King Coal

By Jim Bayliss

Queen Victoria is on the throne when a young lad loses his father to the deadly black lung disease and a young farmer loses his family to influenza. The two are destined to meet with long lasting consequences for young Ephraim who now has to live with his uncle, a coal merchant in Newport. Chance and ambition allow Ephraim to begin to build what will become a business empire. When his wife dies, a disillusioned Ephraim takes a sabbatical and a passionate affair with the daughter of his agent in Recife leads to a new chapter in his life. He passes his empire to his family who introduce the import of frozen food from the antipodes and build their first refrigerated cargo ship, Takapuna Princess.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528962742

Jim Bayliss

During a career in the Merchant Navy, followed by a stint in the building industry, Jim Bayliss studied electronics and eventually spent much of his time working in this field. An artist and music lover, he works from his home in the rural county of Dorset.

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About The Author

During a career in the Merchant Navy, followed by a stint in the building industry, Jim Bayliss studied electronics and eventually spent much of his time working in this field. An artist and music lover, he works from his home in the rural county of Dorset.

Copyright Information ©

Jim Bayliss (2020)

The right of Jim Bayliss to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528919579 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528962742 (ePub e-book)

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First Published (2020)

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Prologue

Recife, 1870

The room was still warm from the day’s heat so, once he had made himself ready for bed, he blew out the candle and opened the curtains and the shutters to let in the cool night air.

The night was almost still and cloudless, the sky filled with myriad stars that shone a meagre light through the window into the room. The insects, so noisy some hours earlier when he had arrived, were now quiet, the only sound in this remote countryside was the faintest possible susurration of leaves, stirred by the slightest of breezes.

It had been a long day; tired and slightly muzzy from the unaccustomed amount he had drunk, he was soon asleep. Sometime later, it could have been minutes or hours, he had no way to tell, he was suddenly wide awake. One moment he was fast asleep and the next he was alert and somehow aware of a presence in the room.

The starlight through the window gleamed faintly on the mirror opposite his bed but apart from that the room was hidden in darkness.

He lay perfectly still and listened intently. A faint rustling sound caught his attention and without warning a figure stood over him as he lay on the bed.

He made to rise on his elbows and opened his mouth to speak but a finger was pressed to his lips, a voice whispered ‘Shush!’ and then his nose was filled with a perfume that he recognised from the previous evening.

There was another rustle of silk against skin as she slipped her robe from her shoulders and it pooled on the floor at her feet. In the dim starlight he could only see a vague outline of her figure and then she was under the sheet with him, her lips pressed fiercely against his own and her body on top of his and pressing down hard.

He had not been with a woman since his wife had passed away and the almost violent attack on his body aroused him instantly. Within moments they were locked together in a tempestuous act of lust that came to an end almost as soon as it had begun, her upper body arching away from him as she quickly reached a frenetic climax while he was left gasping, her climax sparking off his own.

Once more he tried to speak but she instantly covered his lips with her own, her mouth suddenly wide open and her questing tongue filling his willing mouth. He could see almost nothing now; his head was shrouded in her perfumed midnight black hair, loosened from the tight bun it had been swept into earlier.

Aroused again, he fought against her as she tried to hold him down until with a half sob, half laugh she allowed him to turn her on her back. As he bore down on her she wrapped her arms and legs tightly about him, drawing him into her in a passionate embrace as any semblance of self-control vanished and they gave themselves up to each other in a much longer, more satisfying coupling.

Both now exhausted, they fell asleep in a tangle of limbs.

Chapter 1

105 Years Earlier, Cwmffryth, Near Swansea, South Wales, October 1765

It was a clear day and, returning from a visit to the wool merchant he used in Swansea, Mervyn Evans could see across the sparkling waters of Swansea Bay to the hills beyond. The big horse he rode was more used to pulling a plough but Mervyn had decided to ride rather than walk the five-mile journey to Swansea. He was in more of a hurry than usual because his wife was nearly due to give birth to their first child and he did not want to leave her on her own for any longer than necessary.

The old horse knew the way well, leaving Mervyn free to think and look around. He could see that the range of hills that reared steeply up from the narrow coastal plain seemed to merge gradually into the higher mountains further inland. However, he was aware that this was only an illusion.

