Michael Morpurgo - Of Lions and Unicorns - A Lifetime of Tales from the Master Storyteller

Good for nothing I say Corporal. And Harry Medlicott is laughing like a drain all the while. I say a man without a tractor these days can’t call himself a proper farmer. Thats what I say.

Father straightens himself up in his saddle and everyones waiting to hear what hes got to say just like I was. All right Mr Medlicott says he. We will see shall us. We will see if your tractor is all you say it is. Come ploughing time in November. I will put my two horses against your tractor and we will just see who comes off best shall us.

Well of course by now Harry Medlicott was splitting himself laughing, and so were half the crowd. Whats that Corporal he says. They two old nags against my new Fordson. I got a two furrow plough reversible. You got an old single furrow. You wouldn’t stand a dogs chance. I told you I can do five acres a day easy. More maybe. You havent got a hope Corporal.

Havent I now says Father and theres a steely look in his eye now. You sure of that are you.

Course I am says Harry Medlicott.

Right then. And Father says it out loud so everyone can hear. Heres what we’ll do then. We’ll plough as many furrows as we can from half past six in the morning to half past three in the afternoon. Hour off for lunch. We’ll have Farmer Northley to do the judging at the end of the day. Furrows got to be good and straight like they should be. And another thing Mr Medlicott since youre so sure youll win we’ll have a little bet on it shall us. If I win I drive away the tractor. If you win theres a hundred bales of my best meadow hay for you. What do you say.

But my Fordsons worth a lot more than that says Harry Medlicott.

Course it is says Father. But then your not going to lose are you so it don’t matter do it. And he holds out his hand. Harry Medlicott thinks for a while but then he shakes Fathers hand and that was that. We rode off home and Father hardly spoke a single word the whole way. We was unsaddling by the stables when he sighs deep and he says. Your mothers going to be awful vexed at me. I shouldnt have done it. I know I shouldnt. Dont know what came over me.

He was right. Mother was as angry as I ever saw her. She told him just what she thought of him and how could we afford to go giving away a hundred good bales and how he was bound to lose and how no horse in the world could plough as fast as a tractor. Everyone with any sense knew that she says. Father kept his peace and never argued with her. He just said he couldnt go back on it now. What was done was done and he would have to make the best of it. But I tell you something Maisie he says to her. That Harry Medlicott with his fancy car and his fancy waistcoat and his fancy tractor hes going to be worrying himself silly from now on till November you see if he wont.

But you’ll be the silly one when you lose wont you says Mother.

Maybe I will maybe I wont Father says back. And he gives her a little smile. Be something if I win though wont it.

The silver swan, who living had no note,

When death approached, unlocked her silent throat:

Leaning her breast against the reedy shore

Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more.

Orlando Gibbons

swan came to my loch one day, a silver swan. I was fishing for trout in the moonlight. She came flying in above me, her wings singing in the air. She circled the loch twice, and then landed, silver, silver in the moonlight.

I stood and watched her as she arranged her wings behind her and sailed out over the loch, making it entirely her own. I stayed as late as I could, quite unable to leave her.

I went down to the loch every day after that, but not to fish for trout, simply to watch my silver swan.

In those early days I took great care not to frighten her away, keeping myself still and hidden in the shadow of the alders. But even so, she knew I was there – I was sure of it.

Within a week I would find her cruising along the lochside, waiting for me when I arrived in the early mornings. I took to bringing some bread crusts with me. She would look sideways at them at first, rather disdainfully. Then, after a while, she reached out her neck, snatched them out of the water, and made off with them in triumph.

One day I dared to dunk the bread crusts for her, dared to try to feed her by hand. She took all I offered her and came back for more. She was coming close enough now for me to be able to touch her neck. I would talk to her as I stroked her. She really listened, I know she did.

I never saw the cob arrive. He was just there swimming beside her one morning out on the loch. You could see the love between them even then. The princess of the loch had found her prince. When they drank they dipped their necks together, as one. When they flew, their wings beat together, as one.

She knew I was there, I think, still watching. But she did not come to see me again, nor to have her bread crusts. I tried to be more glad for her than sad for me, but it was hard.

As winter tried, and failed, to turn to spring, they began to make a home on the small island, way out in the middle of the loch. I could watch them now only through my binoculars. I was there every day I could be – no matter what the weather.

Things were happening. They were no longer busy just preening themselves, or feeding, or simply gliding out over the loch taking their reflections with them. Between them they were building a nest – a clumsy messy excuse for a nest it seemed to me – set on a reedy knoll near the shore of their island.

It took them several days to construct. Neither ever seemed quite satisfied with the other’s work. A twig was too big, or too small, or perhaps just not in the right place. There were no arguments as such, as far as I could see. But my silver swan would rearrange things, tactfully, when her cob wasn’t there. And he would do the same when she wasn’t there.

Then, one bright cold morning with the ground beneath my feet hard with a late and unexpected frost, I arrived to see my silver swan enthroned at last on her nest, her cob proudly patrolling the loch close by.

I knew there were foxes about even then. I had heard their cries often enough echoing through the night. I had seen their footprints in the snow. But I had never seen one out and about, until now.

It was dusk. I was on my way back home from the loch, coming up through the woods, when I spotted a family of five cubs, their mother sitting on guard near by. Unseen and unsmelt, I crouched down where I was and watched.

I could see at once that they were starving, some of them already too weak even to pester their mother for food. But I could see too that she had none to give – she was thin and rangy herself. I remember thinking then: That’s one family of foxes that’s not likely to make it, not if the spring doesn’t come soon, not if this winter goes on much longer.

But the winter did go on that year, on and on.

I thought little more of the foxes. My mind was on other things, more important things. My silver swan and her cob shared the sitting duties and the guarding duties, never leaving the precious nest long enough for me even to catch sight of the eggs, let alone count them. But I could count the days, and I did.

As the day approached I made up my mind I would go down to the loch, no matter what, and stay there until it happened – however long that might take. But the great day dawned foggy. Out of my bedroom window, I could barely see across the farmyard.

I ran all the way down to the loch. From the lochside I could see nothing of the island, nothing of the loch, only a few feet of limpid grey water lapping at the muddy shore. I could hear the muffled aarking of a heron out in the fog, and the distant piping of a moorhen. But I stayed to keep watch, all that day, all the next.