11. Tupped
Chapter 11
Tupped
‘ R ace you!’ Harry yelled to Oliver, as he ran down the stony track.
‘You cheated!’ Oliver set off in hot pursuit as he followed Harry towards Elder Fell Farm. There’d been a heavy frost overnight and the ground glittered.
‘Be careful, the puddles are icy,’ Amy called after them, but they were already too far away to hear and, even if they could, they wouldn’t pay attention. It was a crisp, cold winter morning but there was no snow down in the valley bottom, though above the snow line the tops of the mountains were already white. Alongside the track the grass and bracken were covered with ice-crystals which sparkled in the early-morning sunshine. The sun hung so low in the sky that Amy had to shield her eyes from the brightness as they walked down the track. If she squinted, she could see the haze of smoke rising straight up into the still air from the chimneys of Elderthwaite village in the distance, and closer from Elder Fell Farm, its low buildings huddled beneath the awesome bulk of the mountains. Elder Fell, Gunner’s Pike, Shepherd’s Mount, and Scansfell – she remembered her mother teaching her their names when she was a little girl.
‘I’m so sorry that I fell asleep on you last night,’ said Matt.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll make up for it tonight.’ She linked arms with him as they walked together. ‘Once the boys are asleep and it’s just you and me.’
‘In a nice warm bedroom, out of this bitter cold.’
It was almost silent. Nothing moved, and there were no sounds except for the beck tumbling over the stones, though its edges were already turning to ice. The stillness was broken by the sound of the boys knocking on the farmhouse door.
‘Come on, we’d better catch up,’ Matt said, ‘before they try to bring home a puppy each.’
The puppies hadn’t arrived. Jess was lying in her basket looking very uncomfortable. By the time Matt and Amy got to the farmhouse the boys had already asked Mrs Thompson at least twenty questions and they had to be satisfied with variations of the same answer to all of them – not yet .
‘It’s good to see you all again,’ said Mrs Thompson as Matt and Amy entered the kitchen. ‘Sit yourselves down, I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘Is Mr Thompson around?’ Amy asked. Even though she was now in her late thirties she couldn’t bring herself to call them Pat and Reg; they remained Mr and Mrs Thompson just as they had been when she was a little girl and visited the farm on holiday.
‘Nay. He’s away up the dale to check on the sheep in the top field, see if our Peter needs to take some more hay up for them. This last cold snap’s made the ground good and hard, and the grass up the top end of the dale was thin even to begin with.’ She lifted the metal cover of the hot plate of the AGA and heaved the old, heavy-based kettle onto it. ‘We can’t use the meadows – Hasty Beck, Four Acres and Dower Field – because we need to keep ‘em for lambing time, so most of the old ewes, the ones that’ve been tupped, are either up in the rougher fields at the head of the dale or out on the fells.’
‘What’s tupped?’ asked Harry. When Amy wanted him to pay attention to what she said he was all over the place, but when she didn’t think he was listening, suddenly he heard everything.
‘It means they’ve been seen to by the ram,’ Mrs Thompson said in her matter-of-fact way, before Amy had a chance to phrase it more delicately.
‘Seen to?’
‘What’s a ram?’ the two boys asked at the same time, eager for more information.
‘ Seen to means the girl sheep and the boy sheep have been in the field together making baby lambs. A ram is another name for a boy sheep.’ Amy hoped the conversation would end there.
‘That’s how they make baby lambs? A boy sheep and a girl sheep go in a field?’ Harry asked.
‘Sort of. Then in spring there’ll be lambs,’ Amy said with finality.
‘Can we come and see the lambs?’ Harry asked.
‘We’ll see.’
‘I’ve made some gingerbread if you boys would like to help me decorate, put the faces on and that.’ Mrs Thompson changed the subject. ‘I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea first.’
‘That’s really kind of you. Can we do anything?’ Amy offered, as Mrs Thompson reached down a large, battered tea caddy from one of the cupboards.
The farmhouse was worn; life had gone on without interruption in this place since it was built, generations ago. Children were born, grew old, and died here even as the next generation took their place, but Peter was the end of that line. He had no children, and he would be the last generation of Thompsons at the farm. The slate flagstones on the floor had worn paths from table to stove, from stove to sink, where generations of Thompson women had walked in the same footsteps. Whoever took over the farm after Peter would want to modernise it, no doubt. The kitchen was a collection of old, mismatched shelves and cupboards that had ‘done’ for many years, and some of the pans on the shelf above the AGA looked as old as the ceramic sink. The kitchen was timeless; a place that had existed for hundreds of years, always beyond the reach of fashion.
The Thompsons weren’t great ones for Christmas decorations. An old enamel jug held a bunch of holly and other greenery on the kitchen windowsill, where a space had been cleared for it, and some faded tissue-paper garlands hung across the ceiling. A small Christmas tree which had once been silver but was now lead grey stood on a table in the corner, tucked out of the way, and decorated with faded old-fashioned glass baubles. The scent of freshly baked gingerbread warmed the whole room.
Mrs Thompson and Amy exchanged news and small talk as the boys petted an uncomfortable-looking Jess, who quite clearly would have been happier going to sleep. When the tea was ready and the boys had washed their hands, Mrs Thompson sat them down in front of a cooling rack full of gingerbread men and gave them a tube of icing each to decorate the biscuits. The garish plastic icing tubes were out of place amongst the earthenware pots and old iron pans of the farmhouse kitchen, but the boys were happy and got on with their task, overseen by Mrs Thompson.
‘How do you like Elder Fell Cottage now?’ she asked, as she sank down into a wooden rocking chair beside the AGA once the boys had got the idea of what to do.
‘It’s good. I like pulling the chain to make the toilet flush,’ Harry said, not unexpectedly as he’d become fascinated with the old-fashioned pull flush.
‘It’s lovely. You’ve given the cottage everything it needs, but you haven’t spoiled it,’ Amy said.
‘I thought they’d want us to pull it down and put up something new, but, apparently, we’re not allowed to do that even if we wanted to. It’s a strange world. Thirty years ago, it was too old-fashioned for people, and now that’s what they want.’
‘How old is the cottage?’ Matt asked.
‘1704 it was built. You’ll’ve seen the date carved above the door and in the old spice cupboard with some initials.’
‘Yes.’ Amy leaned closer to listen.
‘That was our Reg’s great-great-great – I forget how many greats, but there are a lot of ‘em – uncle. John Thompson as was. Him as drowned in the tarn with his lover. I told you that story back in the summer, remember?
‘That’s the ghost,’ Harry said.
‘That’s right. But there’s more ghost stories than one about our farm. Did your mam ever tell you about the grey lady who walks the fells?’ Mrs Thompson asked Amy.
‘I don’t think so.’ Amy struggled to remember if she’d ever heard another ghost story about the farm.
‘Then I’ll tell you. Christmas is a proper time for ghost stories.’ And the old woman leaned forward in her chair to begin her tale.