Strandloper

by Alan Garner

  William stared at the paper and at what had been done.

  “Well, you’ve flewen high and let in a cow clap at last,” said Grandad. “And no error.”

  William swung his feet down to the floor. “I wrote proper. I did.” “‘But when, quoth Kettle to his mare,’” said Grandad.

  William took out the pen and ink and sat at the table. He spread the paper and began to write.

  “I’ll show him. I did.”

  “Anyroad, it looks like you’ve forgotten your sick headache,” said Grandad.

  4

  GRANDAD AND WILLIAM walked up the lane to the church. The dog followed.

  “You’ve not a great lot to say for yourself.”

  “I’m feart,” said William. “I might cack me.”

  “Feart of what?” said Grandad.

  “All them words; if I can’t remember.”

  “Eh, youth! You’ve heard them every mortal Shick-Shack Day since you were that high! You’ll not forget.”

  “But standing up in front, and the vicar and that.”

  “Oh, give over.”

  “And no one ever sees churching. What must I do?”

  “I’ll be with you. You’ll be right. But if you’re not one for it, you must say. Else, it’ll be too late.”

  “For what?”

  “What you didn’t ought.”

  “But what happens?”

  “You’ll be asked three times. And if you can’t answer, that’s it.”

  “Have you been Shick-Shack?”

  “My stars and garters and little apples!” said Grandad. “Yon blob-tongue won’t be told, will he?”

  Edward Stanley was sitting by his tethered horse at the church gate. He stood as they approached. Grandad blocked the gate with his body.

  “I’ve come for the churching,” said Edward.

  “It’s not for you, nor the likes of you,” said Grandad. “Leave churching to us.”

  “God’s House is for all men,” said Edward.

  “Not today, it isn’t. Now you bugger off out.”

  “You shall not deny me,” said Edward.

  “Shall I not?”

  The dog growled, and paced towards Edward, stiff-legged, its ears flat, and front lip raised, pushing back its nose.

  Edward lifted his riding crop.

  “I don’t recommend as you try that,” said Grandad. “He’s not one for being hit.”

  The dog paced each step slowly, but without hesitating. Edward moved back.

  “I recollect he has a flavour for red meat,” said Grandad.

  Edward untethered the horse and mounted awkwardly. It was restless, and turned from the dog.

  “Go be cock on your own midden,” said Grandad.

  The horse moved sideways into the road. Edward held a short rein as its hooves scraped.

  “‘Home to thi daddy, my little laddy,’” said Grandad. The horse carried Edward away. “Beggaring allsorts. Buggering whopstraws. They’d own body and soul, if you let ’em, and still they’d know nowt.”

  Grandad and William went through the gateway and up the mound to the church. The church was a frame of timber, with a belfry and chancel; the south porch an arch of curved trunks carved. Grandad stopped at the arch and set William before him. Only then did William see that the wardens were standing on either side of the door, their dark dress blending with the dark oak, the brass of their staffs glinting in the depth of the porch.

  “Gripe, griffin, hold fast,” said Squarker Kennerley. And Grandad took hold of William by his upper arms.

  “Jack Miller asketh help to turn his mill aright,” said Tiddy Turnock. “He hath grounden small, small.”

  “The King’s Son of Heaven,” said Squarker, “He shall pay for all.”

  “With right and with might,” they both shouted, “with skill and with will; let might help right, and skill go before will, and right before might, so goeth our mill.”

  “Gripe, griffin, hold fast,” said Grandad.

  “Falseness and guile,” said Tiddy, “have reigned too long.”

  “And truth,” said Squarker, “hath been set under a lock.”

  “And falseness and guile,” said Tiddy, “reigneth in every stock.”

  “True love is away,” said Squarker, “that was so good.”

  “And clerks for wealth,” said Tiddy, “work them woe.”

  “God do bote!” they shouted. “For now is time!”

  The wardens opened the church door.

  “Shick-Shack,” said Squarker, “enter in.”

  “And when you enter on a thing,” said Tiddy, “think you, too, on its ending.”

  “Gripe, griffin, hold fast,” said Grandad, and pushed William forward into the church, firming his arms tight.

  The wardens closed the door, and led the way into the hall and forest of the church sunrising around the font and back to a window by the door. The church was quiet, except for a bee that had woken late in the warmth and was flying between the pillars, the buzz of its wings fading and returning. There was a scent in the still air, sweet, biting. Though the air was still, the scent moved with the bee, strong when it was loud, faint in the bee’s faintness.

  The wardens stopped at the window, and said:

  “Shick-Shack, oak tree,

  What dost thou see?”

  The windows of the north and south aisles were marked with flowers and leaf and seed, one in every diamond pane, two patterns to every window, and a border around. William looked.

  “Hollin – Cuckoo Bread –” There were so many he did not know. “Galligaskins –” He twisted in Grandad’s hold, and tried to tell. “Jackanapes – Devilberry – Vervey –”

  The wardens shook their heads.

  “Popple – Robin-run-in-th’Hedge –”

  “Shick-Shack, oak tree,

  What dost thou see?”

  “At side!” whispered Grandad.

  William looked at the border of the window in front of him.

