Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones (9781101614631)

by Wolf, Jack

  Nathaniel, intirely unconcerned by my ruffled Sentiments, laughed aloud, and scrambled up the Trunk of the tallest apple Tree with the same efficient Ease that had taken him up and over the orchard Wall. He perched himself merrily in the upper Branches, and plucking himself an Apple, said: “I shall act as our Lookout, Tris. If I see someone approaching, I shall caw, thus”: he made a chattering Noise identical in Pitch and Intensity to that of a Magpie. “An you hear it, you must straightway hide.”

  This Strategy of Nathaniel’s was not in itself a bad one, for he must have had a good View of the Pathway from his Perch; but having no Fear for himself of being caught, he was not the most reliable of Sentries. Perhaps he gave the warning Signal too late, or perhaps he had already given it and I, intent upon filling my Belly, had not noticed; but all in one Second I became aware of the Rat-tat-tattling of a Pie, and the Rattling of a Key in the iron Lock of the orchard Gate; and before I had Wit or Time to hide My Self it opened wide, and there stood the Rector.

  To mine own Detriment and Defeat—for if I had but remained silent and still he might, perhaps, not have seen me, and I might have been able to slip unobserved out of the Gate—I gave a guilty Start, and let from my Lips a small Cry of Surprize.

  The Rector Ravenscroft, for his Part, was also somewhat astonished; but his Recovery was rapid, and his Retribution swift. With a Bellow of Rage, he bore down on me like a fat, cassocked Epitome of Death. His thick fingered Hand, sweating from the Shock of his Passion or his sudden bodily Exertion, clamped itself upon the Back of my Neck.

  “So!” he shouted. “Tristan Hart! Caught in the Act, yet again, by God!”

  He hauled me to my Feet. Half eaten Apples tumbled from my Lap. The Rector stiffened at the Sight.

  “You have the Devil in you, Tristan Hart!” he roared. “He is in your Blood, your very Blood, and you have your Foot firm and fast upon the Road to Hell! I tell you, Boy, if your Father won’t take it upon himself to beat him out of you, I shall! Never let it be said that I let anyone’s Soule go to the Devil without battling to save him!”

  Without any more ado, he thrust me roughly up against the nearest Tree, and with his walking Cane proceeded to inflict upon my tender young Body as brutal and prolonged a Thrashing as I have ever witnessed; and if I had not been fully cloathed I have no Doubt but that the resultant Injuries would have been severe. You may be certain that I screamed, and cried, and begged for Mercy, and fought, and struggled hard to make good mine Escape; but all to no Effect. When it was finally over I collapsed exhausted on the velvet Ground, my Ribs and Spine bruised black, in such an Intensity of Pain and Shock that I could neither stand nor weep.

  As I have said, my Father, the Squire, had never beaten me, nor suffered me to be beaten at the Hand of any of our Servants; so altho’ by this Age of eleven Yeares I had endured from them many a Scolding, I had never once been hit; and as my Body cried out in Pain, so my Mind staggered under the Shock of what had happened, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, to me.

  I did not know what had befallen Nathaniel. I supposed that he was yet in the apple Tree, but as I had no Way of finding out without discovering his Presence to his Father I kept quiet, and did not resist as the Rector dragged me once again to my Feet and hauled me from his Orchard. I was terrified now lest of Course he should thrash me again, but to my Surprize he called instead for his Chaise, and forced me inside.

  “I will have Words with your Father,” he said. “For there is a Wickedness bred in you, Boy, and it must be curbed, by whatever Means he chooseth, else you grow up vicious as the Devil. Too long have you been left unchecked, too long have you been left to his Devices.”

  The Whip cracked over the Pony’s Back. The Animal sprang forward, into a lively Trot, and the Chaise rumbled out of the Rectory Grounds, and along Collerton Lane towards Shirelands Hall, and my looming Disgrace.

