“What do you mean, trying to drown me with those little devils?” Gog roars. “You’re working for Magog, too, are you? Is everybody? I thought you were a peasant on my side. What do you want to kill me for?”
And Cluckitt cowers, raising up his arms above his head in a pathetic attempt to ward off a crushing fist, and mumbling, “Doon’t hit me, doon’t hit me. Ah’m a pint ter tha gallon. Thoo’ll be in jug for murder.”
“I was the one being murdered,” Gog howls.
“It was only a game,” Cluckitt jabbers. “We meet ha’ been carrit away a bittie, but it was good clean foon. Can’t thoo be a sport?” He picks up his false teeth and clamps them back in his mouth, so that his words separate from their running jumble.
“A sport? For worms?”
“We weer just bein’ historic, like. Ah swear it, Gog. T’ Coot . . .”
“Enough of the bloody Coot. I was a coot myself ever to listen to you.”
“He woor magic armoor an’ not a sword coold hurt him. So they droonit him in tha’ theer pool, pushin’ him doon wi’ lances. An’ so Master Soolis an’ his fameeliar Redcap droonit t’greet Coot o’ Keeldar. An’ tha’ was all we weer doin’.”
“I agree,” Gog says, beginning to laugh, reassured by the worried earnestness of Cluckitt. “You were making a good job of drowning me. Very historical. Only you’d have had to dig another grave for me. There wouldn’t be room for me alongside the proper Cout. I’m sure he’d hog all the graveclothes and push me out of the coffin into the mould.”
“We wooldn’t ha’ reely droonit thee,” Cluckitt says. “Thoo mustn’t think so.”
“I’d rather that,” Gog says, “than what you said happened to Soulis in the end. Boiled, did you say? I hope Redcap got boiled too.”
“Not Redcap,” Cluckitt says. “Thoo can’t boil a pixie. He’d just turn hissel’ inter steam an’ float away. I do it often mesel’.” When Gog laughs, Cluckitt laughs too, glad to be forgiven. “But t’ Master o’ Hermitage, t’ wickit Lord Soolis, he did get boilit alive. T’ King o’ Scotlan’ got so fed oop wi’ hearin’ Lord Soolis did this an’ Lord Soolis did tha’ an’ hoo wickit Lord Soolis was, he said, ‘Burn him if yoo please, but let me heer no more o’ him.’ So they catchit Soolis an’ they boond him in steel. But he was a magician an’ he bust t’ steel. Then they boond him in ropes o’ siftit san’. But he bust t’ ropes, tho’ they still lay theer, t’ ropes o’ san’, by the Nine Stone Burn beyon’ t’ cassle, wheer t’ Druids usit ter sacrifice theer victims.”
“And how did they kill Soulis in the end?” Gog says.
Cluckitt begins to intone:
“On a circle o’ stones they placit t’ pot,
On a circle o’ stones but barely nine;
They heatit it red an’ fiery hot,
Till t’ burnish’t brass did glimmer an’ shine.
“They rollit him oop in a sheet o’ lead,
A sheet o’ lead fer a funeral pall;
They plungit him in t’ cauldron red,
An’ meltit him, lead, an’ bones an’ all.
An’ tha’ was t’ end o’ t’ wickit Lord Soolis, which shows . . .” Here Cluckitt looks ingratiatingly up at Gog. ‘‘Thoo can kill a Coot o’ Keeldar, thoo can kill a Gog, thoo can mek poor folk groan an’ murder theer heeroes, but t’ Big Un on top he’ll set them ter catch thee in t’end an’ mek pot luck oot o’ thee.”
“A lot of bad rulers,” Gog says, “die in their beds happily of a surfeit of evil. But, I must say, I’d rather be Soulis than the Cout right now. My clothes would be drier.”
“Aye,” Cluckitt says, “we’re like ter shiver t’death.”
“Unless we walk ourselves warm,” Gog says. “Come on.” He grabs Cluckitt by one hand and his pack by the other and sets off across the bridge and down the road at such a pace that Cluckitt is either running or skipping or flying to keep up with him. “Nature’s own airing cupboard,” Gog says. “Keep the pace up.”
“Ah’ll bust a gut,” Cluckitt whines. “Ah’ll die o’ breathlessness. Thoo can’t dry thesel’ walkin’. Thoo’rt knowin’ as Kate Mullet, an’ she was hangit for a fool. Stop, or Ah’ll burst.”
