HARRY LOSES HIS BOTTLE
There it came again. The hairs on Harry’s neck bristled. He stopped, listening intently. A faint rustling of foliage in the coppice and the damp drip of moisture from smooth chestnut leaves. He tried to peer through the swirl of fog. He was alone on the track; at least he thought he was. Again; there it was, a muffled cough, over in the hedgerow to his right. “Hello!” he shouted,” Who’s there?” No reply. Silence.
The fog was starting to settle in the hollows, curling and whispy as woodshavings. A faint moon tried to glimmer intermittently. His heart was hammering. Should he call again or move on? Perhaps whoever it was hadn’t heard him. Perhaps it was nothing - nothing to do with him.
He moved on.
Now he had left the warmth and mellow firelight of the pub he realised that he still had miles to go. He’d come a few already - up from the farm at Little Goldwell where he was laying a new oak floor. It had been a long day, he was tired and his back ached. The evening had been drawing in and home was some distance away even though he had taken the short cut across the fields.
Now it was late. What time was it? He’d lost track. How long ago had he left The Black Dog? He had allowed himself to be enticed by the lighted windows and a warm seat on the fireside settle. No, not just that, if he was honest. It was the lure of a pint, the deep warm tone glinting through the glass, the first sup of the bitter brew through the head of froth, tantalising his taste buds, sliding cool and soothing down his gullet. And time had passed. He had lingered in the warmth and the amiable company. After all, he’d earned it, hadn’t he? An honest day’s work, up since cockcrow - what else was there for a working man at the end of the day? Just a crowded cottage crammed with too many mouths to feed. So he’d stayed and filled his glass again – and again. And now he rued it.
He trudged on, glad he hadn’t got his handcart to slow him down. Tomorrow he had to go back to finish the job so he’d left his tools. Tomorrow he had all this to do again. Tomorrow would be much like today.
It seemed to be taking a long time to pass the wood. Shouldn’t he have passed the gate by now? That old familiar gate into the chestnut coppice. He knew these woods and fields like the back of his hand, didn’t he? Well, he thought he did. Knew them man and boy for nigh on forty years, he could have boasted. But something didn’t feel right. It was confusing; and that confusion was tinged with unease, with fear even. The fog was disorientating him. Yes, that was it – it was just the fog. It was playing tricks on him.
“You daft old fool”, he thought, and imagined how William and Walter would laugh at him, just like they used to when they were lads. A fleeting memory of his brothers in the pear tree at Minden flashed into his mind – the jeering faces outside the bedroom window when he was trying to practise the violin. How he’d struggled and how they had belittled his efforts. How much anger he could still mine from the depths of memory at this injustice, even after all these years! Just teasing, they would say by way of excuse, but they never missed an opportunity to deride him.
And then, suddenly, this recollection of boyhood innocence was suffused with sadness. Poor, poor Walter! How could he still feel so angry towards him, after everything that had happened? Walter could no longer taunt him, yet it was Harry who felt guilty. But then, hadn’t he christened his second son with that name, in memory of his brother? No, not christened - damned! That sad, unlucky name, that curse! And he fought the image that slipped unbidden into his head; a little face blue and gasping, the desperate helplessness of it….. No, no, not that! Not now! So recent, so raw - that was more than a soul could bear.
He screwed up his eyes in agony, trying only to see the blackness in his head; the void that blotted out memory, concentrating on the rise and fall of his breath.
The moment passed.
Opening his eyes Harry saw only the shadowy humps of his boots in the mud, his clenched fists white in the gloom and around him the wispy eddies of mist.
With a sigh, he squared his shoulders and traipsed onwards into the darkening night.
More rustling; there must be someone there! It was a lonely road, but he wasn’t alone. If only he knew who it was; he would welcome some company. After all, there weren’t many people he didn’t know in Great Chart; especially amongst those who might be abroad after dark.
“Hello! Show yourself!” he called into the mist, his voice croaky and alien. He waited, ears straining. Nothing. Seconds passed. The silence unnerved him. Fearfully he stumbled on into the murk.
Dread was settling over him, seeping down his spine, resting like a sledgehammer in his stomach.
Full of remorse now; why hadn’t he shunned the pub? Truth be told, he had made a bit of a detour to pass The Black Dog. Whatever was he doing, spending his hard-earned money like that, when the children needed boots?