  CHAPTER TWO

  So I became, for the next four Yeares of my Life, a Scholar. The Theft of the Rector’s Apples from his Orchard was the last Straw for that choleric Cleric, and in his Determination to preserve my Soule, not to mention the peacefull Enjoyment of his own Property, he inflicted upon my Father so bitter a Sermon regarding mine evil Nature that my Father’s Reserve finally cracked, and he muttered somewhat upon the Topic of Dispatching me to School. The Rector Ravenscroft seized on this Notion, and insisted that my Father write the relevant Letters then and there. My Father, however, regaining some of his Dignity, baulked at this Demand, coming as it did from the very Divine of whom he had been Benefactor; and, complaining that he had neither Time nor Inclination to set about the Business, politely requested that the Rector either take up mine Education himself, or find me a suitable Tutor. The Rector, for his Part, was most vexed by this new and unexpected Development, and refused at once to have me in his school Room; but to my Displeasure, he found me a Tutor; and within Dayes I had been sentenced and confined. A school Room was set up for me on the ground Floor of the House, hard by my Father’s Library so that he might, theoretically at least, have an Ear to my Progress, and I was kept busy about my Books between the Houres of seven and five upon every Daye of the Week excepting, naturally, the Sabbath. I complained most bitterly at this, but as mine only Sympathiser was my Father’s aged housekeeper, Mrs Henderson—fondly called Mrs H.—a Woman who, since the Departure of the Last of my Nurses, had fulfilled something of the maternal Part towards me, my Disquiet went unremarked.

  My school Room, which had been a sitting Room not much used before, was dark, dampe and musty with tall, curtained Windows. The only Comfort was the Fire, which was lit every Daye in Winter, to preserve the Books. Often I stared out across the rain-swept or sunne-filled Shirelands Grounds towards the High Chalk, and wished with mine whole Heart that I had yet Liberty to walk across the flower dotted Turf, to listen to the Buzzards scream, and feel the rough Winds play about mine Ears. Other Times, I thought that if I could have left the Place, alone, I would have crept soft to the River’s Edge and slipt.

  I sorely missed Nathaniel, and wept much for him at first; but we saw each other still across Church, and were permitted to write. From his, infrequent, Letters I discovered that he, too, was deeply unhappy, and longing to depart his Father’s Society. It was the Rector’s Desire, to which Nathaniel was vehemently opposed, that he should take Orders, and follow him into the Church. Even I could see that this fatherly Determination was misguided: I could no more imagine Nathaniel wearing a Cassock than I could My Self playing the Syrinx. Nathaniel considered himself already a Man in Nature, if not in Law, and he saw no Reason to obey his Father.

  By the Summer of forty-four I was still in my Mind very much a Boy, but I had grown and altered much. Gone, almost forgotten, was the small, rounded Puppy I had been. Now I was a gangling, bony Youth; tall and angular with large Hands and long, narrow Fingers. It would have been difficult for the Rector Ravenscroft now to have said that my Soule was bound to the Devil, for I was Word perfect in all my Religious Observances. But what the Rector did not suspect was that my Soule belonged to a rational God.

  I could no more give Credence to the terrifying Mystery of Scripture and Pulpit than I could have turned Water into Wine. Mine was a God of knowable Purpose, a God whose Principles might be discovered, tested, and found comprehensible by Human Reason. The World was as an open Bible; the Challenge was in learning how to read it.

  I went to the Philosophers; to Descartes, to Harvey, to Baglivi, to Hook. I began to comprehend how the intire World was built according to the Principles of Number, Weight, and Measure, and to see clearly how these applied to the Operation of the Human Body. Whatever the Condition of the Soule within, the Human Body was a Machine, susceptible of Damage, Illness and Decay – but also of Repair.

  These Thinkers became my Comfort, in those dark Houres after Church, when my Senses reeled. When my Father dies and Shirelands Hall is mine, I thought, I will construct a great Laboratory in the eastern Wing, where I shall pass every one of my waking Houres in Exp
erimentation. No mere Surgeon, I will become a Giant of Natural Philosophy, teazing apart the intimate Bonds of the Flesh to discover the Workings of the Machine underneath. I will be the Prophet of a new World, where Logick and Reason will Rule where once Superstition held all Sway. So sweet a Taste, I said to My Self, hath the Electuary of Reason, more effective than any Theriac. Knowledge could heal all Ills. It would be my Mind’s Solvent, my Soule’s Salvation. I should study all the Processes of Life, from the most insignificant to the most profound. I would measure and circumscribe Pain itself.

