The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry Page B

down the incline a fallen tree had been overtaken by a thick covering of vivid moss. The change of scene was like a change in altitude: it took her breath, and she paused for a moment to adjust herself to it. In the silence a curious sound reached her: it was a little like a child crying, but a child old enough to know better. She could not make out any words, only an odd choking, whinnying noise, which fell silent for moments at a time then started up again. Then another voice joined it, and it was the voice of a man – crooning, patient, deep – wordless also, though (she listened harder) not quite: now … now … now … After a pause – during which her heartbeat thrummed, although she later claimed she’d never been afraid – the man’s voice set up again, only this time at a higher, rougher pitch; she could not quite divine the words, but thought in among the frantic urging was Oh, damn you! Damn you! Then there was the sound of something heavy striking something soft, and another choked little bray.
    At this, she hitched up her coat, which was too long and had grown heavy with mud at the hem, and followed the sound. The clay path led over the slight rise and down again, between high pale green hedges on which twisted black seed-pods rattled as she passed. A little further down and she saw an acre of that russet bracken opening before her, with a few sheep nosing at the earth. To her left, overlooked by a bare oak, there was a shallow lake. Its water was thick with mud, and speckled with rain; no reeds grew, and there were no birds busy on the bank. It was entirely featureless, except that on the nearer bank a man stooped struggling over something pale, which made frantic movements and gave out another weak cry. The sound of it struck and sickened her, and there was something familiar in the wretched imploring movements it made, so that when she gathered pace and began to run what she had hoped would be an imperious ‘Stop that! Stop!’ came out as a shriek.
    The man may have heard her, or he may not: he neither lifted his head, nor stopped whatever he was doing. His voice had lowered again to the curious deep crooning noise she first had heard, only now it seemed to her appalling that he should be so tender when he was causing so much harm. As she drew nearer, she saw his feet planted firmly in muddy water, and his back in a dark winter coat splashed with mud. Even from that distance she saw that he was shabby and rough-looking: everything about him was dirty, from the thick wet fabric of his clothes to the damp curls falling over his collar. If the old stories were right, she thought, and man had been first made from a handful of dust, here was Adam himself: all mud, ill-formed, without the full powers of speech. ‘What are you doing ? Stop!’ At this he half-turned, and she saw that he was not much above medium height, and bulky. Smears of mud on his face gave the impression of a beard, and from the filth a pair of eyes blazed at her. He might have been sixty, or he might have been twenty. He had rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and his forearms were thickly corded with muscle, and as if deciding she’d neither help nor hinder he shrugged, and turned back to his task. Nothing infuriated Cora more than being ignored: she gave an exasperated cry and ran the few remaining yards. Reaching the water’s rim she saw that the pale thing struggling beneath the man was a sheep dumbly struggling in the shallows, and she was rinsed with relief: whatever horror she’d imagined, it was not this.
    The sheep rolled its stupid eyes at the newcomer, and bleated. Its hindquarters were blackened to the waist with mud, and with frantic workings of its rear legs it contrived to sink a little deeper. The man had his right arm hooked beneath its left foreleg and around its back, and with his left he was attempting to grasp its flank, the better to haul it to safety, but his feet could not find a purchase on the slick earth.