Read (3/13) News from Thrush Green for Free Online

the single state, for a man in his position. His house was warm and clean. His clothes were washed and mended. And his meals - ah, his meals! - were superb.
    But once you'd said that, Albert told himself, squinting along the side of the grave for any unsightly irregularities, you'd said the lot. Nagging, whining and money-grubbing, that's what Nell was, and lately he had detected a new unpleasant note in her diatribes. There was far too much about that oil-man who came with his clanking van every other Thursday, for Albert's liking. A smarmy fellow, if ever there was one, a proper sissy, a regular droopy-drawers! And Nell was taken in by his soft soap, the great fool, and talked about it being 'so nice to see a gentleman for a change, and what a pity it was she had married beneath her'.
    Albert set his spade to one side, pushed back his greasy cap and mopped his sweating brow. It was about time Sam Curdle arrived to give him a hand. He could do with it. Cotswold clay makes heavy digging in any weather. On a blazing August morning it was doubly intractable.
    Sam Curdle, grandson of Mrs Curdle who once ruled over the Fair, had been released from gaol early in the New Year. Most of Thrush Green thought, and said openly, that Sam Curdle had a nerve to return to the place where he had so misbehaved.
    'How he can face that poor Miss Watson he stole from, and battered into the bargain, I really don't know,' they told each other indignantly. 'It's a pity he doesn't take himself off, with that blowsy Bella of his, and find a living elsewhere.'
    But that is just what Sam was incapable of doing. Here, in Thrush Green, as well he knew, were a few soft-hearted souls who would give him a little work for the sake of the children - and a little work was all that Sam Curdle wanted. Bella had found a daily job at a farm at Nidden while he was doing time, and had developed into a passably good worker under the brisk direction of the farmer's wife. They still lived in the battered caravan, converted years ago from a bus, in a sheltered corner of the stackyard. Here the Curdles reckoned themselves well off, with water from an outside tap, free milk, and a dozen or so cracked eggs weekly.
    'You can stay there as long as you go straight,' the farmer had told Sam. 'But you try any of your gyppo tricks here, nicking eggs, knocking off the odd hen, and that sort of lark, and you get the boot, pronto!'
    And Sam had toed the line.
    The rector had found him odd jobs to do, both in his own garden and in the churchyard. Albert Piggott was glad to have an assistant when it came to such tasks as grave-digging and coke-sweeping. The fact that Sam Curdle was a wrongdoer and had been in prison troubled the sexton not at all.
    It was Albert himself, in fact, who had helped to bring him to justice. If anything, Albert felt now a certain proprietorial warmth towards the local malefactor. Just bad luck he'd been caught. He'd simply met a master mind, was Albert's opinion. Plenty of people were quite as bad as Sam, but got away with it.
    A shadow fell athwart the grave and Albert looked up to see Sam's face peering down at him.
    'And about time too,' grunted Albert. He indicated the second shovel with a jerk of his black thumb.
    Sam jumped down and began scraping some crumbs of earth together in a languid manner.
    'Don't strain yourself,' said Albert tartly.
    Sam stirred himself to attack the other end of the grave with rather more vigour. They shovelled together in silence.
    A robin hopped about the growing pile of soil looking for worms. The morning sounds of Thrush Green were muffled by the height of the earth walls about them, but in the distance they could hear the children playing on the two swings on the green. There was a rhythmic squeaking as the chains swung to and fro, and occasionally the thud of the see-saw and the cries of excited children.
    The two men worked steadily until St Andrew's clock struck twelve above them.
    'That's it then,' said Albert,