by Sara Fraser
‘’Tweren’t nothing, lass.’ The man’s simplicity was embarrassed by her gratitude. ‘Soon as he ’eard us coming through the door, he let go on you.’ He shook his head with reluctant admiration. ‘Ahr he’s an artful bugger, is old Hellfire. He said as ’ow he was just agoin’ to gi’ you a whipping acorse you’d bin gooing wi’ that Frenchie. O’ course me and Fat Thomas both rackoned that if we hadn’t come when we did, then the bugger would ha’ done for you. But there’s no way o’ proving it, is there?’
‘No,’ Sarah agreed. ‘But he’ll not get an opportunity to try again. I’ll make sure of that.’ She sat up and swung her legs to the floor. ‘I’ll not detain you further, Master Binns,’ she said quietly. ‘And once more I give you my heartfelt thanks. Tell me, at what hour will my father be released?’
The carter pondered the question, rubbing his hand on his bristled chin. ‘Well, Fat Thomas doon’t loike to rise too early from his bed, so I should rackon he’ll let Hellfire out at about nine in the morn . . . ’Ull you be all right now, lass?’
‘I’m very well.’ Sarah smiled at the man.
‘’Ud you loike me to fetch the doctor to have a look at you?’
‘No, Master Binns, I’m truly recovered, I thank you. I shall manage very well.’
‘Ahr! All right then. If you’m sure you’re all right, I’ll be getting on home. Me old ’ooman starts thinking I’m a laying drunk in the ditch if I arn’t home about this toime.’
He left Sarah alone in the room and she listened to the rumble of his cartwheels fade to silence before she moved from her seat on the bed. She wasted no time in beginning a search of the living quarters. An hour later, Sarah was forced to admit defeat. Her father had left no money or valuables for her to find.
‘That crafty old devil.’
She threw the stripped covers back on his plank bed and sat down on it to decide what to do.
‘I cannot go anywhere without money,’ she realized, and then the memory of Turpin Wright’s words came to her. The old squire’s grave! Something of value was buried in the old squire’s grave!
A wave of apprehension threatened to discourage her. She would be committing a terrible sin, it was sacrilege to disturb the sleep of death. She fought to overcome her fears and scruples, and gradually a determination to do whatever was necessary to get far away from the father she now knew was a madman, steeled her mind and nerves. From her cubicle she took a canvas sack and in its capacious folds placed her toilet articles wrapped up in a spare dress. The only other things she took with her from the smithy were a shuttered lantern and a triangular-bladed, long-staved shovel.
The wind had risen high and rain fell steadily. In the churchyard of St John Baptist, the branches of the ancient yew trees creaked and rustled eerily before the buffeting of the wind, and an impenetrable darkness hid Sarah from curious eyes. There was hardly any danger of anyone seeing her though, the weather had driven any late revellers indoors and the town seemed abandoned by all living things.
Once among the graves in the churchyard, Sarah lifted the shutter of the lantern and by the lance of light it poured out, she found the grave mound she sought. She closed the shutter and in the darkness began to dig. Long years of heavy work had strengthened Sarah’s body and built into her muscles a great endurance. She worked rapidly and well, handling the shovel with a dexterity and ease to equal a good many men. The piles of earth heightened and spread. The rain, still falling, made the earth soft and soggy, and soaked through her dress. It gathered in the thickness of her hair, causing its hanging strands to stick to her neck, and moisture trickled down her forehead and cheeks, mingling with the salt sweat that the mauling work caused to flow freely. Deeper and deeper she went, finding nothing but earth, clay, and stones until finally she drove the metal edge of the shovel down and felt it thump with hollow dullness against wood. She leant against the side of the deep hole, feeling nauseated.
‘It must be inside the coffin,’ she thought, and despite the heat of her body, she shivered violently. ‘Dear God forgive me for what I’m doing,’ she prayed silently. ‘Forgive me, I beg of you.’
Summoning all her courage, she cleared the earth from the top of the coffin and placed the lantern with its shutter opened, so that she could see clearly. She lifted the shovel and with all her strength drove it down. The wood, half-rotted by long years in the damp earth, jarred and cracked with an unnerving drum-like sound and a stench of corruption erupted from its interior. Sobs dribbled from Sarah’s lips and she pressed against the clay sides of the grave, moulding her body to its wetness until she had regained some control over her mounting fear. Into her mind’s eye there swam the murderous face of George Jenkins and she seemed to see in the darkness above her, the trickle of saliva sliming his black whiskers and hear once more the reading from the Testaments that he had given her.
