He moved upwind at a steady shuffle, leaning on his stick to ease his right leg. Well before he reached it, he guessed the source of the smoke. The Cabinet House. Must’ve caught it good and proper. Yes, there it was, no more than a shell of walls, roof fallen in, nothing left of timbers and partitions except ash and embers on the ground and an odd reek of something sweet and sticky drifting on the breeze. Hundred and twenty years, getting on, it had stood here. Dave knew that because the date was carved into the lintel stone.
Enter and wonder—1781.
It was the fifth earl who’d built it, to house his collection. Pretty well all the earls had been mad on something or other, and the fifth had been mad on collecting. Used to go travelling round Europe and beyond with a couple of dozen servants to look after him, buying up anything that caught his fancy, provided it was odd enough. Built the Cabinet House, all little fancy turrets and spires and what have you, to hold his collection in special glass cases. Then he’d got a fever—Egypt or somewhere—and died, and the sixth earl had come along, not interested in collecting but mad on shooting, and planted up Dave’s wood for pheasant-cover, all among grand old oak trees—been there hundreds of years, some of them. Had to have a gamekeeper, of course, so he’d built a house for the fellow—Dave’s house now, because he’d been gamekeeper here following on from his father and his grandfather. So all his long life, there the Cabinet House had stood while the wood grew round it, full of its knick-knacks—dragons’ teeth, locks of mermaids’ hair, funny-shaped nuts, bottles from pharaohs’ tombs, that sort of rubbish. Dave was sad to see it go. Might’ve lasted me out, he thought.
Forty years back, the eighth earl—book mad, he’d been—had fetched some of his scholar friends along to look the lot through, and they’d gone off with anything worth while for their museums. There hadn’t been anything left to be sad about, really, except memories.
Dave stood in the doorway gazing vaguely over the pile of ash with the remnants of heat beating up into his face. Warmin’ my old carcass through, he thought. Doin’ something useful at last.
Sudden as a blink, almost, the sun rose, slotting its rays through a gap where a fallen tree had brought down several of its neighbours. There was a movement in the ashes a little way over to Dave’s right. He peered at it with his good eye and decided it was more than just an eddy of wind stirring the surface. Something underneath. He scuffed the fringe of ashes aside, took a half pace forward, gripped his stick by the ferrule and reached out, trying to rake the thing towards him with the crook.
Poor beast, he thought. What a way to go. Put you out of your sufferin’, shall I?
He took a quick stride forward, this time onto hot embers, thrust the crook into the heart of the heap, hooked it round something more solid than ash and dragged it free. It cheeped plaintively as it came, disentangled itself from the crook, and stood, shaking the ashes from its feathers. It was a baby bird, about the size of an adult rook, its eyes newly opened, its body covered with astonishing luminous yellow down that seemed to ripple with the heat of the fire, and the tiny fledge feathers along its wings a darker, almost orange gold. The beginning of a scarlet crest sprouted from the bald scalp. Dave had never seen anything like it before. It was an absurd creature, but wonderfully appealing. It seemed unharmed, though the crook of his stick had blackened perceptibly during its brief raking in the embers.
Nor did it seem to be bothered by the heat even now. It stayed where it was, gazing imperiously round the ruin, seeming wholly untroubled by the human presence, and finally gazed directly up at Dave with its head cocked a little to one side. Well, what now? It asked him, plain as speaking.
Dave was too interested to be amazed. Even in a very ordinary bit of English woodland like this there were enough amazing creatures to last a fellow a lifetime—one more didn’t make that much difference.
ʺUp to you,ʺ he told it. ʺBut if ’eat’s what you’re used to, you’re goin’ to catch your death stayin’ out ’ere. Couple more days and this lot’s goin’ to be chilling off good an’ proper. If you want to come ’ome with me, that’s all right. You can sit on the stove if you’ve a mind. In the stove, for all I care. But you’re goin’ to be too ’ot for me to carry by the look of you, and I’m not havin’ you burnin’ my gloves, and I’ll need my stick. Let me see now. You go back an’ keep yourself warm while I see what I can fix.ʺ
The bird cocked its head to the other side and settled down in the ashes, shuffling itself down into their warmth. Dave poked around outside the wall and found a half-burnt beam that must have come from immediately under the eaves, to judge by the section of cast-iron guttering still attached to it. The timber had smouldered away enough for him to be able to lever one of the iron gutter supports free with his stick. He dragged it across the clearing to a molehill where he kicked and scuffed it in the loose earth until it was cool enough for him to pick up without scorching his gloves. He carried it back to the doorway and with some difficulty knelt and, propping himself on his stick, leaned as far out as he could, with the back-bar of the gutter-support just touching the ashes. Lifeless though they looked, the residual heat rose, roasting, into his face.
ʺWell, get on with it,ʺ he gasped. ʺCan’t stay like this more’n a second or two.ʺ
The bird didn’t hesitate but shrugged itself clear of the ashes, waddled over and climbed on to the support. With even more of an effort than when he’d knelt, Dave got to his feet. He stood for a moment, swaying in darkness, with his heart battering at his ribcage, but when his vision cleared he saw that the bird was still clinging grimly to the gutter-support. He also saw that the life in it was like the fire in a live coal, and that if he didn’t get it back to his stove very soon, it would die.
By the time he reached his door, he was reeling and gasping again, and a pulse of pain had begun to flood across his chest with every thump of his heart. He nudged the latch up, barged into the room and across to the fireplace, dropped his stick, grabbed the mantelshelf for support and lowered the bird onto the stove. It flopped off the support and huddled itself down onto the hot metal, its hooked beak tapping feebly at the lid.
Dave dropped to his knees, almost toppling clean over, but caught and steadied himself. He groped in the hearth, found the lever bar and, still kneeling, hooked it into its slot and dragged the lid clear. The bird scrabbled itself over the edge and dropped out of sight.
Dave closed the lid and with a long gasp allowed himself to collapse forward onto his gloved hands. He stayed there, panting, with his head hanging down between his arms, until his heartbeat eased and the pain in his chest receded. He found he’d been muttering to himself between the heavy, indrawn breaths.
ʺNear goners, the both of us. . . . Both of us perishin’ near goners. . . . What the devil for . . . did I want to go doin’ a fool thing like that?ʺ
At length he crawled across the floor and pushed the door shut. He crawled back to the stove, dragged off his gloves, found his stick and used it and the arm of his chair to haul himself to his feet. With shaking hands, he poured out a mug of tea. It was now stewed until it would have tanned hide, which was how he liked it. He added sweetened condensed milk to cancel the bitterness and, still in his coat and boots, settled into his chair. He sipped slowly, thinking about the bird.
One of the knick-knacks in the Cabinet ’Ouse, he decided. Old earl picked up an egg or two in his travels, didn’t he? Maybe this one needed a bit more ’eat than most to get it goin’, same way sycamore seed needs a bit of frost. Funny all those scholars comin’, and still missin’ it—kickin’ thesselves in their graves, I shouldn’t wonder. Any road, I’ll be keepin’ this to myself for now. Not tellin’ nobody about it, that I’m not.