  It was a gold Crown of Glory, against a brown field, with cross-hatching above and below and two small roundels of clear glass in the brown. William started to tremble. He stammered.

  “‘The strongest poison ever known

  Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.’”

  “Gripe, griffin, hold fast!” Grandad whispered.

  “But it’s what I wrote!”

  About the rim of the crown there ran a wavy line, and in each bend was a single black dot, just as William had drawn under his hand practice.

  “Shick-Shack, oak tree,

  What dost thou see?”

  “Gripe, griffin, hold fast!” whispered Grandad again. “They’ll ask thee nobbut thrice!”

  “Crown – me practice –”

  Squarker and Tiddy looked at each other. Tiddy nodded, and they chanted together:

  “Cockle-bread and green wood;

  Man of leaf and golden hood.”

  William sobbed with the fear and the strain and the not understanding.

  “Cockle-bread and green wood;

  Man of leaf and golden hood.”

  “Gripe, griffin, hold fast!”

  They willed him. And he saw.

  The pattern turned before him, so that what was in was out. The brown was a head formed from leaves of oak, the roundels closed eyes, and nose and mouth and ears the spikes of the crown.

  “It’s a man! Painted yellow! In a net!”

  “Man of leaf and golden hood.

  We mun wake him, if we could.”

  Grandad squeezed William’s arm in pleasure and moved him away from the window. The wardens crossed the church to a window of the north wall and pointed to the border.

  “Shick-Shack, oak tree,

  What dost thou see?”

  A gold Crown of Glory against a brown field, with cross-hatching above and below and two small roundels of clear glass, but with dark centres, and a line of the same circles on the rim, just as William had drawn.

  “It’s him!”
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  Again, the pattern turned, and what was in was out, but now the eyes were open, staring.

  “What’s he looking at?”

  “Thee? Mebbe?” said Squarker.

  “Each morning,” said Tiddy, “sun peeps that all’s well; and, fetching night, closes to hushabie in his eyes.”

  “Who is he?” said William.

  The buzzing was in his head, and, for a moment, as he looked into those eyes, he was of the bee and the bee was of him, and the scent stifled with its bitter fragrance.

  Squarker, Tiddy and Grandad took him back to the south door. Squarker and Tiddy stood by either post.

  “With right and with might,” they shouted. “With skill and with will. Let might help right. And skill go before will. And right before might. So goeth our mill.”

  “Jack Miller prayeth that thou makest a good end of that thou hast begun,” said Tiddy Turnock.

  “And dost better and aye better,” said Squarker Kennerley. “For, at the even, men heareth the day.”

  Grandad urged William into the porch, and the door was shut behind them. When they were past the arch of curved trunks, Grandad loosed his grip.

  “Well, youth, you said yon nominy champion. Ay. Champion. Grand as owt.”

  5

  THE DOG WAS barking on Mutlow.

  “Gyp!”

  It stood at the trees on the top of the hillock.

  “Gyp!”

  The dog heard William, but did not come to him. It barked and turned in excitement.

  “Dall thy eyes, Gyp, if you’re twitting me,” said William, and began to climb the slope. The dog leapt up to lick his face when he reached the clump of sycamores.

  “What is it, Gyp? Where’ve you been? What is it, then?” William fondled the ears, and the dog sat with its tongue hanging out, looking at him. Then it lay on the ground. William joined him, squatting on one heel, an arm on his bent knee, the other hand stroking the dog.

  “What made you so nowty with Yedart? He didn’t mean no harm. But the old youth was right. It wouldn’t have done. It puts a quietness on you, does churching. You’re frit. But, at after, it puts a quietness.”

  The dog closed its eyes. William looked out from Mutlow.

  It was not a high place, but it fell away in rolling land on every side across the parish and the plain. Hills stood all around. The chain of Shining Tor and Shutlingslow and Sutton and Cloud and Congleton Edge ended at the Old Man of Mow, and, far behind Astbury, there were hills, but he did not know their names. Mountains that his grandfather said were at Wales heaved into the distance. Then Beeston cliff, High Billinge, Delamere, and, beyond Blackden, there was a flash that he had been told was the sea; but, nearer, Mount Ship, Castle Rock and the Beacon marked the furthest he had been: never ten miles from Mutlow was all his world.

  “What’s up?”

  The dog had lifted its head and was listening. William heard nothing. The dog dropped its head again, but its brow wrinkled as the eyes watched William.

  “You daft ha’porth.” William chuckled.

  A light breeze ruffled the sycamores. The dog watched. William’s smile changed to a puzzlement. He turned to look as he caught the faint near wailing of women that had been on the before-dawn wind.

  “Now then,” he said.

  The dog sat up and looked at the tree in front of it.

  “No! Bloody no!”

  The trunk shimmered with the patterns: the split lights of the barn.

  “I said bloody no! You leave me bloody be!”

  And he ran down the bank of Mutlow, wild, arms out of control and legs stretched to the brink of falling.

  The dog stayed on the hill.