‘No!’ she panted aloud. ‘No, I’ll not be here tomorrow, he’ll not catch me.’
In sudden resolve, she lifted the shovel again and again, driving down blow after blow, until the wood splintered and holes gaped. She dropped the shovel and with both hands tore at the gaps, hurling the strips of wood over her shoulders. As she tore the last hanging piece free, the lantern suddenly tilted as the earth beneath it slipped and the light shone fully into the hole she had made. Sarah’s muddy, blood-streaked hands crushed against her mouth forcing back the screams which came wrenching from deep in her chest. A rotting, snag-toothed, eyeless skull grinned up in hideous delight at her horror. She bit back the screams and looked close into the coffin.
On each side of the skull, metal gleamed dully. Platters, spoons, goblets, knives, bowls . . . with the stench of ancient death filling her throat, and with her stomach heaving and retching, Sarah snatched at the silver, cramming it into the open bag that lay at the grave’s edge. As soon as she had cleared the objects surrounding the skull, she scrambled out of the grave and snatching up the bag, began to run.
She ran and ran until it seemed that her lungs would burst in her chest and her legs were a torment of anguished flesh . . . then flopped to the ground and rolled over on to her back to face the sky, arms outstretched and palms opened in supplication. The rain lashed across her body and Sarah surrendered in utter thankfulness. Letting its chill freshness wash the blood and mud from her hands, gratefully she opened her lips so that it could obliterate the vile taste of the grave from her mouth and clean it from her nostrils.
Chapter Ten
Jethro Stanton and Turpin Wright spent a cold wet night deep in the ancient heart of the Clun Forest. Piles of dead leaves and armfuls of ferns made a comfortless bed for an hour or two, and before daylight came they went on southwards, following the winding foresters’ tracks through the almost impenetrable woodlands. At dawn they came to the swift-running River Clun and, stripping off their clothing and rolling it into bundles, they plunged across the icy flow. Emerging with teeth chattering and skin blue with cold, they dressed and went on. The blood-heat engendered by their hard travelling quickly dried the wetness of their bodies and supplied the stiff muscles of legs and torso.
When naked, Jethro had seen that Turpin Wright’s back and shoulders were criss-crossed with welts of scar tissue that corrugated the white skin like coarse darned threads. When they paused at the top of a slope to catch their breath the young man said.
‘I see you’re no stranger to the lash, Turpin.’
The convict bared his broken brown stubs of teeth savagely. ‘Have you sighted such a badge afore then, cully? On your own dad’s back maybe?’
Jethro’s memory flew back across the years to a day when, as a small boy, he had watched cavalry troopers of the King’s German Legion tear the flesh from his father’s back with their cat o’ nine tails until the ivory of living bone could be glimpsed beneath the red curtain of blood and tattered flesh. He nodded grimly.
‘Yes, Turpin, my father carried such a badge on his body . . . And what was worse, he carried it on his soul.’
‘You’m right theer, matey,’ the other’s hard leathery face was bitter to match his tone. ‘When I first met your dad, he told me summat of Ely. Peter was a captain o’ the Luddites when I met him; and I become the same arter talking wi’ him.’
‘You?’ Jethro was incredulous.
‘Yes, cully. Me! Old Turpin Wright, the biggest rogue that’s ever worn holes in his britches’ arse . . . It was up in Nottingham I was, doing a bit o’ the Low Toby for me rhino . . .’ He noticed the puzzlement in Jethro’s eyes and explained. ‘That means I was a footpad, knocking coves on their heads and stripping ’um . . . Still, never mind about that now. I met your dad in a beer-ken and we got talkin’. He mentioned that he was a needle-pointer in Redditch town and I told ’im as how I was an old pointer lad years ago . . . To cut the story short, me and him hit it off together. Ahr, he was a fine man, your dad was, Jethro, and a great one as well. Because o’ what he said to me, I joined the Army o’ Redressers . . . Ahr!’ He shook his head and smiled reminiscently. ‘They was brave days for a bit, I’ll tell you . . . We thought we was agoing to change the world and make it fit for men to live in. Even bad buggers like me ’ud be able to change their ways and make an honest living. God rot my balls!’ He cursed in sudden disgust. ‘The government spies and the soddin’ yeomanry cavalry soon changed our ideas about that, blast their black hearts!’ His voice became touched with a note of sad regret. ‘So old Turpin takes to the flash ways agen, and if it ’adn’t bin for you matey, I’d have bin dangling at the crossroads in an iron suit wi’ the birds feeding orf me this very minute . . . Come on, lad, let’s move on our way.’
