travellers. I’ve had trouble with your kind before, setting up camp on land I’d cleared for a knot and making an unholy mess.’
A knot ? Wasn’t he a bit big to be a Boy Scout?
‘Look,’ I said patiently, ‘I’m not a New-Age traveller and—’
‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,’ he said rudely. ‘You’re not welcome here, so if you’re trying to scout out a good spot for the others you’d better turn right around. Tell them the car park’s locked up for the winter and patrolled by dogs, and if they come up the drive they’ll be run off!’
‘Now see here!’ I said, losing patience, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I’ve had a long journey and I’m too tired for all of this. My name is Sophy Winter and—’
‘ What! ’
He took an impetuous stride forward and I startednervously, banging my head on the top of the window frame. ‘Sophy Winter and—’
‘Good God!’ he interrupted, staring at me in something like horror, then added unexpectedly, in his deep voice with its once-familiar Lancashire accent, ‘Blessed are the New-Age travellers, for they shall inherit the earth!’
‘I’m not a New-Age traveller,’ I began crossly. ‘I keep telling you and—’
But he still wasn’t listening. With a last, muttered, ‘Behold, the end is nigh!’ he strode off without a backward look. I know, because I watched him in the wing mirror. His jeans-clad rear view was quite pleasant for a scoutmaster, but I still hoped he’d get knotted.
Chapter Five: Pleached Walks
Today to my great grief and sorrow came the news of my mother’s death and the babe with her. But I already knew the very moment of her passing: it was as if all my mother’s arts flew to mee on the moment of her quitting this earth and my eyes were opened to a terrible pre-knowledge of destiny that moved like dark shadows around mee, step for step.
From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1580
Slightly shaken, I restarted the engine and crawled up the lane between grassy banks and sad, autumnal brown hedges, feeling that this first encounter did not bode well. I only hoped he wasn’t tying knots anywhere close by…
And then it occurred to me that since he looked a bit son-of-the-soil, he could even be one of my inherited three gardeners, though maybe not. Greeting his future employer like that was hardly the way to achieving lasting job security.
A wide, gated and padlocked opening on the left declared itself to be Winter’s End visitors’ car park, well and truly shut for the winter. Opposite was a matched pair of sandstone lodges linked by an arched chamber set with a weathered shield, carved with a crest that looked exactly like a whippet with a black pudding in its mouth. Animmaculate half-moon of turf in front of each had been bordered with box hedging torturously clipped to form the words ‘WINTER’S’ on one side, and ‘END’ on the other—a strangely municipal and time-consuming labour of love that contrasted strangely with the once-splendid iron gates. For goodness’ sake! Had they never heard of wire wool and Cure-rust?
The gates were open, but, in their present state, looked more like the jaws of a trap than a welcome. I turned cautiously between them onto a drive that ran through a dark tunnel of trees, slowing to wait for my eyes to adjust after the bright autumnal sunshine.
This was a lucky move, as it turned out, because a large grey horse was advancing to meet me—if you can call it an advance when it was going backwards rather fast. I stamped on the brakes for the second time in five minutes, and the creature briefly slammed its fat rump into the front of my van before whirling round, snorting down two red, foam-flecked nostrils, its eyes wildly rolling. The rider, almost unseated, was clinging on like a monkey.
Two thoughts about the matter crossed my punch-drunk mind from opposite directions and collided in the middle. One was that the woman seemed to have no control over her mount whatsoever; and the
A knot ? Wasn’t he a bit big to be a Boy Scout?
‘Look,’ I said patiently, ‘I’m not a New-Age traveller and—’
‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,’ he said rudely. ‘You’re not welcome here, so if you’re trying to scout out a good spot for the others you’d better turn right around. Tell them the car park’s locked up for the winter and patrolled by dogs, and if they come up the drive they’ll be run off!’
‘Now see here!’ I said, losing patience, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I’ve had a long journey and I’m too tired for all of this. My name is Sophy Winter and—’
‘ What! ’
He took an impetuous stride forward and I startednervously, banging my head on the top of the window frame. ‘Sophy Winter and—’
‘Good God!’ he interrupted, staring at me in something like horror, then added unexpectedly, in his deep voice with its once-familiar Lancashire accent, ‘Blessed are the New-Age travellers, for they shall inherit the earth!’
‘I’m not a New-Age traveller,’ I began crossly. ‘I keep telling you and—’
But he still wasn’t listening. With a last, muttered, ‘Behold, the end is nigh!’ he strode off without a backward look. I know, because I watched him in the wing mirror. His jeans-clad rear view was quite pleasant for a scoutmaster, but I still hoped he’d get knotted.
Chapter Five: Pleached Walks
Today to my great grief and sorrow came the news of my mother’s death and the babe with her. But I already knew the very moment of her passing: it was as if all my mother’s arts flew to mee on the moment of her quitting this earth and my eyes were opened to a terrible pre-knowledge of destiny that moved like dark shadows around mee, step for step.
From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1580
Slightly shaken, I restarted the engine and crawled up the lane between grassy banks and sad, autumnal brown hedges, feeling that this first encounter did not bode well. I only hoped he wasn’t tying knots anywhere close by…
And then it occurred to me that since he looked a bit son-of-the-soil, he could even be one of my inherited three gardeners, though maybe not. Greeting his future employer like that was hardly the way to achieving lasting job security.
A wide, gated and padlocked opening on the left declared itself to be Winter’s End visitors’ car park, well and truly shut for the winter. Opposite was a matched pair of sandstone lodges linked by an arched chamber set with a weathered shield, carved with a crest that looked exactly like a whippet with a black pudding in its mouth. Animmaculate half-moon of turf in front of each had been bordered with box hedging torturously clipped to form the words ‘WINTER’S’ on one side, and ‘END’ on the other—a strangely municipal and time-consuming labour of love that contrasted strangely with the once-splendid iron gates. For goodness’ sake! Had they never heard of wire wool and Cure-rust?
The gates were open, but, in their present state, looked more like the jaws of a trap than a welcome. I turned cautiously between them onto a drive that ran through a dark tunnel of trees, slowing to wait for my eyes to adjust after the bright autumnal sunshine.
This was a lucky move, as it turned out, because a large grey horse was advancing to meet me—if you can call it an advance when it was going backwards rather fast. I stamped on the brakes for the second time in five minutes, and the creature briefly slammed its fat rump into the front of my van before whirling round, snorting down two red, foam-flecked nostrils, its eyes wildly rolling. The rider, almost unseated, was clinging on like a monkey.
Two thoughts about the matter crossed my punch-drunk mind from opposite directions and collided in the middle. One was that the woman seemed to have no control over her mount whatsoever; and the
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