Kif: An Unvarnished History
The boy stepped into the chill dark of the winter morning and closed the
door quietly behind him. Quietly because the wife of Farmer Vass was apt
to be unreasonable if she were wakened betimes. It lacked an hour till
dawn and there was neither earth nor sky, hedge nor horizon. Only the
all-enveloping dark, immediate, almost tangible--the blackness that hems
us in with ourselves and annihilates philosophy. And it was bitterly
cold. The boy clutched at his coat collar as the thin sterile air struck
at his bare throat. His hobnailed boots echoed irrelevantly--a dreary
sound--as he made his stumbling way over the cobbles of the yard and
fumbled for the lantern that hung at the stable door. His sleep-sodden
brain which had brought him thus far mechanically was waking to its daily
passion of revolt.
God! what a life! What a bloody dam-fool life! A day that began with
fumbling in the dark and ended fumbling in another dark, and in between a
long procession of monotonous jobs, impersonal and void of interest. A
life of fastening buckles, he thought venomously, as his rapidly
stiffening fingers refused their office. Buckle-fastening! When life was
so short and there was so much of the world. Even those high new-born
pearly dawns of summer that lifted his heart with their wonder were but
urgent invitations to set out and see. He wanted passionately wanted--a
life where things happened; where the unexpected swung at you with a
terrifying beauty and events were not, since every hour brought its
event. The phlegm, the appalling foreverness of the fields and hills
roused in him a desperate consciousness of his own evanescence, and a
rebellion that any part of his short and so precious time should be given
to their thankless service. And what was there beyond his work to make it
worth while? To sit in winter at the farmhouse kitchen fire while Johnny,
the other hired man, scraped on his fiddle and Mary the 'girl' flirted
ineptly with a surfaceman from the railway or a shepherd from the hill?
Or to go once in three weeks or a month to a dance at the nearest
schoolhouse--an affair of polkas and boots? Or on summer evenings and
Sundays to join the gathering at the bridge-head and exchange gossip and
smutty stories, to make one of the self-elected tribunal which sat in sly
judgment on the manners and morals of the countryside, utterly content
with themselves and their lot? Even when he capped their stories and
earned their appreciative laughter and their admiring 'Ay, boy, you're
the one!' he had waves of angry disgust, not at the subject of his
triumph, but at the spiritual poverty of his audience.
The only events at Tarn were the New Year and an occasional calving. And
last autumn the little Jersey had got bogged in the low grazing; an
affair which had caused one day at least to be vivid with the meeting of
emergency which is life, and which, like lightning at night, had left the
succeeding moments darker. Beyond the occasional kissing of a girl at a
dance the only thrill of positive pleasure that he knew was provided by
the threepenny 'shockers' which he bought with his scanty pocket-money
when in Ferry on carting-business and absorbed in bed at night to the
accompaniment of Johnny's snores. It was usually a battle between the
swift sleep that falls on the open-air worker and his thirst for colour
and movement. That his need for at least vicarious adventure was great
was witnessed to by the repeated trouble with Mrs Vass over the
unwarrantable burning of candles. Johnny, not being cast in martyr's
mould, had no hesitation in absolving himself at the price of his
companion's secret, with the result that candles were rationed
thenceforth. If it had not been for the kindheartedness of the
flirtatious Mary--to whom a male thing in trouble, even if it were only a
long-legged sulky-mouthed boy, was quite unthinkable--his one escape from
a too drab reality might have been seriously hindered. But Mary's
generous supply of candle-ends--and Mary had royal ideas as to what
constituted ends--saved the situation.
At this moment she came to the kitchen door and called into the darkness
'Kif! Are you there, Kif?' her voice subdued in deference to the
unawakened household. The boy, who had seen the light appear fifteen
minutes before in the blank house and had been hoping for the summons,
came clumping to the open door that emitted a friendly stuffiness to the
frozen yard and followed her into the kitchen, where the fire had
graduated from the first stage of merely spectacular flame to a glowing
heat, and a steaming bowl of tea stood on the table.
1113643778
door quietly behind him. Quietly because the wife of Farmer Vass was apt
to be unreasonable if she were wakened betimes. It lacked an hour till
dawn and there was neither earth nor sky, hedge nor horizon. Only the
all-enveloping dark, immediate, almost tangible--the blackness that hems
us in with ourselves and annihilates philosophy. And it was bitterly
cold. The boy clutched at his coat collar as the thin sterile air struck
at his bare throat. His hobnailed boots echoed irrelevantly--a dreary
sound--as he made his stumbling way over the cobbles of the yard and
fumbled for the lantern that hung at the stable door. His sleep-sodden
brain which had brought him thus far mechanically was waking to its daily
passion of revolt.
