Brensham Village

by John Moore

  I looked over my shoulder and caught sight of the moving lights carried by the Colonel and his men; and as I rowed towards them the Fitcher, or Gormley, cried ‘Listen!’ and I heard shouts, splashes and furious bellowing ahead. There were cries of ‘Head him off! Head him off!’ and a moment later the Ayrshire bull appeared in front of us, swimming like a hippo towards the river. Joe came along with the dinghy, and together we approached the bull until we were close enough to see his great flat head and the short curls between his horns. Then with an angry snort he turned, and we drove him back towards the shallower water, rowing alongside him and prodding him now and then with the boathook.

  There was a gateway at the top of the meadow, the side nearest to the Colonel’s farm, and the men in the water were herding two cows towards it; we drove the bull in the same direction. Soon he joined the cows and with boats and men forming a half-moon behind them they plunged on through three feet of water towards the gap.

  The approach to the gateway, of course, was deep and muddy; we should have to swim them through it; but the Colonel somehow or other had managed to open the gate and he was now perched on top of it, swearing, waving, and shouting instructions. The cows went through quietly enough, but the bull took fright at the Colonel, who was certainly a most alarming figure, and in the course of his passage through the gateway he charged the open gate. The Colonel toppled backwards off it and disappeared beneath the water.

  We in the boats could move quicker than the men who were wading; so we were first in the gateway and I was able to rescue, just as it was sinking, the Colonel’s remarkable hat. (The barbs of several fish-hooks pricked my fingers as I grabbed it out of the water.) At first we could find no trace of the Colonel himself; but Joe spotted two hands clutching the middle bar of the gate and a moment later a grey head appeared, and then an apologetic red face and a pair of shoulders – this was indeed a kelpie rising from his native deeps! - and we caught hold of the two hands and tried to lift the Colonel out.

  He was snorting exactly like his bull.

  ‘You’ll have to heave hard,’ he spluttered. ‘I seem to be stuck in a sort of pismire.’

  At last we got him into my boat. He looked pretty bad. His teeth were chattering and his face was no longer scarlet but bluish-grey. We laid him down between the seats and for a few moments he closed his eyes. I thought he had fainted; but his hand began to move feebly and patted the pocket of his jacket. His trembling fingers found the opening, the hand was inserted, and a moment later it brought out the flask. Immediately the Colonel opened his eyes and sat up. He unscrewed the top of the flask and began to drink. By some extraordinary chance it must have been full; for he was drinking for a good thirty seconds and we could hear the gulp and gurgle as the whisky went down. When the last drop was finished he wiped his moustache and the expression upon his face, which had been that of a dying grampus, suddenly changed. A thousand creases, puckers, and wrinkles appeared in his cheeks and round his eyes. ‘Whisky inside and water out,’ he grunted. He grinned. ‘Do you know what happened?’ he said. ‘I fell in head first and my waders were filled with wind; so there I was like a bloody duck with me head in the muck and me arse in the air and floating round and round like a teetotum. I swear I must have swallowed half a dozen fishes!’ - and then he threw back his head and began to laugh so loudly that even the men in the water, forty yards away, knew that he was still alive, so merrily that Pistol, Bardolph and Nym began to laugh too, a harsh cackle, a throaty guffaw, and a squeaky giggle respectively, borne to us across the swirling flood.

  We Band of Brothers

  In the Colonel’s sitting-room, before a great log fire, we watched him slowly and steamily drying himself; for as usual he scorned to change his clothes and when Mr Chorlton prudently suggested that he should go to bed with a hot water bottle he declared that he’d been to bed in his time with a lot of peculiar things but never thank God with that. He had invited us all back for drinks and he had provided whisky, perry, home-made sloe gin, parsnip wine, and two of his sister’s famous caraway-seed cakes. He drank most of the whisky himself, because, he said, none of the other drinks would tolerate the amount of dilution occasioned by the fact that his belly was half-full of river water. Also, he declared, it would take something pretty strong to kill the fishes which were swimming round and round inside him.

