01.02.08
Chapter One…Awakening
A Bugle For The New Day
by
Frank Pearson
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER ONE
1897
Wild and chilling to the blood, the cry of the great bird echoed down from the rocky heights into that enclosed upland valley, and lesser creatures scurried for cover in the first probing light. Predatory eyes sought the unaware and little sounds of alarm soon filled the bleak air. Somewhere a horse whimpered and stamped it’s feet and a dog barked, adding to the growing concern as it aroused others, and from the sleeping huddle of grey stone cottages a disturbed baby bawled out in futile protest.
Glyn had been awake for hours, waiting for the creeping light to discover the cracks in the ceiling of his tiny room, and now he lay listening to the morning chorus with ears that were, being Welsh, attuned to harmonising them all into a choir gathering outside his window: first the soprano’s, shrill, insistent, and up with the angels on pins; then the alto’s, mellowing and all serious; in coming the bass, all breath and bluster and standing no nonsense; finally the tenors, bringing a promise of heaven and tears to the eyes, completing the grand overture. To the day he was dreading.
He sat up, a sick feeling of apprehension in his stomach, peered through the gloom at his Grandfather’s ancient clock, with it’s yellowed face and it’s giant fingers for the purblind, and there it originated, for Grandfather Owen, his irascible Taid, had spent so much of his life in “The Wayward Son” it had been given to him as a going-away present by the departing landlord, passing on to the youngest of the Owens when the old man couldn’t bear looking at it a moment longer.
The creaking mechanism went into motion to strike the hour, but there was no heart-stopping clang; Glyn had stuffed it with strips of rag and tied back the hammer, effectively stifling the voice that had cried for decades and sent sheep into premature labour.
He lay back and listened to movements inside the house. Always first was Mam. Away with the old poker as though arguing with the ashes and the thought of another day, then coaxing gently in that way of hers, getting old misery fire to surrender in the end. Soon her magic smells would be wafting up the stairs and into every room and up every nose with better results than old Haggerty, the knocker-up before the drink took him.
A stair creaked. It would be the bottom one, that old traitor; he knew it well from Blackberry pie raids in the small hours. Never repaired in all these years that old nuisance of a step. He always suspected Mam kept it that way to check the comings and goings of her brood. Again with the poker. On overtime this morning, in and out like a gossip’s tongue after Chapel on Sunday. Mister fire wasn’t keep to meet the day either…
Copyright Mark Pearson 2008.
Tags: Fiction, writing, publishing
