Step into the Rainbow by Colin R Brookfield (little red riding hood read aloud .TXT) 📖

hits a little thing that father calls a ‘percussion cap’, and this ignites the black powder. I know it’s a rather old sort of gun, but some of the farmers round ‘ere still ‘ave ‘em. They often borrow black powder off one another till they get more in from the village shop.”

“Do you know, I never realised what went on in the countryside, I’ve never thought about it before,” murmured Peter thoughtfully. He could see that Mrs. Persill was pleased with that remark.

“I’d better be getting on,” she said, “there’s lots to do before father and I retire. There’s a snuff on the side of the candle holder when you want to put the candle out and there’s a pot under the bed, just in case it’s needed,” she said, disappearing through the doorway. “I ‘ope’ you sleep well.”

He would have roared with laughter if it were not for the thought of being overheard. Nobody in their right mind would ever believe that such a left behind place could actually exist at the closing of the second millennium, but he didn’t care what others thought; he found it very special.

Looking under the bed, he discovered a round china object with a handle on one side staring back at him. “Thank you, but no thanks,” he said quietly to himself as he pocketed a small torch, and headed for the stairs.

Mrs. Persill was not to be seen in the main room, so he made his way towards the rear exit. As he passed through the little room where the food was prepared, he saw a large pie dish sitting there full of savoury cooked rabbit. In the centre of the dish, a small china object like an upturned egg cup stood high above the gravy level. Nearby, on a large wooden table, he saw the pastry which had been nicely rolled out ready to cover the pie and realised, that the thing in the pie dish must be to stop the pastry from sagging into the gravy.

Once out into the back yard, he made his way (not without some trepidation) towards that formidable little building at the end of the path. He didn’t get far before Gyp introduced himself with a curl of the upper lip, displaying a set of teeth which a sabre tooth tiger, would have been justly proud.

“Be’ave yourself you varmint,” came the gruff voice of Mr. Persill from somewhere in the bellows of the earth. “Don’t worry sir, ‘ee baint a vicious dog, ‘ee don’t bite strangers.” Peter had an unpleasant feeling that he was very likely to be the first stranger to test the theory.

He encountered Mrs. Persill next, as she made her way towards the house, taking very small steps to avoid disturbing the two pails of water that were hanging either side of her on short ropes from the hand-carved wooden yolk, that lay across her shoulders.

“I’m just getting the water in from the garden pump for the ‘ouse. The ‘orse and cow needs water next, but the pigs ‘ave ‘ad theirs. So I won’t be long now,” she said with a cheery smile.

Peter shone his torch into the little room; there was a shelf and a candle on it ready for lighting. The ‘seat’ was a plank of wood with a hole in it, and a bucket set beneath. On the wall close to hand, was a nail on which some squares of paper, had been unceremoniously spiked.

Getting into bed that evening was an experience like no other. Having first pulled back the heavy quilt, he found it necessary to launch himself upwards and over, so as to negotiate the extreme height of the bed, only to disappear into a crater, as the feather mattress enveloped him.

The next thing he heard was the farmyard alarm clock, telling the world it was time to rise and shine, or perhaps, it was just the cockerel’s way of telling everyone he wanted his breakfast.

It needed the expertise of a seasoned speleologist to get out of the feather mattress; nevertheless, he was soon up and using his battery shaver. A stripped wash in cold water was a new experience, especially when he discovered there had been hot water waiting for him in a jug just outside the bedroom door when he finally opened it.

The mouth-watering smell of eggs and bacon greeted him as he entered the main room. ‘Good mornings’ were said all round, and little William immediately took sanctuary behind his mother’s skirt.

“Ee’s a rum lad is our William; ee’s not used to strangers,” she said, placing a large plate of bacon and eggs in front of Peter. “There’s plenty more bread and butter if you need it,” she said as she poured the tea.

Peter was most intrigued by the tea-pouring process and the unusual teapot; it was rather large by normal standards, made of some sort of pewter-like metal. To pour the tea, the cup and saucer were placed under the bent-over spout and then the teapot lid was lifted by a knob in its centre. But unlike most teapot lids, this one was like pulling the piston out of a car engine, but easier of course. Then the lid was pushed gently downwards whilst a finger sealed the vent hole. This put the contents of the pot under pressure, and lo and behold, out poured the tea from the spout without lifting the pot.

“I’ve put your lunch by the back door with your fishing tackle, and filled that jug-type thing (referring to the thermos flask) you left me, with hot tea. I’m sure it’ll get cold within the hour; I don’t ‘old with these new fangled ideas.

Would you like father to go along and show you some of the special fishing places that he takes William to?”