  The ground became level, and yet he stumbled, head too far forward, off balance. He blundered through a hedge, and strode a ditch and splashed through Chapel Brook before his limbs were his own again. He made himself walk, yet had to run; but, by the time he reached Tiddy Turnock’s farm, he could stop and hold on to the oak for sanctuary. No glimmering shapes would mark that rutted skin. He held the doorway of its clefts until his breath was calm, and then he entered.

  He sat on the leaves and hugged his shins. Slowly time came back to him, and he drew his hands across his eyes and down his cheeks.

  “By heck.”

  He looked up through the crown of the tree.

  “Cush, cush. Cush-a-cush.” A kestrel hovered low.

  “Cush, cush, cush. Cush-a-cush.”

  The kestrel did not move. William stood, trying not to frighten the bird.

  “Cush, cush.”

  The kestrel remained. William climbed up the slope of the inside of the tree. Where the trunk had split, the bark had grown over the lip of the gash, making a banister rail on either side.

  “Cush, cush.”

  He was inside the crown, his head framed by leaves and branches, the kestrel just above him. He reached up his wrist.

  “Cush, cush, me beauty.”

  He kept still, his hand held waiting and the kestrel only inches away. It lowered its claws: and a woman laughed nearby. The kestrel veered. The moment had passed.

  William turned around, so that he was sitting in the crown, looking into the trunk. Footsteps approached, and Edward and Esther came into the oak. They stood, each leaning against a separate portion of trunk.

  “Well, Esther.”

  “Well, Yedart.”

  “Well, Esther?”

  “Well, Yedart?”

  “You said that you had need to see me.”

  “Ay.”

  “On what account?”

  “Oh: nowt.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Well, summat and nowt.”

  “What is it you mean? What do you want of me?”

  Esther sat down.

  “Here, Yedart, and then.”

  Edward joined her in the tree.

  “So?”

  “Have you asked your father if he’ll set me on yet?” said Esther.

  “I have not had the opportunity.”

  “Oh, Yedart!”

  “He has been in Town; and is only lately back.”

  “But you said you’d speak for me!”

  “I did. And I shall.”

  “You promised.”

  “I shall speak for you. But are you not content, so close to William?”

  “I want to better meself.”

  “In what manner?” said Edward.

  “I’m fretted with farms, and me old Buckley’s whowball; moiling every hour God sends, with him blahting and blasting for me pains. I want to live in a grand house, and look after every kind of beautiful thing you can think of: old things: brass.”

  Edward laughed affectionately.

  “Yay. I do.”

  “There is but one thing that I have ever wanted,” said Edward. “Yet my father will not have it.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “The sea. To have a ship under me, and sail the oceans, and to find new worlds. To see strange stars under strange skies. To meet the Anthropophagi, Uroboros, the Laistrygones and all that’s wonderful in God’s Creation. But my father will not. I am to take Holy Orders, and he has the Living for me. My world is here.”

  Esther pulled his head over down to her breast. “Then you can set me on, if your father won’t! There’s grand stuff in a vicarage.”

  Edward nuzzled up to her, half laughing, half crying. “Oh, Esther! Oh, Het!”

  She stroked the back of his neck. “Come, Yedart, come. There. There. Would you still it were a ship under you?”

  Esther looked up into the roof of the oak, and her eyes met William’s. The set of her face froze and she held his gaze and went on stroking Edward’s neck. William did not move as the oak saved him and he entered its eternity, with the wood and the leaves and the bark, and the roots thicker than trees, until eternity was past.

  “Up with you, Yedart,” said Esther. “Enough now.”

  Edward tried to kiss her, and pushed himself away, dusted his clothe
s and left, undignified, without speaking.

  William slid down the inside of the trunk and stood over her.

  “Why did you?” he whispered. “Why?”

  “He’s a lad as is not happy,” said Esther. “And he means well: mostly.”

  “Het. Stanleys is fause as foxes.”

  “Yes, Will.”

  William lifted Esther to her feet, and they embraced.

  “As ring-tailed monkeys. Het.”

  6

  IN THE DUSK, from the glowing oak the split trunk put its shadows across the ground. The red of the centre moved more shadows against the walls of the tree. And there was laughter.

  The women of hoodman blind were on their knees about a fire of acorns: Martha, Phoebe, Matty, Betty, Ann, Sarah and Esther. The acorns were a bright hot ash, and over it was a griddle. Each woman was kneading dough, working it on a Kerridge roof slate. They giggled and laughed. Phoebe lifted her head, and sang.

  “My granny is sick and now is dead . . .”

  “My granny is sick and now is dead,” they answered.

  “And I’ll go mould my cockle-bread . . .”

  “And I’ll go mould my cockle-bread.”

  “Up with my heels, and down with my head . . .”

  “Up with my heels, and down with my head.”

  “And this is the way to mould cockle-bread!” They all sang.

  The shadows in the tree copied the words, as the chorus went out again.

  “My granny is sick and now is dead,

  And I’ll go mould my cockle-bread.

  Up with my heels, and down with my head,

  And this is the way to mould cockle-bread!”

  With each singing there was more laughing, and the shadows rolled and rose in a growing surge, faster, as the dark closed about the oak and the fire shone in the brazier of the tree.

  “We’ll do at that!”

  The song fell apart with the speed and the laughter.