With a more careful look, about half way up the nearer hills he could just discern the tower of a chapel and, almost directly behind it an insignificant seeming notch in the top of the line of the hills. Mervyn knew that the insignificant notch was in fact part of a fault in the hill face and that it led over the hills into a secluded valley. The mountains were actually further away than they seemed and the valley occupied the space between the hills and the rather more distant mountains.

Rising steeply from the shallow coastal plain bordering Swansea Bay the hills are split by a series of narrow valleys that are filled with the sound of the water that had formed them as it rushed westward, down to re-join its salty birthplace in Swansea Bay.

The Chapel was nestled in the hills and although its position is not clear from the distance of Swansea, the chapel tower actually rises from almost the centre of a small plateau situated between two of the steep sided valleys. It belongs to the chapel that stands in the centre of the village of Cwmffryth.

Tucked away in a depression that almost concealed it from the outside world, Cwmffryth was home to a virtually self-supporting community.

The only road into the village led through the valley south of the little plateau, rising steeply from the main coast road. More a narrow track than a road, it twisted up the valley bottom, crossing and re-crossing the rushing stream by a series of arched stone bridges before leaping up the steep side of the valley in a vertiginous series of hairpin bends.

Cresting the rise, the road led through fields filled with growing crops and grazing livestock and separated by dry stone walls and hedges. Before it reached the village, it passed tracks to the two farms that used the fields and the hillsides where white dots indicated grazing sheep.

Arriving at the clustered houses the road split to circle the green at the village’s heart.

Several muddy tracks gave access to the sixty or seventy cottages that made up the village. The tracks led outwards from the split road before it joined together again on the northern edge of the village, becoming a simple track leading into the fields.

The cottages were built of grey local stone and roofed with purple slates but, particularly around the village green, some had their walls rendered and painted white.

The chapel with its tower, the neighbouring school hall and the manse, all fronting onto the green, were the most substantial buildings in the village, their raw stone and arched windows making an architectural statement of their relative importance.

Most of the cottages were occupied by farm labourers and their families but a few housed the wives and children of sailors whose home port was Swansea, a few miles distant across the Bay.

The school hall was a focal point for village life. When not in use as a schoolroom, it did duty as the village hall and hosted wedding breakfasts, dances and meetings.

Opposite the Chapel a few of the larger houses had turned their front rooms into businesses so that the village was blessed with a bakery, a butcher’s shop, a general provisions’ store and a haberdashery cum tailors. Also there was a blacksmiths shop on the edge of the village. For anything else, a five-mile walk had to be taken to Swansea, a distance that could be reduced if you were brave enough to use the steep hillside paths.

One of the muddy tracks that led out of the village meandered through the fields to the east, heading generally towards the notch in the ridge line of the hills that formed the eastern horizon from the village.

The track, becoming stonier as it neared the hillside, crossed a small stream and then turned sharply left into a rocky defile that was only hinted at by the notch in the skyline of the hills. The defile was a split in the face of the hill where some ancient trauma of the land had pulled the forward and western part of the slope away from the bulk of the hill. From the village, the track appeared to finish where it met the end of the hidden defile. Anyone turning into the south-facing opening was instantly hidden from the village as they went on up the track that ran almost parallel to the face of the hillside.

The track rose sharply through the narrow rocky chasm, angling diagonally up the hill, twisting here and there to negotiate boulders fallen from above until it reached a levelled-out place where the defile cut right through the hillside. This was the notch that was visible from the village. Almost in the middle of this flat area, a gate closed off the track.

The hills above Cwmffryth provided a false horizon. Beyond the skyline the hills dropped, precipitously at first and then more gently, into a fertile valley, sandwiched between the hills that formed the eastern horizon from Cwmffryth and the higher mountains beyond.

Although in an elevated position, considerably higher than Cwmffryth, the valley was sheltered by the ring of hills that surrounded it allowing it to bask in its own miniature climate.

Mervyn closed the gate and walked his horse through the rest of the level part of the defile. As he approached the end, a view of the whole valley opened up. Mervyn never tired of seeing the beauty of the valley but today it seemed even more special than usual. The sun, shining out of an almost cloudless blue sky, brought even distant objects into sharp focus. To his left and right, steep cliffs climbed to the back of the hilltops that could be seen from Cwmffryth.

