It was a warm and dreamy, summer afternoon when even the flies hovering around the cattle seemed dazed by the balmy air.
Heidi watched from the shaded area under a tree as four-legged blobs, like dirty cotton wool, moved methodically across the English meadow. The sheep moved in unison with heads bent, cropping grass steadily, oblivious to everything except the next mouthful. There was silence apart from the sound of grass being torn up and the occasional irritated snort if a lazy fly came too close.
Heidi loved the Peak District. She’d been born here, and it was all she knew or ever wanted. She was young, vulnerable but quite unremarkable apart from her appealing brown eyes, and she accepted her life without question. She preferred her own company to that of her noisy neighbours, who mostly ignored her anyway, so she was happy to keep her distance. The one exception was Morag who stood out from the crowd with her wide white belt. She’d come from a place in Galloway and was always comparing her original home to where she lived now. Heidi’s whole life had been in Hathersage, so somewhere called Ecclefechan sounded too exotic to be true. But she loved listening to Morag’s descriptions.
It’s fine here, Heidi, but you should see Ecclefechan. I know you’d like it, for sure. There’s a loch at the far side of the property and when the clouds are full of tears, they feather the hills with trails of moisture. It takes a good bitty sunshine to make clouds disappear, but the shine of it all when it does! I tell you, it’s worth the wait. Low, grey houses tuck into folds of the hills – and the colours of the grass! I swear I’ve never seen such multi-coloured green, all sown together with stone walling. The place is so bonny you could swear it had been painted by an artist.
Heidi would look around her and see old stone bridges straddling the stream running through the pasture; watch scudding clouds conceal, then reveal, shards of sunlight spangling the bubbling, clear water below. Brambles straggled carelessly on the boundaries and would soon be heavy with fruit. Children would risk thorns to capture their bounty and families would have picnics. Morag’s place sounded great, but this was her home.
Ecclefechan sounds wonderful but I never want to leave here. Having you as my friend and with young Sammy to love, there can be nowhere better.
Heidi as a first-time mother had benefited from the more experienced Morag’s company when she’d been pregnant. Now he’d arrived, young Sammy was an adored clone of his mother and a close friend of Jimmy, the farmer’s son. Heidi rarely let Sammy out of her sight, but this was a sleepy kind of day. So, she was happy to let him be with Jimmy, who had his arm around Sammy whispering boy-secrets into his ear. Sammy was enjoying the attention, while Heidi stood quietly under the tree, drugged by the warm day, and let her eyes close.
Her reverie was disturbed by Sammy’s frightened cry. As she turned, she saw Jimmy pushing Sammy down the country lane while the farmer pulled him onwards with the rope tied around his neck.
She galloped to the gate, eyes wide and wild, bellowing for his return, but neither her cries nor Sammy’s stopped the progression towards the abattoir lorry.
At her side Morag tried to give comfort to her Friesian friend who was hysterical with grief, calling to Sammy, tossing her head erratically with the mucous streaming from her nostrils and spraying the air. The gate shook as the young cow tried to shoulder her way through, tail swishing violently and eyes terrified, with the white sclera emphasising her frantic brown eyes.
Let him go, pet. You’ll not forget your calf, but there’ll be another next year.
Notes to aid the reader; –
Heidi – a young Friesian cow. The species originated in the Dutch area of Friesland..
Morag – a mature Belted Galloway cow. Traditional Scottish breed.
Galloway is a region of South-West Scotland.
Hathersage is an area within the Derbyshire Dales.
Cows are extremely intelligent and emotional animals. Like humans, they develop strong bonds with their children and have best friends.
Some cows cry for days when their calves are taken away. The grief they feel can only be imagined by those humans who take the time to do so.
Burnside Writers Group 