“Good riddance,” Gog says. “A taste of your own murdering habits.”
And so they clip lickety-spit along the roads that separate them from Liddel Water, with the Larriston Fells rising up beyond to mark the boundary into England.
They’ve passed the river and they are going up beyond the last cottage on the track that heads up into the fells, when Cluckitt dunks himself down and says, “Thoo crazy booger, stop. We ha’ nowt ter sup an’ nowt ter drink an’ we’re ploomb toockert oot. We got ter stop an’ get dry an’ rest a bittie. We got ter.” So Cluckitt crawls over to the gate of the cottage garden and hauls himself upright and goes through to the kitchen door and knocks. Gog hears him mumbling and whining ingratiatingly for a time, then a woman comes over to the garden wall, all red and rosy and dumpling and dimpled, and she says, “You’re to coom reet in, I willna hear no.” So Gog follows her into the kitchen of the cottage, where she makes them sit by the side of a glowing iron range; and she takes their clothes away as they strip off down to their trousers, Gog’s old jacket and grey shirt and socks, Cluckitt’s red tam o’shanter and army greatcoat and raggety sweaters and tartan shirt and string vest. She lays the clothes out to dry on a clothes horse and a line; then she makes them mugs of tea and serves them endless slices of bread and margarine and apple jelly, while they tell her of the drowning of Gog the Cout in Hermitage Water, and she scolds them for being no better than little boys themselves.
At last, it is six o’clock by the large tin clock over the hearth, the sacred hour of national communion over the news that no one has missed for six years of war. The woman switches on the wireless, and the firm soupy comforting baritone begins, “This is Alvar Liddell . . .” The Japanese are being pushed back with heavy casualties and Tokyo’s burning and most of our planes are returning home safely and the Nazi war criminals are going to be hanged and the Occupation Zones drawn and Germany quartered between the Allies and all is fine and victorious, until there is a sudden fuzzing of the airwaves, followed by a familiar voice cutting in to say:
“This is Wayland Merlin Blake Smith speaking from somewhere in the North, and I say unto you, give me Broadcasting House, or ye shall be sorry. Already the wrath of the Lord prepareth a cloud in the heavens; with a mighty fist He shall strike down a far city as an awful warning. And if ye heed not that first sign and give me not the transmitters, woe unto you; for the Lord hath revealed unto me that He will strike down a second far city with the great cloud of His wrath, like unto the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with a pillar of fire from heaven. And after that second warning, He shall stay His hand at my asking, for that ye should consider the anger of the Almighty and yield me the transmitters, so that I may lead my flock in building Zion again by Thames’ sweet side in Albion. Beware, beware, God is nigh and I am His servant, Smith, in my fourth and last coming. Repent ye, repent ye, for Gog is wandering loose in the land, I have encountered him. And Magog ruleth in the high places of London, where we shall meet him. And at that final meeting, shall I beg the Lord to stay His anger, if Magog shall deny me? Give me the airwaves, Magog, or . . .”
At this moment, the voice of the Bagman is suddenly cut off and a smooth announcer’s voice says, “We apologize for this break in transmission to our Northern listeners from an unknown radio transmitter. And now we join the Palm Court Orchestra in the Palm Court of the Grand Hotel.”
As the sound of violin strings cascades over the listeners, Cluckitt looks quizzically at Gog and laughs and says, “Gog’s indeed wanderin’ loose in t’ lan’.”
“Tha’ weren’t the Bible, were it?” the woman says. “Yet it sounded like.”
“No, it wasn’t the Bible,” Gog says. “It’s a man I . . . met once, who writes his own Bibles.”
“Thoo met?” Cluckitt says incredulously. “Was
tha’ wheer thoo pickit oop tha’ crazy nonsense aboot Magog wantin’ ter croak thee? Thoo must ha’ dreamt it.”
“Perhaps I did,” Gog says, and he looks down at the tattoo on the back of his hand which says MAGOG, to check that it is still there. The dark fears begin to rise in the back of his mind again, so that the round face of the woman suddenly becomes a fat mask hiding Magog in the pouches of its cheeks, and the withered dewlaps of Cluckitt conceal Magog in their folds, and the spurt of splitting coal in the range is Magog’s boot scraping against the side of his iron box, where he crouches ready to spring out like a ravening golliwog. Then Gog laughs at the folly of his imaginings and says, “Ridiculous. You know, sometimes I think I really am the Gog of the Book of Revelations, and everyone I see is really Magog, and he’s after me everywhere. We’re all a bit crazy some of the time.”