God! what a life! What a bloody dam-fool life! A day that began with
fumbling in the dark and ended fumbling in another dark, and in between a
long procession of monotonous jobs, impersonal and void of interest. A
life of fastening buckles, he thought venomously, as his rapidly
stiffening fingers refused their office. Buckle-fastening! When life was
so short and there was so much of the world. Even those high new-born
pearly dawns of summer that lifted his heart with their wonder were but
urgent invitations to set out and see. He wanted passionately wanted--a
life where things happened; where the unexpected swung at you with a
terrifying beauty and events were not, since every hour brought its
event. The phlegm, the appalling foreverness of the fields and hills
roused in him a desperate consciousness of his own evanescence, and a
rebellion that any part of his short and so precious time should be given
to their thankless service. And what was there beyond his work to make it
worth while? To sit in winter at the farmhouse kitchen fire while Johnny,
the other hired man, scraped on his fiddle and Mary the 'girl' flirted
ineptly with a surfaceman from the railway or a shepherd from the hill?
Or to go once in three weeks or a month to a dance at the nearest
schoolhouse--an affair of polkas and boots? Or on summer evenings and
Sundays to join the gathering at the bridge-head and exchange gossip and
smutty stories, to make one of the self-elected tribunal which sat in sly
judgment on the manners and morals of the countryside, utterly content
with themselves and their lot? Even when he capped their stories and
earned their appreciative laughter and their admiring 'Ay, boy, you're
the one!' he had waves of angry disgust, not at the subject of his
triumph, but at the spiritual poverty of his audience.
The only events at Tarn were the New Year and an occasional calving. And
last autumn the little Jersey had got bogged in the low grazing; an
affair which had caused one day at least to be vivid with the meeting of
emergency which is life, and which, like lightning at night, had left the
succeeding moments darker. Beyond the occasional kissing of a girl at a
dance the only thrill of positive pleasure that he knew was provided by
the threepenny 'shockers' which he bought with his scanty pocket-money
when in Ferry on carting-business and absorbed in bed at night to the
accompaniment of Johnny's snores. It was usually a battle between the
swift sleep that falls on the open-air worker and his thirst for colour
and movement. That his need for at least vicarious adventure was great
was witnessed to by the repeated trouble with Mrs Vass over the
unwarrantable burning of candles. Johnny, not being cast in martyr's
mould, had no hesitation in absolving himself at the price of his
companion's secret, with the result that candles were rationed
thenceforth. If it had not been for the kindheartedness of the
flirtatious Mary--to whom a male thing in trouble, even if it were only a
long-legged sulky-mouthed boy, was quite unthinkable--his one escape from
a too drab reality might have been seriously hindered. But Mary's
generous supply of candle-ends--and Mary had royal ideas as to what
constituted ends--saved the situation.
At this moment she came to the kitchen door and called into the darkness
'Kif! Are you there, Kif?' her voice subdued in deference to the
unawakened household. The boy, who had seen the light appear fifteen
minutes before in the blank house and had been hoping for the summons,
came clumping to the open door that emitted a friendly stuffiness to the
frozen yard and followed her into the kitchen, where the fire had
graduated from the first stage of merely spectacular flame to a glowing
heat, and a steaming bowl of tea stood on the table.
Kif: An Unvarnished History
The boy stepped into the chill dark of the winter morning and closed the
door quietly behind him. Quietly because the wife of Farmer Vass was apt
to be unreasonable if she were wakened betimes. It lacked an hour till
dawn and there was neither earth nor sky, hedge nor horizon. Only the
all-enveloping dark, immediate, almost tangible--the blackness that hems
us in with ourselves and annihilates philosophy. And it was bitterly
cold. The boy clutched at his coat collar as the thin sterile air struck
at his bare throat. His hobnailed boots echoed irrelevantly--a dreary
sound--as he made his stumbling way over the cobbles of the yard and
fumbled for the lantern that hung at the stable door. His sleep-sodden
brain which had brought him thus far mechanically was waking to its daily
passion of revolt.
God! what a life! What a bloody dam-fool life! A day that began with
fumbling in the dark and ended fumbling in another dark, and in between a
long procession of monotonous jobs, impersonal and void of interest. A
life of fastening buckles, he thought venomously, as his rapidly
stiffening fingers refused their office. Buckle-fastening! When life was
so short and there was so much of the world. Even those high new-born
pearly dawns of summer that lifted his heart with their wonder were but
urgent invitations to set out and see. He wanted passionately wanted--a
life where things happened; where the unexpected swung at you with a
terrifying beauty and events were not, since every hour brought its
event. The phlegm, the appalling foreverness of the fields and hills
roused in him a desperate consciousness of his own evanescence, and a
rebellion that any part of his short and so precious time should be given
to their thankless service. And what was there beyond his work to make it
worth while? To sit in winter at the farmhouse kitchen fire while Johnny,
the other hired man, scraped on his fiddle and Mary the 'girl' flirted
ineptly with a surfaceman from the railway or a shepherd from the hill?
