It is a crisp dawn. The timorous white sun of autumn peeks over distant fells, glistening off the dampened moors, and deep swampy ravines where purple thickets of bracken and heather abide. The air is clear, and sweet, scoring cool passages on your lungs as it enters and exits with each refreshing breath. A faint wind whistles quietly between shackled clusters of peasant homes, tousling lines of laundry, and whisking beneath the running feet of young children as they dart buoyantly between shadowy alleyways.
One of these children is a small boy with a pale mop of hair, and expressive green eyes which are now cast in a dubious shade as he ducks and hides behind a discarded crate, laying in wait for his advisory who trots inconspicuously past the alleyway.
With one palm on the ground in the scattered hay grains and cold dirt, he leans around the corner of the wooden box, a loose gray cotton shirt hanging over white shoulders that are thin as a clothes-hanger. Seeing nobody in sight, he exhales gratefully, letting slow to his rapidly beating heart.
But the game continues, and he ducks further into the protection of the lonely crate in attempt to stay hidden as a curious beam of sunlight reaches down the alleyway with pilfering fingers. The sun is now glossy and floating higher in the misty sky. Soon it will be time to run home and get ready for school which won't let out until late, leaving little more time to romp and play.
This boy's name is Filbert. He's the eldest child of a family of four. His younger sister is a happy, angelic presence with long golden hair that holds much more beauty than his washed-out cap of straw. Her face is round, with a delicate chin and smallish nose that pokes like a budding flower between defined, leafy hazel eyes. They say she looks like their mother, much like Filbert takes after their father, who is a traveling merchant, and is rarely home....
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