The woman nods and says, “Days coom when I ken tha’ e’en the chicks is tryin’ to peck oot the eyes o’ the bairns. Fear days. They coom to us a’.”
“Stooff,” Cluckitt says. “Tha’s mooch cry fer little wool, like shearin’ a pig. Better be merry an’ bright.” And his little eyes shine with glee between the wrinkles that spread out from their corners as thick as hairs on a brush.
“Well, mum, we’d better be oop an’ goin’, over t’ moor from Scotlan’ ter Englan’. Theer can’t be a better sight ahead nor a worse un behin’.”
“Tha’s wha’ we say,” the woman replies, “when we see a Sassenach leavin’.”
All three laugh, and Gog and Cluckitt put on their dried clothes. As Cluckitt buttons his shirt, Gog notices that the little man has a large pouch, sewn inside the cloth and stuffed with various objects; but Gog is too busy to inquire what is in the pouch. For he turns to give the woman a pound and ask her for what food she has to spare. She would like to refuse the money, but she needs it. So she loads their pockets with loaves and shortcake and scones and cold sausages and apples, and she fills Gog’s waterbottle with cold tea, and she takes her leave with a “God bless ye.”
So Gog and Cluckitt leave for England, pretty dry and well-stocked, as the twilight begins to drop its slow summer canopy over them. The track winds gentle over the soft moorland, the peat turf is springy to their tired soles. They meet only the worried sheep, with each ewe followed by a nearly-grown lamb, still trying to suckle whenever its mother stops to chew the grass and practically upending her in its push after her udder, since it is nearly her size and too large to scramble beneath her belly. The ewes, indeed, have such fierce horns curling about their black cheeks that they could throw Cluckitt with one flick; but they always turn tail and run, rather than toss the little man over their backs for good luck. From the ridge of the Larriston Fells, Gog and Cluckitt see the long valley of Liddesdale saunter beneath in soft greens and browns; only a hidden train disturbs the smooth contours of the flattened hills beyond with its poplar of smoke. The track winds on over the saddle of the fells between bile-green moss on quaking bogs. Fern crawls over the brown marsh on curling feet, sundew stretches up its sticky spades covered with hair to trap insects in its lime, and a single butterwort here and there holds up one purple flower on a long frail stalk in disdain at the soft mess beneath.
Where the peat is cut by the deep channel of a burn, Gog and Cluckitt find a decaying stone bridge overgrown by moss and cotton grass. They cannot understand the use of so much labour on an empty track, until they reach a stone pedestal slap by the barbed wire strand that marks the boundary between Scotland and England at Bloody Bush. Ahead, the track wanders sandily down into Northumberland. Cluckitt explains that this is an old raiders’ route, which the Border thieves knew was good for rieving cattle and sheep. Then the Union came and the enclosures; and the new owners seized the route over common land and built bridges and put up their sign, telling all men that this improved road was the property of a Bart and an Esquire, who charged:
1st For horses employed in leading coals: 2d each
2nd All other horses: 3 do
3rd Cattle: 1 do
4th Sheep Calves Swine: 1/4d
N.B. Persons evading or refusing to pay at the above-mentioned toll gate will be prosecuted for trespass.
Gog spits to see the sign, and says, “I’d like to tear that down. There’s no damn right to charge a toll on a road and there never was. A road’s open to everyone to wander on. Who cares what it cost to build? Once it’s there, it’s for us all.”
“T’road’s open now,” Cluckitt says, “wha’s left o’ it. No coals pass heer, nor sheep nor cattle, other ’n aboot theer own business, not man’s. Just a few stray men pass an’ precious few o’ them. Thoo payit a toll long ago ter pass along t’road an’ another toll ter pass back; but that owld toll-keeper, he’s payit his toll ter death but oonce an’ he’s not passin’ back. Wha’ matter private stooff now, when death’s always pooblic, for all? Why bother thesel’? Time’ll turn t’road back inter a track an’ t’ track inter moor agen. Only time. It doon’t need no help from thee. It’ll swallow thee oop, but it’ll never let thee doon, ’cos it’ll swallow oop tha enemies too.”