“No it’s alright,” Peter replied, “I’ve been given a map of places to fish. But thank you anyway.”

William was still well-concealed behind his mother’s skirt, but his eyes kept peeping out to take in every detail of the strange new addition to the family.

“By the way,” Peter enquired, “it has just crossed my mind. How did Barney get her name?”

“Well, our family has farmed ‘ere for about two hundred years or so, with quite a lot of cattle and there was always a ‘Barney’ in amongst the ‘erd, so it became a tradition you might say, and even though we could only afford one cow, I couldn’t bring myself to break the tradition.”

“Quite right too,” Peter said with conviction, “neither would I.”

It turned out to be the sort of day that dreams were made of; not so much because of catching the fish (that act weighed rather heavily on his conscience and accounted for most of his catch regaining their freedom) but, the pleasure of the day had more to do with the disappearance of those nagging problems that normally dogged his professional life. In this place, he just seemed to slip unconsciously into the natural rhythm of the surroundings until he felt part of everything.

During this time, his gaze had been moving lazily across the waters, until his attention was suddenly drawn to, what appeared to be a small island at its centre with some sort of structure within its foliage. It occurred to him, that if this turns out to be the case, then it must have been something to do with the ‘Great house’ estate that Mrs. Persill mentioned. Being out of reach, he soon put it out of his mind.

A Mallard duck broke the silence as it suddenly exploded from the reeds close-by.

“Good gracious!” he exclaimed looking at his watch in disbelief. “Where on earth did the day go?” He started packing his things together so that he could be in good time for the evening meal. It was whilst he was doing this, that he noticed something within the reeds, so he waded out to make an inspection. It was a small, and rather ancient boat half-submerged in the water. Without too much difficulty, he rotated it sideways until it was upside down. Once the weight of water in it had been removed, he was able to drag it to dry land. On first inspection it seemed rather rotten, but a few firm kicks proved it to be otherwise, so an idea began to form.

Time was now getting decidedly late, so he hastily lifted up his things – but in doing so – the fishing gaff caught on some rushes. Tugging rather too hard to free it, he landed flat on his back and the freed gaff flailed backwards, taking a small piece out of the tip of his left ear in the process.

“Damn!” he yelled, thinking the damage to be more serious and clamped a handkerchief to his ear. Back at the water pump, he gave himself a tidy up before walking back to the house, as he had no wish to alarm the household with his blood-smeared face.

“Good evening to you,” said a voice that came from within the part-open door that Peter was just passing. “‘ow was the fishing?”

Popping his head around the door of the meat store, he saw that Mrs. Persill was just pulling the muslin-type material over the side of bacon, having just cut off the rashers for the following morning.

“I had a lovely day; anything I can do to help?” he enquired.

“Well, if it’s not too much bother, perhaps you’d like to see if the ‘ens have laid any eggs under the ‘edge there. It’ll be dark before I get a chance and by then, a fox will ‘ave found them.”

Within fifteen minutes he was back in the house, proudly displaying eight lovely brown eggs nestling inside of his hat.

“Looks like one of the fish got the better of you,” said Mr. Persill, looking at Peter’s mutilated ear. William’s eyes opened wide at the imagined battle between this stranger and the denizen of the deep.

At that moment, Mrs. Persill returned from the meat store.

“I’ve cleaned your fish and laid them in salt. I’ll cook them in the morning and you can take some with you in your packed lunch.”

“I caught them for all of us,” he replied, “there will be plenty more if today was anything to go by, only next time, I won’t make the mistake of taking the gaff with me – I’ll get the fish out of the water with the net – it’s less dangerous!”

The following morning, everyone was surprised when Peter enquired about the old canoe paddle which lay amongst the bric-a-brac by the old cowshed, and had been there for as long as they could remember. They were even more mystified when he took it with him.

Sometime later, and looking worse than it did before, the little boat was once again afloat. Peter climbed in gingerly with his belongings, and sat there for a while to see if the lake was going to come in and join him. Ten minutes seemed long enough to convince him that it wasn’t going to, so fishing was done in all sorts of new and successful places for the rest of the day.

That evening, Mrs. Persill was quite amazed at what an old paddle could do to the fish catch; so many had arrived that it was going to be fish on the menu all round for several days. He felt a little guilty keeping quiet about the old boat and paddling around the mere all day, but he didn’t want them worried about him.

During the following day, he suddenly realised that there wasn’t a great deal of holiday left, as yet another fish went into the keep net. But his mind was on other things. Perhaps with lots of care, he thought, I might just make it to the island and back; it certainly invites investigation. Thirty minutes later, he stepped out of the boat and on to a small island that probably hadn’t been set foot upon since the ‘Great House’ existed. A few rotted posts