The cliffs swept round the whole western aspect of the oval bowl of the valley, providing a barrier more efficient than any fence. Below the cliffs, steep grassy slopes led down into the valley, gradually levelling out into walled fields that ended at the edge of the narrow lake that filled part of the valley floor.

To the north, the grassy slopes climbed higher. The cliffs that filled that end of the valley were less daunting than those that rose on either side of the defile but still provided a considerable barrier.

The valley sloped downwards to the south so that the slopes at its southern end were much higher than elsewhere in the valley. The upward slopes ended in huge crags that were split, in the centre, by a rocky gorge through which the overflow from the lake tumbled in a frothy torrent. Eventually this tumbling water joined the stream running down the valley to the south of the plateau. The gorge was passable, just, so a post and wire fence blocked the way to keep Mervyn’s animals from escaping.

On the far side of the lake, the cliffs at the ends of the valley merged gradually into the sloping ground that led, ever more steeply, up to the mountain tops that, clearly visible today, were often hidden in mist and cloud. Where the animals could have found ways out of the valley, fences and dry-stone walls were used to block the route.

Half a dozen streams, in little valleys they had carved out of the hillside, ran down these west-facing flanks. The streams fed the lake with water that was ice cold, even in the height of summer.

Directly ahead a track wound down, angling from side to side across the steep part of the slope before it straightened and led down through the fields to the side of the lake. To the right of the track, almost hidden by a fold in the land, the only trees in the valley stood in a small sheltering wood. The trees grew on a rise in the ground, hiding the farmhouse that sheltered beneath them from Mervyn’s vantage point.

Sheep were scattered over the steeper ground all around the valley, effectively penned into the valley by the surrounding steep rock.

In some of the stone walled fields by the lake, cattle grazed contentedly while, in others, late crops were waving in the wind. Little hay ricks dotted the fields, ready to provide winter fodder for the cattle when the fields were no longer able to provide enough fresh grass to satisfy their endless appetites.

Mervyn had been right to hurry. Later that afternoon towards the end of October 1765, in his parent’s lonely farm sheltering in the hidden valley, Tom Evans came into the world.

Neither his joyful parents nor anyone else could have known or believed that Tom, or ‘Old Tom’ as he came to be known, would play a significant part in the creation of a great business enterprise.

Chapter 2

South Wales, The End of the Eighteenth Century

After the gate, the track continued to the end of the level section of the defile and then descended into the valley. On the steep slopes, the track wound to the left and right until the ground levelled out and the track continued almost directly to the side of the lake. At the last bend before the lake, another track led to the south and on into a wooded fold in the land, curving down through a high sided grassy cutting. After about half a mile the cutting opened out onto the flatter land above the centre of the lake. The trees suddenly ended, bound by a dry-stone wall that was pierced by a gate leading into the yard of Tom’s home, Valley Farm.

The yard was almost surrounded on three sides by the farm buildings, the fourth butting on to the trees. To the left, a few yards separating it from the edge of the trees, stood the stone built, two-storey farm house, separated from the yard by a narrow garden behind a low stone wall.

Opposite the farmhouse a stable block, built of the same stone as the farmhouse, stood close up to the trees. This building, continuing as a workshop and barn with a first-floor hayloft, completed the right-hand side of the yard. The far side of the yard was almost entirely closed off by the milking parlour and another barn that were a continuation of the stable block and the first barn.

Between the farm house and the milking parlour, a gate led to a narrow track that wound into the pastures beyond and sloped gently down to the lake. After passing through the fields, the track twisted and turned, seemingly at random before it crossed the outflow from the lake by a narrow stone bridge that gave access to the eastern side of the valley.

The front door of the farm house, almost never used, opened into a hallway that ran straight through the house to a window that looked out across the valley. There were two doors and a staircase led up to a small landing that gave access to the two bedrooms on the first floor. In the hall, one door led to the small parlour at the woodland end of the house, mostly used as an office, while the other led into the large kitchen and living room that was the hub of the small farm. In the far corner of the kitchen a door led into a lean-to porch and the back door. This door, that everyone used as a matter of course, opened out into the kitchen garden. Surrounded by a continuation of the wall that led across the face of the woodland, the garden supplied the farm with much of the fresh vegetables that the Evans family needed to make the farm self-sufficient. Close to the house, a path led to the track that gave access to the rest of the farm.