“I’d still like to tear that toll-marker down,” Gog says. “If I had a pick-axe . . .”
“Dreem thoo hast,” Cluckitt says. “Let’s find a spot ter kip an’ thoo can dreem thoo tore doon t’ marker. An’ if thoo dreem well, thoo’ll ha’ done it – if thoo doon’t pass this way agen ter see thoo hasn’t. ’Cos a good dreem after a while’s better ’n a bad fact, like luv’s better ’n a missus.”
So they proceed on down the sandy road towards Keildar. Soon they come to little spruce trees planted in midget groves on either side of the track. The road seems downhill all the way, as though to tempt travellers on to insidious England. When blackness begins to fall and the moon rises with a halo about its shaved circle, they find an empty woodsman’s hut by the Akenshaw burn. It is used to store birch brooms for beating out forest fires. Memories of past floggings in some dark schoolroom of some flagellant public school switch at the bare places in Gog’s mind, but he cannot remember names or places, only the spread hot pain of the birch twigs against his rump and the choking flush of his face bent down to the floor to stretch his trousers tight against his buttocks and the crackle of snapping twigs spurting across the floor and the switch of the birch ascending and the dreadful pause while he waits for it to slash down again to the count, “One, two, three, four, five, six! That’s it. Don’t do it again.”
But these present birches made a good bed, when padded by heather plucked from outside the door. And the burn all night singeth her quiet tune as she mumbleth sweetly along and lulleth them with the sleep of angels, until the frogs croak in the moon and disturb the sleepers with the harsh notes of mortality.
IX
In the morning, Gog and Cluckitt are woken by the sound of foresters whistling on their way to work. They skulk in the hut until the foresters are gone, then they creep out onto the track. And once they are out, their lungs feel the nibble of the milk teeth of the morning, still soft and white with a slight mist near the burn, but the sky overhead already clear and sharp and sporting cheeks of clouds. They cut up over a hill away from the burn which loops towards the west. All is damp and soft in the spruce-pierced hills. There is no noise as they move, until Gog could almost scream from expecting a roar to shatter the yawning absence of sound.
When they reach the crest of the hill, the trees stop short at a stone wall; beyond is a plateau of grass, where black bullocks graze. Gog and Cluckitt walk across the plateau, with Cluckitt dropping his old head towards his left shoulder and looking cockeye at the cruddled clouds, cheeky and fleecy against the blue of the morning. “Henscrattins,” he says and spits. Then he wags his finger at a sea-gull, which has the nerve to alight near him and give him a beaky stare from a similarly cocked head.
“Sea-moo, sea-moo, bide on t’ san’,
Theer’s never good weather when thoo’s on t’ lan’.”
Gog stops and drops his pack on th
e dewy grass and sits on it, looking down towards the Tyne lying silver and winding beneath. Beyond the moorland rushes, spruce hills as shallow as billows roll down past meadows and copses to the gravelled banks of the river. Then up again past Tyne, the frozen sea of the fells stretches, broken only by the finny ridges of firs planted as windbreaks. In the bright and cool and quiet of the morning, Gog hears the racket of the blood pulsing in his ears. The vacuum of sound on the moor makes the intolerable din of the workings of his body audible for the first time. The pump of his bloodstream thumps on each nerve, needles prick at the wound on his temple, until Gog opens his mouth to scream. Then a curlew complains to find the air so thin and the slight noise turns Gog’s ears outward to hear the interminable protest of all living things rather than the complaint of his inner flesh. And a small wind begins to bend and rustle the coarse grasses of the moor, making enough of a soughing to encourage Gog to add the sound of his own breath and speech.
“Tell me, Cluckitt,” Gog says, “why do the British always talk about the weather?”
“They live unner it,” Cluckitt replies, grinning. “We’re not in t’mole coontry yet.” He wets his finger and holds it up against the wind. “A sly day. Theer’s bone in it.”
“I think I read once, I can’t quite remember . . .”
“Read?” Cluckitt sniffs. “Theer’s muckle burrit in bad books ter deep ter get at.”
“I think I read once,” Gog repeats, “someone writing that only a man in a mine or a dungeon could be ignorant of the weather. So it’s not worth talking about.”
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