She sat on a stone at the bank of the River Wharfe in Langstrothdale, her arms folded around the long skirt that covered her legs, and looked at her own reflection deformed by the fast flowing water.
Her flaming red hair,
the same colour as the leaves of the very few trees on the hills that
surrounded her, moved softly in the wind.
It was an exceptional warm day for Autumn
and the sheep, only recently separated from their lambs, walked up and down
the hills calling for their absent offspring.
Their wool was still
stacked in the barns but would soon be transported to the wool factories. A
long journey for her husband and the other farmers and hopefully the job was
done before the rain started to poor down from what was now a perfectly blue
sky.
Seònaid,
a Scottish lass who married the Yorkshire
sheep farmer Mathe, moved here from the rough Highland Glens to the hills of
Langstrothdale. Both families were not happy with the two young people falling
in love with each other! Although there were no great wars anymore, the Seumasachas (Jacobitism) was still
busy to restore Roman Catholic - leaded by England
and Ireland
– to the throne of the heirs of the Kings. And the Scots were wild people!
But the young couple was not interested in the
endless discussions about Seumasachas, they were very much in love with eachother and hoped to raise a family
in their own little kingdom Cowside Farm, built by the grandparents of Mathe
who’s family belonged to the more wealthy sheep farmers.
The view from Cowside Farm was
breath taking on a sunny day like today. For the best view she had to leave
the house that was built with only a very few small windows viewing the
river at the cold side of the house. The front was up hill with the vegetable
garden and the beautiful flowers that passed their best time in late September.
Although there was enough work to do for her, she could not resist a walk down
hill, watching the water following the bends in the river with high speed,
curling around the boulders and falling down the flat stones. When the water
level was low, you could cross the river jumping from one stone to another but
there had been much rain and she needed the wooden bridge to cross.
She did not so, she felt comfortable and at ease where she was,
listening to the sound of the sheep, the lark in the bright sky, the pheasants
and the many crows gathering in the large trees surrounding and sheltering the farmhouse.
Seònaid
smiled when she thought of her parents who she had to leave to follow her heart
and Mathe. It was not an easy decision but she hoped to visit them next year.
If there were no fights between the English and the Scots! Their war history
goes back many centuries and she would not be surprised if they continued the following
centuries! But she did not want to think of wars, only about nice things and
happiness. Like her pregnancy, Mathe would be thrilled tonight!
There was so much to
be thankful for!
It was time to return to the farm and she
climbed the steep hill. Close to the farm she could smell the bread she was
baking and she hurried the last few yards, afraid she stayed away too long.
She ran through the
corridor to the kitchen at her left and opened the large range with the ovens for
bread, cakes and food. And during the cold season it kept the house, together
with the large fire in the room at the other side of the corridor, comfortably
warm. The thick walls kept the warmth inside during the winter and the warm sun
outside.
The next few hours she worked hard to get
tea ready for Mathe and afterwards she cuddled up next to him on the sofa in
the cosy room with the beautiful fresco decoration and proverb, painted by her
father in law who was more an artist than a sheep farmer. Being retired he made
beautiful paintings for customers in the surrounding area and villages.
While she looked at the paintings she
wondered if she was going to tell Mathe the great news now or tonight in bed,
in the intimacy of their bedroom and she lay her hands on her belly which soon
was going to show the growth of their very first child.
This was now all a very long time ago. Their life passed by and that of many generations after them and the world changed.
Not for the better Seònaid thought when she observed the female
visitor of her long abandoned farmhouse which she never left after she died at
the very old age of 83. Not many people got that old in those days!
There were still wars, she remembered the
first World War in which two descendants of her, strong young men, died. She
could feel the loss and the grief of their mother and wanted to comfort her but
could not reach her. Only a very few people felt her presence although they
could not always explain it.
These very few people were
her own blood and therefore she immediately knew if a visitor of the derelict
farm was one of her descendants like the woman who now entered the house.
She could feel the atmosphere changing when
the woman stood in the corridor, looking around. She saw a sign of recognition
in her eyes, if she had been here before. She spoke softly, only to her self
but Seònaid could hear her
clearly: “I must have been here before but a very, very long time ago. I know
the kitchen is at my left hand and the room with the decorated wall at my
right. Straight forward is the diary and ‘cold’ storage room and the stairs to
the next floor. But I have not been here before, how come I feel at home in an
unknown farmhouse I enter for the very first time in my life??”
First the woman entered the kitchen and
looked at the rusty Yorkshire
Range which went cold
long ago and smelled bread and food and not dust and damp but this was
impossible! Instead of food, there were generations of twigs of crows nests,
pushed down the chimney for decades.
Seònaid watched her walking around the kitchen
table made of sanded pine and smiled, did the woman realise there was no table?
The woman went to the
right side of the hearth and looked if she was looking for the salt and herbs which
were stored there in the past.
 |
| Photo: Helen Varras |
Seònaid
understood the disapproval but there was nothing she could do when a new
generation modernised the farmhouse. She learned to ‘live’ with it. The
expression made her smile again.
The woman wanted to go upstairs but Seònaid warned her softly, the wood was rotten, so
were the floors. The woman turned around and instead walked to the stone bench
in front of the windows where she sat down, her head resting against the wooden
shutters, closing her eyes. Sunbeams danced around her.
Seònaid watched the woman listening to the sounds
of the house. Not the usual sounds of the flutter of the wings of insects or
cracking floors but the sound of the people who lived here long ago.
The sound of the
voices and laughter of Mathe, their daughter and 3 sons, their many grandchildren
and herself. The sound of ancestors.
For the very firs time in almost a century, Seònaid felt happy and in harmony with the visitor
from abroad to which she had passed on her love for the Dales.
~
Seònaid is fiction, a figment of my imagination. However, the visitor and Cowside Farm are not!
The visitor entered the farmhouse for the very first time in 1978, very
determined to restore it to its former glory but lacked of necessary
finances.
Instead The Landmark Trust restored it and did justice to the dignity of this beautiful and very old and rare survivor of maybe even the 17th century. And of course to the approval of Seònaid!!
Instead The Landmark Trust restored it and did justice to the dignity of this beautiful and very old and rare survivor of maybe even the 17th century. And of course to the approval of Seònaid!!
Cowside Farm is available for holiday bookings. Please visit the link
for more information about prices and availability and for details about and
photo’s of the restoration: The Landmark Trust/Cowside farm
Last but not least my word of thanks to Amy Taylor of The Landmark
Trust.
Helen
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