“John was a man of few words and many grunts and one of his grunts could express a volume. He had a variety of them which he adapted as the situation arose. But they all seemed to express his view on life, the principle of which was, ‘you leave me be, and I’ll leave you be’;””
“whatever their denomination, the dead were the dead and were all the same to John, or at least they had been up to this last month or so. Before that, he had thrown the dirt onto them with the comment, and this to himself, that ‘such was life’ or, when feeling very talkative inside, he might add, ‘When their number’s called, even the deaf hear.’ But this was before he had witnessed the accident at the crossroads.””
“But that was John up to the first time he became aware of the St Christopher effigies and medals. To the outside world he remained the same, but John knew that he was no longer the same. For now there was a battle raging inside him, a talking battle, and his opponent was a man in a long robe with a staff in his hand. This was the man who, up to a comparatively few years ago, had been an obscure saint, but who was now a power that was creating a mass superstition the like of which had not been known since the Dark Ages, or so reasoned John.””
“This subject had hit John with such intensity that he could no longer remain unaware of his deeper thinking. He became so much aware of it, in fact, that he was worried by it and therefore he was determined to do something about it. This breaking out of his cocoon did not surprise John, for being the least introspective of men, he had not been aware that he lived in a cocoon.””
Christopher Cookson was a prolific British author known for his compelling narratives that often explored themes of social class and human resilience. Born into a working-class family in the North Eas...
“The evening procedure was that John would walk the three steps from the kitchen door to the cupboard where the work clothes were kept and there deposit his coat, and on the journey he would answer his wife with the syllable ‘Aye’, and from the inflection that he gave to his reply she was able to judge the quality of his day. But tonight he didn’t answer her with the brief ‘Aye’ and her head came round sharply to him when he repeated her words with heavy stress. ‘Another one over,’ he said. And now he brought her mouth agape with the addition of ‘Aye, and completely over for some folks.’ Florrie, spoon held in mid-air, continued to gape and Frankie, too, gaped. If his father had rolled into the kitchen paralytic drunk, he could not have looked more amazed.””