  There were at least twenty of us in the room, each dripping our separate little pools upon the Colonel’s carpet. I was surprised to see Lord Orris and Jane, and even more surprised to see Billy Butcher. He’d been sick, he whispered, and the cold water had sobered him, and now he was prepared to get drunk again on the Colonel’s sloe gin. He was said to have done great deeds in the water, having actually swum twenty yards to release one of the cows which was stuck in the hedge. ‘Village drunk makes good,’ he said with a grin. ‘Plucking bright honour from the pale-fac’d moon.’

  Each had his tale of adventure or mishap. Jane, who feared bulls though probably she feared nothing else on earth, had plunged into a blackthorn hedge, and torn her skirt to ribbons, when the bellowing beast splashed towards her. However, she still had a light of triumph in her-eyes; for she had paid her call upon the Syndicate, though she would not tell us what she had said to them. ‘It was an extraordinary thing,’ she said, ‘but I got the impression they were afraid of me.’ I didn’t think it was extraordinary at all; what mortal would not be afraid when Pallas Athene stood before him speaking winged words?

  Lord Orris, ineffectual as ever, had succeeded in lassooing a cow by the horns but had caught his own leg in the rope, so that he fell flat on his back in the water as soon as the cow plunged away. Sammy Hunt had been butted in the behind by the Spanish ram, which had nearly knocked him out of the punt. Sir Gerald Hope-Kingley had broken his spectacles, without which he was half blind, and Mr Mountjoy, misadventuring into a quagmire, had lost one of his shoes.

  But incomparably the most perilous accidents had befallen Pistol, Bardolph and Nym. The bull, it seemed, had all but gored them in vulnerable and sensitive places; Bardolph, on one occasion had only escaped it by swimming underwater for twenty yards; Nym, on another, had actually leaped upon its back and steered it by the horns. The sheep, the cows and the bull would all have perished but for the courageous intervention of these three heroes. We listened to their tales in wonderment and admiration which was increased when we perceived that all three of them had managed to perform their aquatic feats without getting wet.

  However, the Colonel gave them ten shillings each and being very full of perry they made a speech declaring that he was a gentleman for whom it would always be a pleasure to put themselves in mortal peril if the need should arise again. Then they took themselves off, and it was not until half an hour later, when the rest of the guests were leaving, that we missed three mackintoshes from the stand in the hall.

  But they were old mackintoshes and their owners, who were Mr Chorlton, Billy Butcher, and Joe Trentfield, were mellowed by sloe gin so that they only laughed when Banks asked if they wanted him to take any action officially. ‘Let the rogues have ‘em,’ said Mr Chorlton, ‘for upon my soul I love a good rogue.’

  The Colonel came to the door to see us off. The whisky had warmed him, and his cheeks were as ruddy as autumn leaves. ‘Thank you all,’ he said. ‘Thank you every one. But mind you, I expected no less when I rang up Joe. I knew I’d have half the village down at the Summer Leasow in ten minutes. For whatever they say about Brensham, we stick together, don’t we?’

  ‘Quite right, Colonel!’ said Joe Trentfield. ‘We may be a funny lot of beggars but we hangs together!’

  So off we went down Magpie Lane, Joe and Alfie, David Groves and Dai Roberts, the Mad Lord with Jane beside him striding like a goddess, Jim Hartley waddling somewhat because he’d taken unusual exercise for a sluggish man, the Rector and Sir Gerald, Billy Butcher merry with sloe gin and reciting of all things ‘Sohrab and Rustum’ because the flooded river had reminded him of the Oxus, Sammy Hunt who
’d tell in the years to come an unending tale of tonight’s doings, some Fitchers and Gormleys walking in strict segregation, Mr Chorlton and I. And Mr Chorlton said: ‘As Joe remarks, we’re a curious lot of so-and-sos; but something binds us together, and although I’ve tried hard to find a definition for it, I’m blowed if I am able to put into words exactly what it is. Can you tell me?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Mr Chorlton, ‘I am inclined to think that it may be something very old and simple. I think it may be something to do with the Second Commandment.’