Late afternoon found them miles beyond the forest boundary and deep into the forbidding valleys of the Black Mountains. They had kept away from the places where men dwelt; the villages and hamlets whose musical-sounding names, Bettws y crwn, Beguildy, Duthlas, might in happier days have drawn Jethro to visit them. They had crossed the steep-banked Teme river by riding astraddle an old log. The stark crest of Beacon Hill, framed against the cloud-heavy skies, frowned down at them as they hurried over its western slopes; and when they entered the narrow valleys, the wind rose and was channelled by the bare mountains so that it buffeted against their faces and tugged at their garments as if it would tear the protecting cloth from their bodies. They met no one and saw only kestrel hawks, and black carrion crows which swooped fiercely cawing outrage and defiance at these unwelcome trespassers.
Jethro’s breath came in short gasps and his legs ached from forcing his heavy boots through the tussocks of marsh grass on the valley floor. Unlike the hill heather, this did not surrender easily to the thrust of strong muscles, but tangled its rank-smelling roots around the feet and calves of the travellers and fought tenaciously to deny them passage. A red film began to form at the edge of Jethro’s vision and his exhausted body threatened to come to a halt, despite his mind’s determination to go on. Suddenly, without warning, Turpin Wright’s iron physique abruptly failed him, and he tumbled face downwards on the soggy grass.
‘I’m done, Jethro! I’m done!’ he gasped out.
The young man knelt beside him. ‘We must find food and shelter,’ he panted. ‘This damned wind would beat giants to their knees.’
He passed his hand across his eyes, wiping the sight-blurring wind tears from them. Even as his vision cleared, he felt the first spatter of raindrops come hurtling against his face, propelled like bullets by the hammering gusts of the gale.
‘Goddam it!’ he exclaimed. ‘We really will be finished if we stop here.’
He got to his feet and peered forward in the rapidly deepening gloom, searching for some sort of shelter. He felt a growing anxiety. The air had become bitterly cold and the rain would soak through their sparse clothing in minutes. Jethro knew that this combination of elements could mean the death of both of them from exposure in this bleak hostile land. He bent and helped Turpin Wright to clamber up.
‘Come on Turpin,’ he urged. ‘We must find shelter. We must!’
Half-pulling, half-carrying the older man, Jethro battled along the valley against an onslaught by wind and rain that seemed bent on giving both men to these cruel mountains as a sacrifice.
It seemed an eternity had elapsed when Jethro stumbled into a low stone wall fashioned, in the manner of the hill people, of flat rocks cunningly interwoven without mortar or binding. Beyond the wall, the ground had been cleared and in one corner was a lopsided fabrication of wood and rock. Jethro climbed over the wall and, exerting his remaining strength, he dragged Turpin with him. When they neared the man-made object, Jethro saw dimly the pale huddle of a flock of sheep packed under its low roof. He felt like sobbing in relief.
‘It’s a sheep-fold, Turpin,’ he shouted. ‘We’re safe now.’ The wind, as if understanding him, redoubled its fury and hurled great sheets of sleet and rain at the staggering men. Jethro and Turpin pushed in amongst the woolly acridity of the animals which, after some plaintive bleating, seemed to accept that these humans had not come to harm them, but only to share their life-giving warmth.
‘Let’s rest here, Jethro . . . Please let’s stay here and rest.’
Turpin Wright’s voice sounded old and utterly weary.
Jethro felt a rush of compassion for this convict, who for all his brave spirit and toughness was, by comparison with himself, an elderly man.
‘Don’t worry, friend,’ he answered. ‘We’ll stay here . . . We’ll not move any farther this night.’
