparent malicious intent in Dunt's voice. It was full of pride in his wife and child. He smiles and the smile gradually changes into a laugh when he starts to slap his knee with his right hand. Reuben smiles as well and then laughs and before long all the men in the bar ar laughing; all that is except Harry Brownlow, who has left the room