  Part Four

  The Frost

  The Precocious Season - Whan that Aprille - The Halfway People - The Home Orchard - Shomes Sote - Satyr and Nymph - The Weathercock Turns North - The Reckoning - The Aftermath - The Vultures Wait

  The Precocious Season

  Next Year the spring came so early that not even the longest memory could match its February celandines and Lady-day cowslips. It came not shyly, as springs are wont to do upon Brensham Hill, with a modest snowdrop in the larch plantation, a self-effacing violet under the hedge; but in triumph and sudden splendour ‘with bows bent and with emptying of quivers’, with banners and trumpets, with an army of crocuses and a fanfare of daffodils.

  Even in February, when Alfie was spraying his plum trees, there were blue days that rightly belonged to late March. The rooks flew clamorous to their nests in the wine-red elms, and Mr Mountjoy’s bees emerged from their hives in thousands and were rewarded for this act of faith by the golden pollen upon the pussy-willows by the river.

  Alfie finished spraying, and began to plough between his lines of plum trees. He didn’t plant anything there, but performed the cultivation as a free gift to his orchards; otherwise the rank-growing grass and weeds would suck the richness from the soil and starve the hungry trees. Very few of our fruit-growers took the trouble to do this; but Mr Chorlton pointed out that it was a very ancient cultivation, and when we asked him what he knew about agriculture, he told us with a smile: ‘It is recommended in the Georgics, Book II.’*

  March, robbed by February, stole in turn some sunshine, some flowers, and even some thrushes’ nests from April; and so week by week the prodigal business went on of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and the old men complained that the seasons were out of joint and prophesied that Time would bring its revenges. By April Fools’ Day the weeds stood high in the ditches, hedge-parsley made a pattern like old lace, and on the banks with celandines and violets the stitchwort unfolded its petals which were like new-laundered linen. There were white butterflies fluttering everywhere, Mr Chorlton had seen the first orange-tips and holly blues, and in Mr Mountjoy’s rectory garden a precocious blackbird had already hatched her young.

  Whan that Aprille

  And of course, by April Fools’ Day, the plum blossom was fully out in all the orchards along the vale; for every sprouting and blossoming thing was three weeks ahead of its normal season. Easter, as well as the spring, was early that year; and like an Easter bride Brensham was dressed in white.

  It happened that I had been away from Elmbury and hadn’t visited Brensham for several months. Certain things had occurred to me which are of no importance to this tale: I had left my uncle’s office in Elmbury and apprenticed myself to a different trade, that of writing books. So I was now free to live and work wherever I liked, and I had spent most of the winter in London. With all the greater delight, therefore, I saw Brensham in blossom when I walked over its hill upon that first day of April.

  I went up as far as the Folly and visited the ancient eremite who had put on his straw hat with the I. Zingari band in honour of the blue skies. He told me that in all his years he had never seen so much blossom; and when I looked down from the Folly roof I felt sure he must be right, for the whole of the vale and the lower slopes of the hill were buried beneath a vast snowdrift of petals. As a rule the effect, as you look down upon the flowering vale, is that of a lace curtain stretched loosely over it; for the plum blossoms are very small and even though they be multitudinous the leafless sepia twigs still show among them. However, in this season of unparalleled prodigality I had the impression not of a lace curtain but of foam and lather, of curds overflowing from a dish of cream. ‘Not once in fifty years,’ said the Hermit, ‘have I gazed upon such a sight;’ and in his eye there was a look of pride and of possession: ‘Mine, all mine!’

  Later in the day I went down into the village and met Alfie, who took me into his orchards to see the flower-laden boughs. He, too, said that he’d never seen anything like it. If one blossom in twenty bore a plum, the branches would break under the burden. We stood in the sunshine beneath the myriad boughs in which the bees already were fertilizing the flowers, and Alfie said:

  ‘There’s probably nothing in it, but they say you get a good season every four years. Last year ‘twas middling, the previous year ‘twas very middling, and the year before that the plum-picking was like hunting for needles in haystacks. If we got a good crop this summer it’d square up a bit, and there’d be fewer of us getting nasty letters from the bank.’