Unbidden, the image of his mother rose in his mind and then that of his sharp- eyed mother-in-law, disapproving, tight-lipped. The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; the wages of sin is death – their voices echoed inside his head; no peace for the wicked, vengeance is mine saith the Lord, all those endless Bible quotes drumming along with the headache. Suddenly it was as though the ghost of Uncle Jimmy stood behind him preaching hellfire and damnation. Ye have fallen from Grace, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap…On and on it went. Uncle Jimmy’s words could bring grown men to their knees; in fact grown men were known to hide in the bushes or dive behind the nearest tree, to avoid meeting preacher Jimmy on the road and woe to any who had taken strong drink. But Uncle Jimmy had long since departed to his rich reward; Uncle Jimmy should be seated among the angels; in fact, if he wasn’t there was no hope for anyone.; surely his ghost could no longer walk these paths. But the sickening feeling persisted; the unease, the guilt, the fear – nay, the panic - that he was being watched! Thou God seeest me ! No! No!
Feeling suddenly light-headed and slightly queasy, he staggered, missing his footing. Damn and blast it! He blundered into the hedge. Stretching out his hands to break his fall he found himself grasping wildly at brambles.
As the world wheeled about him he heard it again, a rasping, wheezy cough, an old man’s cough.
He fell.
Prone in the ditch Harry lay still, heart thudding painfully, his hands smarting from nettles and thorns.
Time passed and nothing happened. Slowly his senses alerted. A smell of damp, foetid ditch, crushed vegetation and, from beyond the hedge, the rank aroma of sheep dung.
Slowly he clambered to his feet. Shaken and wobbly, he struggled to get his bearings. In trepidation he tried to peer through the thickset hedge. A field lay beyond, lit by a fitful moon; mist hung in the hollows, pale and ghostly….
And there…. it was! Through the swirling white a shadow loomed up; a huge shapeless spectre, grotesque, unearthly. Slowly, ponderously, it advanced. Deliberate, determined, intent on its victim. What demon was this, loosed from the jaws of hell? Again, the voices in his head: “Be sober; be watchful” and what was the rest of it? “Your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about…..seeking…whom he may devour!”
Aghast, Harry swung away and lurched off down the track, his knees a-quiver.
But beyond the hedge the monstrous thing kept pace, seeming to stalk him. Tall and wide and shapeless; an amorphous mass, towering up out of the fog it came. Lolloping and lurching, its shape ebbed and flowed in the miasma of swirling mist.
This was no person; no fellow traveller on the night road; no surreptitious poacher.
He tried to hurry, his head spinning. If he was on the right road he should be hearing the stream soon. Oh how he wished he had gone straight home, how he regretted his hours in The Black Dog, the beer now curdling in his stomach.
And still the white blob kept pace, it’s breath roaring and whistling. Just a tangle of hawthorn separated them now; just fragile twigs between him and certain death. No worse – between him and the very Gates of Hell itself!
Lungs bursting, he lumbered on down the track. And still it came on, emanating evil. Whatever was it? A Demon? A ghost?
He knew about ghosts! Why, the tales they told about Pluckley, the most haunted village in England. Just a few miles away -The White Lady, the Headless Coachman. Hadn’t he been down at Surrenden only last week? And if in Pluckley, then why not in Great Chart?
Heart hammering, he ran, pursued by the white phantom. His breath coming in short gasps, his windpipe raw and sore. His legs growing numb.
Again, the voices in his head., praying, desperate; Defend us from all perils and dangers of this night
He stumbled on.
Never before had he realised how far the lane stretched out down to Bucksford. How dark and lonely. How far from his home. How welcoming the crowded little cottage at Brisley.
And then he heard it; the stream at Bucksford, up ahead, murmuring through the reeds down to the mill. Comforted, he put on a spurt but the thing was beside him, a monster rearing and snorting.
Harry sped into the mill yard, the lights ahead glimmered. Then the thing, the monster, looming large, made one final lunge at him over the hedge and with a sudden ear-splitting neigh skidded to a halt, its breath billowing out like a traction engine.
Oh Lord!
Harry stopped. The monster, the demon of the night turned its great head towards him. And there they stood, each of them goggling at the other; the man and - the horse!
