Farnor was not unduly disappointed. His earlier, dramatic flight of fancy about the animal was now far from his mind. Dreamer he might be from time to time, but the hard-headed farm helper within him knew enough about the reality of wild animals not to wish to meet such a one as this alone, and so far from help. He must get back and tell his father what he had seen.
A sudden sound made him start. He turned round quickly, his heart racing.
The sound came again.
Something was coming through the shrubbery to-wards him. Something large.
Chapter 2
Wide-eyed and fearful, Farnor stepped back and swung his staff up to point at the rustling shrubbery.
The noise came nearer. Farnor stepped back further to give himself more space in which to manoeuvre. Whatever might be coming towards him, he knew that to attempt to flee from a predator would be to draw it after him inexorably.
The shrubbery parted.
‘Rannick!’ Farnor exclaimed in a mixture of anger and relief as he lowered his staff. ‘You frightened me to death.’
The newcomer’s lip curled peevishly. It was his characteristic expression. He ignored Farnor’s outburst.
‘What’re you doing up here, young Yarrance?’ he said, twisting Farnor’s family name into a sneer.
Despite his relief at encountering a person instead of some blood-crazed animal, Farnor took no delight in Rannick’s arrival. Few in the community liked the man but, for reasons he could not identify, Farnor felt a particular, and deep, antipathy to him. It was not without some irony, however, that while on the whole Rannick reciprocated the community’s opinion of him he seemed to have a special regard for Farnor – in so far as he had regard for anyone. For although life had not presented Rannick with any special disadvantages, his general demeanour exuded the bitterness and envy of a man unjustly dispossessed of some great fortune. When he spoke, it was as if to praise or admire something would be to risk choking himself to death. And when he undertook a task it was as if to create something willingly, or for its own sake, might wither his hands.