Or to go once in three weeks or a month to a dance at the nearest
schoolhouse--an affair of polkas and boots? Or on summer evenings and
Sundays to join the gathering at the bridge-head and exchange gossip and
smutty stories, to make one of the self-elected tribunal which sat in sly
judgment on the manners and morals of the countryside, utterly content
with themselves and their lot? Even when he capped their stories and
earned their appreciative laughter and their admiring 'Ay, boy, you're
the one!' he had waves of angry disgust, not at the subject of his
triumph, but at the spiritual poverty of his audience.
The only events at Tarn were the New Year and an occasional calving. And
last autumn the little Jersey had got bogged in the low grazing; an
affair which had caused one day at least to be vivid with the meeting of
emergency which is life, and which, like lightning at night, had left the
succeeding moments darker. Beyond the occasional kissing of a girl at a
dance the only thrill of positive pleasure that he knew was provided by
the threepenny 'shockers' which he bought with his scanty pocket-money
when in Ferry on carting-business and absorbed in bed at night to the
accompaniment of Johnny's snores. It was usually a battle between the
swift sleep that falls on the open-air worker and his thirst for colour
and movement. That his need for at least vicarious adventure was great
was witnessed to by the repeated trouble with Mrs Vass over the
unwarrantable burning of candles. Johnny, not being cast in martyr's
mould, had no hesitation in absolving himself at the price of his
companion's secret, with the result that candles were rationed
thenceforth. If it had not been for the kindheartedness of the
flirtatious Mary--to whom a male thing in trouble, even if it were only a
long-legged sulky-mouthed boy, was quite unthinkable--his one escape from
a too drab reality might have been seriously hindered. But Mary's
generous supply of candle-ends--and Mary had royal ideas as to what
constituted ends--saved the situation.
At this moment she came to the kitchen door and called into the darkness
'Kif! Are you there, Kif?' her voice subdued in deference to the
unawakened household. The boy, who had seen the light appear fifteen
minutes before in the blank house and had been hoping for the summons,
came clumping to the open door that emitted a friendly stuffiness to the
frozen yard and followed her into the kitchen, where the fire had
graduated from the first stage of merely spectacular flame to a glowing
heat, and a steaming bowl of tea stood on the table.
door quietly behind him. Quietly because the wife of Farmer Vass was apt
to be unreasonable if she were wakened betimes. It lacked an hour till
dawn and there was neither earth nor sky, hedge nor horizon. Only the
all-enveloping dark, immediate, almost tangible--the blackness that hems
us in with ourselves and annihilates philosophy. And it was bitterly
cold. The boy clutched at his coat collar as the thin sterile air struck
at his bare throat. His hobnailed boots echoed irrelevantly--a dreary
sound--as he made his stumbling way over the cobbles of the yard and
fumbled for the lantern that hung at the stable door. His sleep-sodden
brain which had brought him thus far mechanically was waking to its daily
passion of revolt.
God! what a life! What a bloody dam-fool life! A day that began with
fumbling in the dark and ended fumbling in another dark, and in between a
long procession of monotonous jobs, impersonal and void of interest. A
life of fastening buckles, he thought venomously, as his rapidly
stiffening fingers refused their office. Buckle-fastening! When life was
so short and there was so much of the world. Even those high new-born
pearly dawns of summer that lifted his heart with their wonder were but
urgent invitations to set out and see. He wanted passionately wanted--a
life where things happened; where the unexpected swung at you with a
terrifying beauty and events were not, since every hour brought its
event. The phlegm, the appalling foreverness of the fields and hills
roused in him a desperate consciousness of his own evanescence, and a
rebellion that any part of his short and so precious time should be given
to their thankless service. And what was there beyond his work to make it
worth while? To sit in winter at the farmhouse kitchen fire while Johnny,
the other hired man, scraped on his fiddle and Mary the 'girl' flirted
ineptly with a surfaceman from the railway or a shepherd from the hill?
Or to go once in three weeks or a month to a dance at the nearest
schoolhouse--an affair of polkas and boots? Or on summer evenings and
Sundays to join the gathering at the bridge-head and exchange gossip and
smutty stories, to make one of the self-elected tribunal which sat in sly
judgment on the manners and morals of the countryside, utterly content
with themselves and their lot? Even when he capped their stories and
earned their appreciative laughter and their admiring 'Ay, boy, you're
the one!' he had waves of angry disgust, not at the subject of his
triumph, but at the spiritual poverty of his audience.