Tom’s father, Mervyn, owned the small farm which had a few of the more level fields under cultivation with the rest being given over to pasture and hay for the dairy cattle and their two heavy horses. On the many acres of steep hillside, he ran sheep which were able to roam free yet were always held safely within the confines of the valley.

His father, and his mother Dorothy, worked hard on the farm and were able to make a comfortable living supplying meat and dairy produce to Cwmffryth and other local villages, and selling wool from their sheep through the wool merchants in Swansea. Together with their farm produce, the kitchen garden provided most of what they needed for the table and, as a youngster, Tom helped his mother look after the fruits and vegetables in the garden, learning the march of the seasons and the inevitable cycles of nature. When there was not much to be done in the kitchen garden, he attended school in Cwmffryth and his mother made him work at his letters and numbers in the long evenings.

As he grew older and stronger, Tom started to help his father on the farm, learning about caring for the animals and looking after the land. This meant that his visits to the school tailed off as there was always work to be done around the farm. By the time he was twelve years old, in 1777, he was working full time on the farm, making his father’s life a little easier.

Tom was tall for his age when he was a child but stopped growing upwards when he was about sixteen, then nearly six feet in height. Good looking in an open, simple way, with a mass of dark curly hair, he was the image of his father, the genes that made his mother fair not coming through in her son. Both his parents were tall; Mervyn was over six foot and Dorothy not much under. Working hard as they did every day, the three of them were strong but where Mervyn was a big, heavy man, Tom was leaner, with a more wiry strength.

As he grew a little older, as well as working on the farm, Tom took on the task of delivering the farm’s produce to Cwmffryth and the other local villages. Their farm was so isolated in its little valley, that making these deliveries was their main contact with the outside world although they did sometimes attend chapel as a family and occasionally went to events in the village. They also attended some of the nearer agricultural shows. These shows were their opportunity to socialise with other farmers, display their wares and to purchase and sell livestock.

As the years passed their small, close-knit family had a relatively comfortable life but Dorothy began to worry about her growing son having little opportunity to meet others of his age. She kept her worries to herself but the older that Tom became the more she worried that he would not be able to find a wife and the consequent happiness that she shared with her husband, Mervyn.

She need not have worried for Tom had had his eye on a girl for some time. In the early spring of 1789 Tom, now twenty-three years old, was delivering milk to the cottages in Cwmffryth. As he filled a small churn on the doorstep of a well-kept cottage, the door opened and a pretty young woman stood on the threshold. Tom had seen her several times before and thought she was lovely. He knew that her name was Gwen but he had never plucked up the courage to speak to her. Somehow on this morning, her sudden appearance giving him no time to think about possible rejection, he blurted, ‘Gwen! How nice to see you this morning.’

‘And you too, Tom,’ she rejoined.

Tom was astonished. She knew his name! Little did he know then that she had seen him around the village, thought that he was handsome and that he would be a ‘good catch.’ She had waited in vain until now for the chance to arrive when she could ‘accidentally’ confront him at the door.

‘How… How…’ he stuttered. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘The same way you know mine, I expect,’ she replied in a matter-of-fact way. ‘Would you like a cup of tea to warm you up on this cold morning?’

‘Why thanks, I would,’ he responded, starting to recover from his confusion and to wonder if his daydreams were about to come true.

‘Bring the milk in then,’ she said turning into the small hallway. ‘Mother,’ she shouted up the stairs, ‘it’s Tom the milkman and I’m taking him in the kitchen for a cup of tea.’

‘Alright darling,’ a voice came from upstairs, ‘I’ll be down in a moment.’

Tom followed Gwen into the kitchen and set the milk churn on the table. Moments later a jolly, plump woman bustled in and, all in a rush, ‘Good morning Tom. Well, this is nice isn’t it, sit down, drink your tea, I’m Gwen’s mother,’ tumbled out in a confusing torrent.

‘Thank you, Mrs Jameson,’ was all Tom could manage in reply as he sat down.

‘Oh Mum,’ Gwen chuckled, ‘I’ve only just put the kettle on, it’ll be a minute or two before the lad can have a drink.’