  I told no one of mine Ambition. None would have understood.

  In the early Autumn of forty-five, when I was approaching the Age of fifteen, it was decided that I should have yet another Tutor. By this Age, I had been under the Tutelage of perhaps six of these Masters, and each Episode had ended in the same Way. “His Wits are too sharp,” each had said to my Father; “Latin and Euclid are too easy for him; with Respect, Mr Hart, you must pay for a learned Scholar from Oxford or London to undertake your Son’s Instruction.” And on each Occasion my Father had sighed, and another poor Curate or struggling Student had been engaged.

  This Time, however, he took on a Protestant Scotsman by the Name of Robert Simmins, who had been several Yeares an Officer in the Army before taking up the Position of Master at St Paul’s School—of which Place he had recently, and hurriedly it seemed, been acquitted. I suspected that some Scandal lay at the Bottom of this, which had almost certainly to do with Drink, but I never found it out. Colonel Simmins’ Prejudice against me, which became plain to me very early in our Association, was founded, I now conceive, in nothing more than that intellectual Laziness of a certain Breed of ordinary Man, which fancies to discern a Threat in everything and everyone considered clever; and which, rather than striving to comprehend it, habitually contemns. He was not, verily, a bad Man, and his own Faults naught but common, venial Weaknesses for which he should perhaps be envied rather than despised. However, at the impatient Age of fifteen, despise him I did, and I could not perceive how I could learn aught usefull from a Tutor whose primary Aim in mine Education was to cure me of Cleverness.

  This Tutor had a Son of his own going by the Name of Isaac, who was several Yeares my junior; and to mine Astonishment and Disgust it was decided that this Son should be allowed to receive Education alongside me, like a Flea riding upon an Hound. He was eleven Yeares of Age, and he turned out to be a light built, girlish little Scrap with shaggy brown Hair, large dark brown Eyes, and Eyebrows of surprizing thickness and excitability. I disliked him immediately on Account of his Father, but it quickly became apparent that Simmins did not return mine Antipathy, but rather liked me very much; and I found that he was perfectly willing to act the Part of Servant and Scapegoat both within the school Room and without it. If the Father set me a tedious and pointless Sum, the Son would solve it; if I was supposed to be working hard upon a Translation of Tacitus, when I would far rather read Ovid, he would cover up mine Inattention by drawing the Tutor’s Anger to some Wrongdoing of his own; moreover, he carried my Books for me, shone my Shoes, and was perfectly happy to assist me to dress. This servile Devotion, which did indeed inspire much reluctant Affection within my selfish Breast, began to seem all the more remarkable when I learned something of Simmins’ Parentage, for his Mother had been the only Niece of a minor Baronet, and his Station could have been something akin to mine had his Father been rich. But upon such Infelicities the World doth spin.

  On Saturdaye, the fourth Daye of December, seventeen forty-five, Charles the Pretender, who had been Months causing Trouble in the North, captured Derby. These Tidings, which reached first Collerton, and then Shirelands later that Evening, filled our Household with Dread; and tho’ Mrs H. instructed the Servants to hide both this Anxiety, and, more significantly, its Cause, from us, she was not successful. Opinion among them held that it could be only a few Houres before Charles presst South to London, and rustick as Shirelands’ Location was, if he decided to take Oxford first, he would come dangerously near. The Spectre of War terrified me more horribly than the Fable of Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones had ever done; I found it impossible that Night to sleep.

  At half-past four in the Morn I gave up the Assay, and left my bed Chamber to creep silent thro’ the slumbering House to that of little Isaac Simmins, who would, I conceived, listen to my Worries with an attentive and sympathetic Ear, despite the Earliness of the Houre. I knocked more than once upon Simmins’ Door, but he, who plainly was not suffering the Agonies I was, did not answer. I tried the Handle, and when to my Surprize I found the Door unlocked, I slippt quietly within and went to stand at Simmins’ Bedside.

  Isaac Simmins was indeed quite fast asleep. His Mouth was open, and his white Nightcap, which was too large for his young Head, was pulled down so low that it covered Eyes, Ears, and much of his Face, like a gallows Hood.

