Page 3 of Beneath the Harvest Moon

After tying Samson’s reins about the gatepost, he knocked and entered. “Hello!”

In the kitchen, his mother stirred a large pot hanging over the fire. She smiled. “Another long day out on your rounds?”

Gabriel sighed. “Indeed.”

In the armchair by the hearth, his father stretched out his legs and yawned. “’Tis a good sign. A busy physician can only be an excellent physician.”

Mother wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight embrace.

His lower back spasmed in protest.

“You’ll work yourself to an early grave. Sit down.” Mother pulled out a chair at the long oak table in the centre of the kitchen. Wooden bowls filled with dried herbs and powders, and small glass jars with handwritten labels sat in neat rows on the scarred tabletop.

Gabriel removed his dusty black coat and hung it over the back of the chair before he sat.

Mother removed a cast-iron pot from the bread oven. “I’ll wager you haven’t eaten, have you?” She ladled steaming broth into a bowl and set it before him. “Here, ‘ave some of this to fill your belly. You’re wasting away, my boy.”

“He’s not wasting away. He’s a hearty young man.” Father stretched in the chair, then winced. “My old back can’t keep up with the young lads in the fields these days.”

Mother set two thick slices of bread slathered with golden butter next to his bowl. He dipped a piece into the steaming broth. The bread melted in his mouth; the richness of the salty bacon and butter burst on his tongue before slipping down his parched throat.

“Have some cider to wash it down.” Mother set a tankard next to him.

Father grumbled, “I didn’t get cider.”

“You’ve had cider in the fields twice this day, I believe. The Dixons feed their workers well during the harvest.”

Gabriel devoured the broth and bread.

“You should try breathing between mouthfuls, son. Golloping food like that does no good for your digestion.” Father chuckled.

Mother stirred the pot over the fire. “He needs a good woman to take care of him.”

Not again. “I have Mrs Brimble.”

“I don’t mean as a housekeeper⁠—”

“Mother,” he said with a reproving tone. He kept the young widow in a neighbouring village, who rode his cock when his baser needs required it, to himself.

“Mrs Stone has been out of mourning for over a year now, and⁠—”

His spoon clattered into the bowl, splattering droplets onto the table. “I am not interested in Mrs Stone.”

Mother stopped stirring. “But⁠—”

“I have no time to court anyone.” Marriage required him to place his happiness in someone else’s hands, and he refused to do so again.

Mother turned. “I can’t bear the thought of you being alone, my boy. Don’t you want children?”

Once, perhaps, when he had been young and foolish. But his heart had been burned, and his dreams of a family, someone to follow in his footsteps, had burned with it. “My happiness is not dependent on a wife and children. I find my work fulfilling.”

Mother tilted her chin and glared at Father, who asked, “By the way, how does Mr Dixon fare?”

Mother rolled her eyes before returning to her concoction.

“You know I do not like to discuss my patients.”

His father harrumphed. “Everyone knows he’s had lung fever. John says his father should recover before the harvest supper.”