  ‘Well, this seems like fourth time lucky,’ I said, glancing up at the boughs which looked as if they were draped in white chiffon.

  ‘Seems like? Maybe. But ‘tis too early for my liking,’ said Alfie with a shrug. ‘If it froze smartish tonight, we mightn’t have so much as a bud left tomorrow. And there’s six weeks to go yet before we’re safe. I’ve known hailstorms and black frosses even in May.’

  He walked with me to the gate. I said:

  ‘It must be an anxious time, while you’re waiting.’

  He pointed to a small wet-and-dry thermometer which hung on the gatepost.

  ‘It gives you the jim-jams,’ he said. ‘Every night at six o’clock I takes a look at that hygrometer. ‘Tis a better indication to my mind than the barometer or the wireless. If it looks good I thank the Lord. If it looks tricky I prays.’

  But tonight the two columns of mercury stood nearly level, and the temperature was fifty-one. There was a warm wet breeze from the south-west.

  ‘All right for twenty-four hours,’ said Alfie, and grinned.

  The Halfway People

  As I walked down the village street, where even in the cottage gardens were blossoming trees, two or three in a back-yard, two score in a little paddock, so that their whiteness spilled between the brown thatch, and the very village became an orchard, it occurred to me how precarious was the condition of the people of Brensham, whose little fortunes were bound to these frail and transient petals. To Alfie and his kind a black frost might mean a loss of four or five hundred pounds; but to Jim Hartley with his single orchard adjoining the Adam and Eve the loss of one hundred would be severe in proportion, whereas to Mrs Doan, who had a dozen trees behind her shop, or to David Groves the ganger, whose small garden contained only four, a bad season might mean the foregoing of luxuries, the postponement of a holiday, or even the spending of precious savings. Impartial as death were the cold fingers of the frost when they groped their way through the village and along the vale; and from rich and poor alike they took all.

  I thought: perhaps after all the people of Brensham are different from other folk; for they experience each year this brief and terrible loveliness, which makes them poets, and yet know each year this sense of terrible transience, which makes them philosophers. They are a halfway people, I thought; they dwell halfway between the hill and the river, holding allegiance to both, and halfway between beauty and ugliness, looking out alternately upon slummy sproutfields and exquisite blossom. And for the whole of their short season of breath-taking beauty, they are poised halfway between triumph and disaster while the weather spins its age-old wheel, and the cold croupier Frost stands by in readiness to sweep the stakes towards him.

  But tonight, while the wheel still spun, the soft southerly breeze held steady, and brought with it a few warm raindrops and a few spent petals from early trees already overblown. All was well so far; and Brens
ham held its breath.

  The Home Orchard

  April passed like a cheerful debtor, spendthrift of its days borrowed from May. By day the sun shone and the sap rose in the trees; Mr Mountjoy’s four million bees were kept busy all day vicariously consummating a myriad marriages between flower and flower; by night showers as soft as the bees’ kiss refreshed the blossoms, and winds as light as a sigh bore away the unwanted petals when the fruit began to form.

  Mr Chorlton brewed his treacly intoxicant and began his nocturnal mothing earlier in the season than ever before. Sammy Hunt painted his boats in anticipation of Whitsun visitors. Mrs Hartley spring-cleaned the Adam and Eve in case any obstinate motes had withstood her twice-daily dustings. Sir Gerald planted out - rare titbits for the slugs! - some valuable Alpines he had obtained from Tibet. Only too aware of the sword over its head, Brensham nevertheless rejoiced in the sunshine and busied itself with the duties and pleasures of the spring.

  Jane Orris, her adventurous spirit made more restless by the season, brought an aeroplane to Brensham; the same benevolent aunt, no doubt, who paid her fees at Oxford had provided the money it cost her to learn to fly. The Moth, which she landed rather dangerously in the long flat field below the Manor, was painted bright red and shining silver and it looked like a giant toy. Almost every morning Jane took off over the crooked chimneys of the House Narrow and performed her tyro loops over the church spire and brought the villagers into the street when she dived upon the Adam and Eve.