  “Simmins,” I whispered. “Isaac.”

  He did not move. I reached out, and gently pulled back the Cloth from his Face. It had initially been mine Intent, in doing so, to wake him, but in the Event I had not the Stomach to spoil so pretty and tender a Picture as that presented by the Sleeper. I stood back, and regarded Simmins with an almost proprietary Pride, as if we had been in Rome, and I an Emperor gazing fondly on his favourite Slave.

  A disturbing Notion quickened then within my Mind, its Seed surely consisting in that horrible Anxiety which had forced me to rise out of my Bed. Suppose, I thought, a Stranger had crept into Simmins’ Chamber instead of My Self; one of Charles Stuart’s Rebels, a Spy, a Murderer; and suppose that it was he, not I, who stood here, looking silently and grimly down upon the Boy’s defenseless Form. Would not he bend forwards, as I imagined My Self doing now, and close one Hand fast over Simmins’ Mouth, thus, and his other hard upon his Throat, and press down remorselessly until the Boy’s small Candle was snuffed out, and there was no Power on this Earth, scientific or otherwise, that could rekindle it?

  The Notion terrified me, both in its Essence and in the Fact that it had been mine Imagination that gave it Birth. I backed violently away from Simmins, upon whose Body, really, I had not laid even the lightest Fingertip, and fled swift from his Chamber to hide behind the locked Door of mine own, where I cowered abed the Remainder of the Night in a trembling Sweat, my Senses all agog for any Whisper that might herald the Enemy’s Advance, and the Horrour of my Phantasy becoming real.

  * * *

  By Mondaye Morning, after I had passt that Night, then one Daye and then another Night in this fearfully agitated State, mine Head was aching, and my Vision appeared darkly clouded, as if for me the Sunne had never risen, but hovered the whole Morn just below the Horizon. I struggled to concentrate in my Lessons, and the Time crawled.

  Colonel Simmins began the Morning with a Focus upon the multiplication Table, in which I, usually, was fully fluent. Todaye, however, I struggled, and this, of Course, brought his Wrath down upon mine Head.

  “Have you no Mind?” he demanded angrily. “To study todaye? Mayhap your Wits are not as sharp as you would have us believe. Dunderhead! Begin the Table over!”

  I did so, and failed again to compleat the Task.

  “Your Pride, Master Hart, verily hath come before a Fall,” my Tutor remarked, with considerable Satisfaction.

  “Egad!” I protested, stung. “How can I be expected to concentrate with Threat of War upon me?”

  Colonel Simmins’ Lip curled. “You have been forbidden, with good Reason, from listening to Servants’ Gossip,” he said. He had a Chill in his Voice that made me all at once to shudder, tho’ I had no Idea why it should. My Tutor and I had not seen Eye-to-Eye about anything since the sorry Houre upon which we had met, and it was not unusual for him to address me coldly. “Speak impertinently of such vile Nonsense again, and I shall thrash you, Boy, and soundly.”

  After that, he set both his Son and My Self about the close Translation of a very long Passage from Suetonius on the Twelve Caesars, which he said must serve t
o recollect my wandering Wits, and forbade me say aught else, on any Topic, for the Remainder of the Daye.

  So we sate in Silence until five o’ the Clock, at which Point a curious Expression stole over the Visage of the Tutor, and without Explanation he departed from the school Room. I flung down my Quill and hurried to the narrow Window, where I peered out into the Black.

  “Wh-at are you d-oing, Master Hart?” Simmins inquired of me timidly, after a Moment or more during which I neither moved nor spoke.

  “I am looking for the Scots,” I said.

  “But—” Simmins ventured, in a Tone of mild Remonstration. “The Pretender’s Army is M-iles away, Sir, and if my Father c-atches you away from your S-eat, he will be furious.”

  “Dost think,” I said, turning about to stare at him, “your Father’s Anger frightens me? The Scots are close, and you are a Fool if you don’t believe they will be here Tonight. When they come, Simmins, their Displeasure will make your Father’s a mere Sneeze by Comparison. As shall mine, an you question me again.”