Mr Fossett put the palms of his hands flat on the table before him and surveyed the five of them for a moment before he said, "Yes, I've made up me mind, an' being churchwarden "tis me duty as I see it to carry it out."
"And what are you gona carry out?" Tom Pearson asked.
The churchwarden's head swung from side to side before he answered, "Just the fact that the parson will have to put a stop to her gallop, he'll tell her she must behave or else... ."
"Or else what?"
"Well"--again Mr Fossett's head was wagging
--"we can't have disgrace brought on the church, an"
his wife acting like a light woman can bring nothin' but disgrace on the church."
"You're right. You're right." His supporters nodded confirmation of this; then simultaneously they rose and the meeting was at an end... .
Outside in the churchyard they dispersed to go their separate ways, with the exception of Burk Laudimer and Andy Fairweather. As if of one mind they both stood looking up into the darkening sky, then they turned together and walked down by the side of the church and, cutting across between the gravestones, made for a small gate in the low stone wall that surrounded the cemetery. But before going through it, Burk Laudimer came to a stop and, looking at his companion, said under his breath, "Do you remember the tale of old Cissy Clackett?"
"Cissy Clackett? ... You mean Cissy Clackett over there?" He pointed to the right of him where the tall grass was almost obliterating the small headstones.
"Aye, that Cissy Clackett." Burk Laudimer now turned from the gate and made his way into the long grass until he came to a side wall close to which was a headstone so green with moss that the inscription on it was almost obliterated, and he turned to Andy Fairweather and, his words slow and low, he said, "She was buried seventeen twenty-four and as the story goes she just escaped being burnt, they had stopped doing them then. But now, listen here"--he now bent his head close to that of Andy Fairweather--
"Old Annie Trotter was a Page before she married, wasn't she?"
"I don't know."
"Well, she was; and you should know "cos you've lived in the village as long as me, and your people afore you. Anyway, the Pages took their names from the male side, didn't they, but on the female side they were
the Clacketts and they went back right to old Cissy here." He now went to clap his hand on top of the headstone but stopped suddenly as if in fear, and he rubbed his palm up and down his thigh again before he went on, "This thing runs right through families, the female side-always the female side--and from all the evidence we've heard the night, an"
what I've suspected for a long time, young Tilly Trotter's picked up the thread."
"Eeh! Well, "tis a funny thing to say, Burk."
"'Tis true, these things run in families, like boss eyes and harelips."
"Aye, I've got to agree with you there; aye, you're right there."
They both turned now and made their way back to the gate, through it and into a sunken road that led down into the village.
Presently Burk Laudimer said, "Gona call in?"
Andy Fairweather hesitated, saying now, "Oh, I don't know the night; I'm not feelin" too clever, heavy tea I think."
"Aw, come on, a mug of Bessie's brew will cure that."
"I don't think we should, Burk. If Fossett gets to hear about it he won't like it."
"Damn Fossett I say! I do what I like in me own time. I pay me respects on Sunday, I do me duty, but there's nobody goin'
to stop me wettin' me whistle when I want to."
Andy Fairweather lowered his head for a moment, then gave a shaky laugh and turned with Burk Laudimer round the curve of the narrow street where the houses seemed to bow to each other from each side of the road and into an open square in the middle of which was a round of rough grass, and at the centre of this a flat stone measuring about six foot square.
On the far side of the green was a row of cottages sitting well back and fronted by small gardens, and on the near side, that to which the two men were now making their way, was a crescent of what appeared to be workshops. The end one gave evidence of being the blacksmith's shop by the faint glow coming through the open doorway. The wheelwright's next door was distinguished by its swinging board with its trade-mark painted on it. A space divided it from the baker's shop, and another opening beyond the baker's provided space for the vehicles belonging to the patrons of the inn. Beyond the inn were two cottages, stone-faced and sturdy looking, one occupied by the cobbler, the other by a breeches maker who was also a hosier, for he could knit stockings as well as any woman, better in fact some said. But then of course he wasn't really a man, having been stunted in his youth and only four foot
in height. The grocer's shop took up the space of two cottages, and it needed every inch because with the exception of meat, it sold most things necessary to the village life.