The only events at Tarn were the New Year and an occasional calving. And
last autumn the little Jersey had got bogged in the low grazing; an
affair which had caused one day at least to be vivid with the meeting of
emergency which is life, and which, like lightning at night, had left the
succeeding moments darker. Beyond the occasional kissing of a girl at a
dance the only thrill of positive pleasure that he knew was provided by
the threepenny 'shockers' which he bought with his scanty pocket-money
when in Ferry on carting-business and absorbed in bed at night to the
accompaniment of Johnny's snores. It was usually a battle between the
swift sleep that falls on the open-air worker and his thirst for colour
and movement. That his need for at least vicarious adventure was great
was witnessed to by the repeated trouble with Mrs Vass over the
unwarrantable burning of candles. Johnny, not being cast in martyr's
mould, had no hesitation in absolving himself at the price of his
companion's secret, with the result that candles were rationed
thenceforth. If it had not been for the kindheartedness of the
flirtatious Mary--to whom a male thing in trouble, even if it were only a
long-legged sulky-mouthed boy, was quite unthinkable--his one escape from
a too drab reality might have been seriously hindered. But Mary's
generous supply of candle-ends--and Mary had royal ideas as to what
constituted ends--saved the situation.
At this moment she came to the kitchen door and called into the darkness
'Kif! Are you there, Kif?' her voice subdued in deference to the
unawakened household. The boy, who had seen the light appear fifteen
minutes before in the blank house and had been hoping for the summons,
came clumping to the open door that emitted a friendly stuffiness to the
frozen yard and followed her into the kitchen, where the fire had
graduated from the first stage of merely spectacular flame to a glowing
heat, and a steaming bowl of tea stood on the table.
2.99
In Stock
5
1
Kif: An Unvarnished History
Kif: An Unvarnished History
eBook
$2.99
Related collections and offers
2.99
In Stock
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013748804 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | WDS Publishing |
| Publication date: | 01/15/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Sales rank: | 309,713 |
| File size: | 241 KB |
From the B&N Reads Blog
Customer Reviews
Explore More Items
Une adolescente accuse deux femmes de l'avoir battue et séquestrée : un grand classique de la littérature policière des années 1940, inspirée d'une histoire vraie.
It was a little after seven on a summer morning, and William Potticary
was taking his accustomed way over the short down grass of the cliff-top.
Beyond his elbow, two hundred feet below, lay the
was taking his accustomed way over the short down grass of the cliff-top.
Beyond his elbow, two hundred feet below, lay the
Inspector Alan Grant searches for the identity of a man killed in the line at a theater and for the identity of the killer—whom no one saw.
A long line had formed for the standing-room-only
A long line had formed for the standing-room-only
Discover the new Penguin Crime and Espionage series
An impostor has a fortune to win - but he may be in danger of losing his life...
Twenty-one-year-old Brat Farrar is an orphan, alone in the world
Postrado en una cama de hospital, el inspector Alan Grant se aburre mortalmente. Ni las anémonas de la señora Tinker, su ama de llaves, ni el ruibarbo estofado de la enfermera Darroll
It had been raining all day, but now a wild red sunset flooded the town
with uncanny light, so that the dripping black buildings stood glorified
and the hurrying crowds turned their heads,
with uncanny light, so that the dripping black buildings stood glorified
and the hurrying crowds turned their heads,
Marion Sharpe and her mother seem an unlikely duo to be found on the wrong side of the law. Quiet and ordinary, they have led a peaceful and unremarkable life at their country home, The Franchise.
Milford ist ein idyllisches Provinznest in England, in dem nie etwas passiert. In der einzigen Anwaltskanzlei vor Ort führt der junge Robert Blair in 41. Generation die Geschäfte. Seine
"Grips the reader . . . The story has pace and excitement, unforced sentiment and wholly unaffected gaiety." - Times Literary Supplement
"He knows how to build a story mounting page by page in
"He knows how to build a story mounting page by page in
World War II pilot Peter Marshall leads the most successful bombing crew at his airbase, having survived an unusual number of extremely dangerous missions over Germany. However, when Peter falls
Nevil Shute wrote this prophetic novel just before the start of the Second World War. In it he imagines the devastation that results from an aerial bomb attack on Southampton that destroys the city's
When Peter Moran, a former World War I pilot, picks up a man on the roadside while driving through a bitter rainy night, he is startled to discover that the bedraggled man is a wartime comrade of his
"Keeps you pegging away, page after page, unwilling to put the book down." - New York Times
"Mr. Shute knows how to pick astonishing stories and how to keep them moving on non-stop tracks." - New
"Mr. Shute knows how to pick astonishing stories and how to keep them moving on non-stop tracks." - New
John Turner, a young man with a checkered past, has been told he has just one year to live. He decides to use his remaining time in search of three very different men he met in the hospital during
A romantic World War II adventure about the strength of true love and how it can overcome any obstacle. A British air reconnaissance officer falls for a pub waitress, but finds his lift in chaos when