‘Oh! Never mind me; I’m all at sixes and sevens this morning. I don’t know what’s come over me.’

Gwen knew very well what had come over her mother, Mary. She knew that her mother was aware that she had a distant liking for the young man and was all of a dither because she thought this could finally be the start of a romance for her pretty young daughter.

Over the next two years Gwen and Tom met with increasing frequency as their early friendship blossomed into love. Their courtship came to fruition when they married in the April of 1791 and Tom, now 26, brought her from the village below the hills to live on the farm which, in the fullness of time, was destined to be his.

Just over a year later in May 1792, the farm rang to the cries of his baby daughter Eliza and, though they had to work the farm really hard to make a living for the five of them from the soil, the family were happy and Dorothy in particular felt a satisfying sense of a task completed.

In the December of 1794, Eliza was two and a half, walking and starting to string words together into sentences and communicate with her mum, dad and grandparents.

Tom would take her out onto the farm and she would call out to the animals, things like ‘Cow make moo’. She would sing little nonsense songs and Tom was entranced by her innocent happiness.

While delivering milk in the village one morning, he met Gwen’s mother. ‘How is that little angel?’ she called to Tom.

‘As much a bundle of trouble as ever,’ Tom joked back.

‘Have you heard?’ said Mary, ‘Old Mrs Owens down the road is sick.’

‘No, I didn’t know,’ replied Tom, ‘I delivered her milk this morning as usual but I couldn’t see anything wrong.’

‘Well, the Doctor came yesterday and he thinks it’s the flu.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Tom. ‘At her age that’s not good news.’

‘No, it isn’t and they’re saying down the shop that there’s a bad outbreak in Swansea, people are even dying!’

Next morning when Tom again delivered milk to the village, he called in on his mother-in-law.

‘How are you Mary?’

‘I’m fine, Tom, a little tired maybe but that’s only to be expected at this time of year I suppose, it’s so wet and windy.’

‘Yes, I know, I got a real soaking on my rounds this morning, I don’t suppose you could put the kettle on could you, I could do with warming up.’

‘Of course Tom, anything for the father of my lovely granddaughter.’

‘Any more news about Mrs Owens?’ asked Tom as Mary set the kettle on the range.

‘She’s still very sick. I called in on her yesterday to see if I could do anything for her and she was not able to get out of bed. I called on the Doctor and told him and he visited her again early this morning. Apparently, he is quite busy; Mrs Owens is not the only one who is ill. I did some shopping for her and young Jenny in the grocer’s – you remember her?’

‘Yes of course, we went to school together.’

‘Well, Jenny reckons as about half the village are going down with it, the shop is hardly doing any business she says cos people can’t get out of their houses for feeling sick and achy and tired.’

‘I didn’t realise things were getting bad,’ said Tom, ‘although I have noticed there’s fewer people about on the streets than usual when I deliver the milk.’

As December wore on, influenza ravaged the village below the farm, already starting to indiscriminately take the lives of the very young and the very old. On the farm they were isolated from the village and the deadly effects of the disease, but of course Tom had to visit the village daily to deliver the milk. Although he had to go into the village regularly, in fact Tom had only minimal contact with his customers and almost none with those who were actually ill. It was rare that he went in the houses where he delivered milk. His deliveries and the collection of payment were conducted on the door step, in the fresh air.

This was not the case with Mary. Always ready to help out, she nursed her neighbours when they became unable to help themselves. First Mrs Owens and then others in the street, who fell ill, received her help in their homes. She also collected food for them from the shop and gave comfort where she could.

It was with a certain inevitability she became ill herself and, in January 1795, Gwen had to go into the village each day to care for Mary, unknowingly bringing the infection back to the farm where it would eventually affect the whole family.

By the middle of January, Mary was very ill, as were more than half of the population of the village. The Doctor had himself caught the disease and was unable to give what little help he could normally give to assist his patients.

Forced to rely on their own resources and unwilling or unable to travel far, as the villagers fell ill, one after another, gradually the community crumbled and the village began to die.

The first to die were those with the least resistance, the young babies and the older people but as January ran into February, the deadly effects of the virus reached into every household, taking the lives of many of its victims.

At the beginning of February, Mary finally gave up her struggle. Tom and Gwen were with her as she slipped into a sleep from which she would never wake.