The crescent now straggled away in an untidy end covered by a row of small cottages which housed the drover, who was also the mole catcher, the thatcher whose wife was the district midwife, and also the families of Andy Fairweather, George Knight, Tom Pearson, Burk Laudimer and lastly the McGraths.
Mr Septimus Fossett, as behoved his standing in the church and the fact that he owned the draper's shop on the outskirts of Harton village, had a house fifty yards away. It possessed all of five rooms and had wooden floors, even in the kitchen. Moreover, the railings on the south side of his back garden touched on the grounds of the first of the gentlemen's residences which led towards Harton village, then on to Westoe village. But unfortunately and irritatingly so, its back windows looked on to the row of cottages lying down in the valley below. These were the habitations of Rosier's mine-workers.
As Burk Laudimer and Andy Fairweather entered the inn it was the adult section of the McGrath family that their eyes encountered, for Big Bill the father, Hal, and Mick were seated side by side on an oak settle that ran at right angles to one side of the deep based open fire, and opposite them on a similar settle sat four men, two being middle-aged and two decidedly old-aged. It was the elder of the latter, Charlie Stevenson, now turned eighty, who, wiping his ale dripping unkempt moustache with the back of his hand looked towards the newcomers and croaked, "Hie! there, Burk."
"Hello, Charlie." Burk Laudimer nodded at the old man, then at his companion, saying,
"Evenin', Peg-Leg," and the man with the rough crutch by his side grinned at him toothlessly and bounced his head two or three times but made no reply.
It was towards the younger of the other two men that Andy Fairweather spoke, saying, "Why, Billy, don't often see you round here," and Billy Fogget, the carrier, replied, "Visitin' me sister, Andy, visitin' me sister."
"Who's lookin' after your cart?"
"Oh, me lad is for the next few days, he's got to learn."
When Bessie Bradshaw now called from behind the rough counter "What's it to be?" Laudimer and Fairweather looked at each other; then it was Andy Fairweather who said, "Mild."
Having pulled two stools from under a rough table, they brought
them to the front of the fire, placing them between the settles, and the conversation became general, in the course of which most of the attention was given to the carrier for he travelled places and knew about goings on.
He told them about taking cart loads of folk up to the New Theatre in Newcastle that had just been opened; that he only charged half as much as they would have paid by coach, but that they paid extra when it was raining for then he supplied covers for them, penny for sacks, tuppence for oilcloth. He told them he had spoken to people who had been to London and had glimpsed royalty; and when he told them he was in Newcastle on June 21/ when news had come in that the King was dead and that the young Princess Victoria was now Queen, the four men on the settle sat open-mouthed.
The three McGrath men, too, seemed interested, because Fogget, being a natural story-teller, had the art of holding his audience; that was until Peg-Leg Dickens, speaking for the fi
rst time, said, "Wonderful thing "tis to travel. Me, I travelled world till I got this." He patted the stump of his leg. "But now times
're different, nowt happens here, one day like t'other, nowt happens here."
He was shaking his head as Billy Fogget's companion Joe Rowlands, who was the hedger and ditcher, put in on a grunt of a laugh, "Aa wouldn't say that. It all depends what you're after for amusement; aye, it does. I get mine. Things I see nobody'd believe"--he nodded now towards Burk Laudimer--"but Dick and Bessie there." He turned his head to include the host and hostess now. "They know 'tis right, don't you, Bessie? Don't you, Dick?"
"About Sopwith?" Bessie Bradshaw heaved up her flagging breasts with her forearms, then laughed and said, "Put nowt past the gentry. Never put nowt past the gentry. As for the new 'un, she's a flyer if I ever saw one. Went past here like the divil in a gale of wind yesterday. Thinks she owns the country that one, an" not in it five minutes."
"What's this all about?" Andy Fairweather now looked at Joe Rowlands who, sensing he had the attention of the company, appeared in no hurry to explain further. Taking a long drink from his mug, he then wiped each side of his mouth with his knuckles before directing his gaze down to the floor. And there he let it remain for some seconds; then slowly raising his head he looked around the company from under his brows before saying, "I see things on me travels, I see things you'd never believe. First time you see
"em you think you're mistaken, but not second time.