They lay full-length amongst the sheep and pillowing their heads on their arms, gave in to their exhaustion and slept.
*
Many hours later, just past daybreak, the sheep milling about and trampling upon their bodies roused Jethro and his friend at the same instant. They came to their knees pushing the smelly, woolly masses away from them and, crouching low under the sagging roof, forced their way to the open end of the fold.
‘It’s a bloody dog that’s disturbed them,’ Jethro called over his shoulder and swung his leg across the low gate that blocked the entrance. Immediately his foot touched the ground outside, the small black and white collie that had frightened the sheep, hurtled at Jethro and sank sharp fangs into the meat of his calf.
‘Damn and blast you!’ Jethro, astraddle the gate, was forced to endure the tearing pain until he could get clear. Then he bent and grabbed the dog by the back of its neck, using both hands and digging into the corded tendons under the rough fur with his strong fingers until the animal squealed with pain and released its grip. With all the strength of his well-muscled arms and shoulders, he flung the dog bodily from him, and it hurtled through the air to thud squirming and howling on to the turf.
‘Pwy ydech chi?’
The angry shout coming from directly behind caused Jethro to start in shock. He swung round to confront a blue-smocked, heavily-bearded man, wearing a sack over his head and shoulders as protection against the drizzling rain.
‘Pwy ydech chi? Beth ydych eisiau?’ the man shouted again and brandished the long shepherd’s crook he was carrying in threat.
‘Take it slow, Jethro.’ Turpin Wright clambered out of the fold to join him. ‘He’s speakin’ in the Welsh tongue. He wants to know who you be, and what you wants.’
The convict chuckled and winked at his friend’s expression of surprise.
‘Ahr, you didn’t know I could understand the mountain lingo, did you, cully? It’s easy explained, I used to have a woman who come from these parts, she taught me a bit on it.’ He held up both his hands placatingly at the shepherd. ‘Saeson!’ he said, pointing first to himself and then to Jethro. ‘Saeson!’
The man’s mean features scowled, and in thickly accented English, he said. ‘Oh, so it is English you are, is it? What are you wanting here?’
‘We had to take cover ’ere for the night,’ Turpin told him. ‘If we hadn’t, we’d ha’ bin dead men by now.’
‘Would you indeed!’ The shepherd was still highly suspicious. Was it offer the mountain you came
?’
Turpin nodded. ‘That’s right, Taffy.’
While Wright was talking with the man, Jethro looked about him. Above the small area of walled pastures the thick purple-brown carpet of gorse and heather billowed upwards in folds to the rounded heights of the dark green and grey-black mountains that hemmed in the narrow valley from all sides, and were now half-hidden in the early morning murk of drizzle. Beneath where they stood, a stream dashed down the steep slopes in a succession of tiny waterfalls to lose itself in the vast peat bog which covered the valley floor.
On the near bank of this stream, less than a hundred yards away, was a row of low-built turf bothies, their roofs fashioned from ancient brown canvas stretched across trimmed branches and held down by rocks and lashed cords. From one or two of the bothies, coils of grey smoke escaped upwards through the crude rock chimneys to mingle with the veils of fine mist that drifted through the breezeless air.
Even as Jethro stared at the huts, a red-cloaked bent old woman with a man’s worn-out beaver hat on her head came hurrying through one of the canvas-hung doorways and began to climb up the slope. Her cracked old voice came clearly to their ears.
‘Pwy sydd yna? Y bwytyr pechod?’
‘What’s she saying?’ Jethro asked Turpin Wright, and for reply got a sharp elbow in the ribs.
‘Keep quiet, cully! Just leave this to me.’ The devils of mischief danced in the convict’s bright blue eyes.
The wrinkled old crone reached them, her dark eyes flicking from one to the other and her long jaw almost hitting her thin hair-tufted nostrils as her toothless mouth chewed indignantly.
‘Y bwytyr pechod? Lie fuoch chi? Rydych yn hwyr!’ The words were meaningless to Jethro, but the irascibility in her voice was plain to understand.
‘That’s right, grandmother,’ the convict nodded gravely. ‘I’m the Sin-Eater . . . I know I’m late, but the storm last night made us lose ourselves.’ He spoke in English and at the sound of the alien tongue the old crone’s face filled with doubt.