Well Harry, you stupid old bugger, said Harry to himself. You stupid, beer-sodden old fool! That’s the drink, that is – getting you all in a state! And he wheezed and panted and finally got his breath back and the big grey carthorse snuffled and snorted and, being ignored, meandered off into the mist to graze.
Harry took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and hobbled off down the lane to Brisley. The ghosts of Uncle Jimmy and his teetotal brethren dissipated into the mist. Such imaginings!
Silly old fool. What a to-do!
And as he trudged, thinking it over, he chuckled ruefully to himself and thought what a tale it would make, a tale to tell against himself, a yarn for the tap room – he might even get a few beers on the strength of it.
Too much beer, you silly old fool. Perhaps he should have heeded the brethren in the first place. The demon drink. Perhaps he should have listened after all. Perhaps he should have signed The Pledge.. Him and his brothers! Too much time in The Black Dog, money gone and no supper. And then he realised how hungry he was; how much his stomach needed some weighty ballast, like Harriet’s pie and potatoes. Then, as he trudged, he thought fondly about the little cottage glowing in the lamplight, the scrubbed little faces shining round the table, eager to tell him about their day and his Harriet, dear sweet little Harriet waiting to greet him with his supper, welcoming home her man from his daily toil.
Harry laboured on. The mist drifted away and the moon lit his way, illuminating the lane, and its border of chestnut palings, and beyond a group of sheep rustled and barked and coughed like wheezy old men and he chuckled again to himself, silly old fool.
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The cottage stood before him. He unlatched the gate, passing down the brick path between the Michaelmas daisies. His hand lifted to the latch, the wood warm and gnarled beneath his fingers, he pushed the door slowly open and light and warmth spilled out. He pitched forward into a pool of lamplight, comfort and homeliness….
“Pa! Pa! Wherever have you been?” shrill voices clamoured. Hands reached up, pawing at him. The room was warm, too warm, - and crowded, but he smelt no dinner.
“We’ve been waiting for ages. We’re starving!” chorused the little voices round him.. “Rose did her best but she burnt the spuds!”
“And Titch soiled hisself bad. Amy tried to wash him but they got in a proper state!”
Something’s wrong here, something’s amiss, Harry thought. He looked around in bewilderment for Harriet but he looked in vain.
Suddenly a door opened and shut upstairs and the mewing of a tiny baby rent the air.
“Oh, and we’ve got a new little brother” added Fanny nonchalantly.
Harry’s heart stopped, his tired shoulders drooped with guilt. It was today, it had come early. If only he’d known! He should have known – after all, this was the ninth time! Poor Harriet, his poor little Harriet, what had she been going through? And what had he been doing? Drinking away his money – their money – in the pub, drinking too much and scaring himself witless!
He stood there, rooted to the flagstones. Dumb with contrition and self-reproach.
The midwife came clattering down the stairs. Seeing him, she came to an abrupt halt and scowled. “Men”, she muttered under her breath.
Around him, Harry’s brood clustered, all clamour ceased, they regarded the adults in awed silence.
“What? You here again, missus?” he mumbled.
She paused,, expecting more from him. Harry felt her eyes boring into him; drilling into his very soul, her eyes reminding him of his mother’s. His mother’s eyes so very like her Uncle Jimmy’s so they all said. And so they were, Harry shuddered,, remembering the portrait of Jimmy Lee staring down at him from the chapel wall, feeling again that sense of shame.
Seconds passed ; only the clunk of the grandfather clock and the wail of the baby echoed in the silence.
“I reckon you been here a few times too many”. Harry acknowledged humbly.
“So I have Mr Swaffer”, and he felt her beady eyes sweep over him from head-to-toe taking in his dishevelled appearance “So I have.”
Harry stood, twisting his cap in his hands, in an anguish of remorse.
“And…and….”, he stammered, “ I been in the pub a few times too many, truth be told…… And , I ain’t going to let alcohol pass my lips again, ever ……. and you won’t never be needed here no more”.
And as for the drinking, he never did and as for the midwife she never needed to cross their threshold ever again.
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That day Robert John, their last born, came into the world, Harry made a promise and The Black Dog lost a regular. Though Harry may never have told these stories over a pint, he certainly told them, for the tales of the White Phantom and the Midwife’s last visit were told many times and passed into the annals of family history.
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