No, not second time."
"Well, go on, go on, you're lettin" it drip like treacle in the workhouse."
There was a guffawing now at Burk Laudimer's remark and old Charlie Stevenson spluttered,
"Aye, go on, go on, Joe, it's spice you've got in your gob I can tell, I can tell, so spit it out, man, spit it out."
Joe Rowlands was laughing now at the old man.
Nodding his head towards him, he said, "Aye, spice. Aye, spice, Charlie, 'twas spice all right. Well--" his eyes again travelled round the company and, his voice dropping now, he brought them into the circle of expectation by beginning, "It was on this night, the night that this village won't forget, Farmer Bentwood's wedding, you mind ...
what's been said about it, an' the divil's fagarties that took place. Well, I see some of what happens but only at the end of it. I heard the shoutin' an' the bashin' from a distance. I was takin'
a short cut over from Lord Redhead's place, you know where our Fanny's man works on the estate, an' he had a bit of something for me"--he nodded and winked knowingly--"'twas in the shape of a bird, you understand." He pressed his lips together for a moment.
"So there I was comin' back pathways, never expecting to meet anybody "cos I was goin"
to drop down into Billings Flat. Anyway, there was this hullabaloo, an' me with what I had with me, well, I didn't want to show me face. I stayed up top of bank. There's rough ground there, you know round top of Billings Flat." He was nodding to each one in turn now. "I couldn't hear exactly what was going on but it was a rumpus right enough an'
voices shouting and horses gallopin'. Then things went quiet and I was just about to get up and continue on me way when I hear the sound of horses coming towards me, and so I lay doggo and there who did I see, eh? Who did I see?" He paused, but no one broke the silence. "Mr Sopwith himseP. An'
who was with him? The new lady from Dean House, Lady Myton." He paused again. "Now there they were right in front of me, an' I could see them plain from where I was lying atween two boulders.
He said something to her which I couldn't catch; then as if he were picking up a sack of corn he had her off her feet and on her back. But it was no rapin'
"cos God she was willin". Aye, God!
I'll say that for him, she was willin'."
There was silence in the room now; then for the first time one of the McGrath men spoke. It was Hal. His voice quiet, soft and flat, he said, "You sure of this?"
The insult to his integrity brought Joe Rowlands to his feet and he barked at Hal McGrath, crying, "I'm not a bloody liar! What do you think I've been tellin' you, you think I made it up?"
"No, no"--Hal McGrath's voice was quiet, even pacifying--"only it's a night of tales goin' round." He cast his glance towards the carrier.
"Tis no tale," Joe Rowlands interrupted him. "'Twas as I said, I could hardly believe me eyes the first time but when I came across it again then there was no mistakin'. No, it was no raistakin'.
They passed me on the road they did with never a glance in my direction. I touched me cap but neither of them seemed to see me. I was in the ditch when they passed, but happenin' to go up the bank a few minutes later I saw them cutting up on to the fells an' it struck me where they were makin' for, the same place again. Well, I couldn't beat them to it an' get there afore they did "cos it was a good half mile away an" there were three stone walls to jump, an' me jumping days are over. But what I did do was to skitter up through Fletcher's Copse and up to the mound near Trotter's cottage, and from there if I couldn't see exactly what they were up to I could tell the time of their goin' in and their comin' out. Well, from the time they reached the outcrop to the time they came out of it was a full half-hour, and as I guessed they didn't go out the way they came in, but they came out t'other end.
They were a good way off from the mound but I could see them clearly although they were protected on each side by trees, and their parting was not "Good-bye, Mr Sopwith." "Good-bye, Lady Myton," for she was hanging on to him like a bitch in heat and he was over her likewise. So there it is, the truth."
He looked full at Hal McGrath, who said, "Well! well! Aye, as you said, Joe, the things what happen round here, it isn't as quiet as you think."