The pair were distraught and exhausted and, already, although they did not yet realise, they were feeling the early symptoms of the disease themselves and they were finding it difficult to keep the farm running, while looking after themselves and Mary.

As well as doing their share of the work around the farm, Mervyn and Dorothy had shouldered a lot of the burden of looking after their granddaughter while Mary needed help from Gwen.

After a hurried funeral for Mary conducted by a harassed minister who was presiding over several such each day, they huddled in the living room at the farm.

‘We’ve got to keep ourselves to ourselves now,’ said Mervyn. ‘We’ll stay around the farm and just throw away the milk we can’t use ourselves. Family comes first and it’s our duty to young Eliza to do the best we can for ourselves.’

This decision, the correct one in the circumstances, was unfortunately made too late for it to be effective. As the days of February followed each other, the disease, with relentless efficiency, infected them all. Tom and Gwen were the first to be laid low, rapidly gripped by a high fever and babbling incoherently in delirium, while Mervyn and Dorothy, becoming listless and ill themselves, were left to look after the tiny Eliza who developed a high fever shortly after her mother and father.

There was little they could do to help each other. The least ill tried to bathe the sweating faces of the others and attempted to force water between their unwilling lips, but it was all in vain.

Despite their best efforts, little Eliza slipped away one night and Mervyn and Dorothy, worn out and now very ill themselves, took to their bed.

Two days later only Tom and Mervyn, both of them more or less unconscious or raving in delirium, continued to struggle against the disease, Dorothy and Gwen having died during the previous night.

During that day Mervyn briefly rallied but the sight of his beloved wife, the light gone from her eyes, took away his will to fight and, giving in to the weakness that had invaded his body, he collapsed back on the bed, his body continuing its unfelt struggle for survival.

Within a few hours Tom was alone in the farm, Mervyn’s body having lost its unequal struggle with the raging virus.

As the day turned to night, Tom’s fever began to subside and, as his senses returned, he began to wake up and become aware of his surroundings.

The house was silent and cold, his body ached and he had a raging thirst. In a bid to quench his thirst he made to sit up and get out of bed but a wave of dizziness overcame him and he fell back onto the damp pillows in a stupor.

When he next awoke, it was pitch dark but this time he managed to raise himself off the bed and, swaying and unsteady with weakness, he managed to get down the stairs to the kitchen and get some water.

Once he had taken a huge draught of water, he discovered that he was ravenously hungry and still thirsty.

Shaky and trembling, his legs barely able to support him, he managed to light a candle. He found some food and, drinking water between mouthfuls of bread and cheese; he began to take stock of his situation.

He had no idea what day it was, and not realising that he had been delirious for more than four days, he was surprised that the bread was stale.

Feeling a little stronger after the food, though still very weak and shaky, he took the candle and went back upstairs.

So it was that Tom survived but what he discovered upstairs seared his soul. His mother, father, wife and treasured daughter had all been taken from him while he lay in the grip of the illness.

A lesser man may have succumbed there and then, perhaps taking his own life or simply giving in to the weakness that pervaded his ravaged body.

But that was not his way. He was a physically strong man, even now, gaunt and emaciated, his body recovered quickly. His mind was a different matter. Tom had been a quiet man with a deep and abiding love for his family and the life they led in Valley Farm. Now, stunned with shock and grief at the enormity of his loss that the February of 1795 had brought upon him, his life was changed for ever and for a while he became an automaton. His emotions went on hold and he was only partly aware of what he was doing as in the next days he buried his family under the edge of the trees near the house, marking their resting places with simple wooden crosses.

Routine took hold of him and he tidied things around the farm and saw to it that the animals, left untended for so long, were properly cared for and fed.

As February turned to March, Tom suddenly felt an overwhelming revulsion for the place where he had spent his life. This was the place where he had found love and lost it, the place where his only daughter had been taken from him.

The futility of it all surged through him and a wave of desolation claimed him so that he finally broke down and his grief came pouring out in hot salty tears.

That night, the last he would ever spend in Valley Farm, he made a plan.

In the morning, a bag over his shoulder containing a few necessities, his body still not properly recovered, he walked away from the farm, never to return.

He walked up the track to the defile that sliced through the hill. At the top he turned to look back. The house was out of sight and the valley was peaceful under a lightly