"No, you're right there." Burk Laudimer was nodding in his direction now, and not to be outdone in the tale-telling he said solemnly, "Things happen in the open and beyond closed doors, which is the worse I wouldn't know. Andy and I here have just come from a meetin'
in the vestry, an important meetin', and the result could have percussions on this village. Aye yes; yes, indeed."
"What kind of percussions?" Dick Bradshaw's voice came from behind the bar and his mind they all knew was linking the percussions with business, and Burk Laudimer, looking towards him, said smarmily, "Oh, it wouldn't affect you, Dick, it wouldn't affect you. But the vicarage it would. Aye, yes, it would that, the vicarage."
"The vicarage?"
"Aye, the vicarage."
"The vicarage?"
The question came from different throats now, then Peg-Leg Dickens said, "What's wrong with parson then?"
""Tisn't parson, Peg-Leg, 'tisn't parson, 'tis his wife."
"His wife?"
"Aye." He nodded at him; then bending forward and his voice dropping a number of tones, he murmured, "She and that young Tilly Trotter up to larks in the vestry."
"Up to larks?" The carrier's round eyes were bright, his face was poked forward. He looked from one to the other; then his gaze resting on the three McGrath men sitting straight and silent, he laughed as he repeated, "Up to larks?" expecting them to join in his amusement. However, they neither smiled nor moved but waited for Burk Laudimer to continue, and he did.
"Dancin" they've been, dancin' together, then: skirts almost up to their thighs, kickin' their legs up."
There was a murmur of "Never! never! not parson's wife."
"Aye, parson's wife." His voice was louder now. "But I don't blame parson's wife, no, no, "tis young Trotter that I blame, as has been mentioned by Joe there. There was divil's fagarties to play on Farmer Bentwood's weddin" night, weren't there, but who started it?" He now turned his head and looked at Hal McGrath and said, "No blame attached to you, Hal; no, no, courtin's courtin' all the world over, an' as you said you tried to do it honest with her
"cos she had led you on; if she hadn't asked for it you wouldn't have attempted to give her it, would you now? No, no; so no blame's attached to you. And for Sopwith to sack you, 'twas a bloody shame,
You're best off without her. Aye, I'd say,
'cos I was just pointin" out to Andy here back in the cemetery that old tombstone of Cissy Clackett, you know. Remember Cissy Clackett?" His head was again bobbing from one to the other; and the bobs were being returned, particularly from the two old men. "Well, she comes from that stock, young Trotter does. An' the thread runs strong in the female. As I said an' all back there in the vestry, it's a pity the stocks are not in use no more. Aye, it is that, for I'd put her in meself, I would that. An' as I was sayin' to Andy here an'
all, there was Pete Gladwish's dog. That was a funny business now, wasn't it? Eh, wasn't it?"
When a silence fell on the room again, Big Bill McGrath turned his head slowly towards the counter and said quietly, "Fill "em up all round, Bessie, small 'uns."
"Good, good. Oh, that's kind of you, Bill."
They all stirred on their
seats.
"Aye, aye, 'tis."
After half pints of ale were distributed among the men the conversation flagged somewhat, but when Burk Laudimer and Andy Fairweather rose to take their leave, the three McGrath men rose too, saying it was time for them to hit the road, and they all went out into the dark night together. They did not, however, immediately make their ways to their respective homes, but stood outside the inn talking for quite some time.
Parson Ross was only thirty-five years old but his slightly stooped shoulders, long face, and thinning hair made him appear a man in his middle forties. He was tall and thin, and usually had a sallow complexion, but at this moment his skin was suffused to a dull red, and his wide straight lips trembled slightly as he pressed them together, at the same time shaking his head as he looked at his wife.
Ellen Ross at twenty-six was what could be called petite. She hardly reached her husband's shoulder. Her hair was light brown, her eyes a startling clear blue; her manner and speech were quick and when she talked she had the habit of moving her hands, each gesture seeming to add emphasis to her words, as they did now. "They are spiteful, those men are spiteful. I've never liked them from the first. And churchwarden or no churchwarden, Mr Fossett's an old granny. As for the wheelwright, well!" She grimaced and threw her arms wide as if pressing something away to each side of her.
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