With their duties completed to some measure of their stable master’s satisfaction, lads now wrestled for their lodgings’ door for a quick wash and brush up while others readied the dog carts to take them to town.
Redmond and he tacked the faithful Stanley and the winsome Lady Myrtle, and after grabbing jackets and tidying their neckcloths, they mounted up.
In amiable silence, they ambled the long way to Burford, first down a smartly trimmed bridleway and then onto a deep, wide groove of earth-hewn lane cut from centuries of cartwheels, tree roots supporting the bank in thick ropes.
“Redmond, I hope you don’t mind me asking but…” Ernest guided Stanley to the left fork. “Yourself and Mrs Cassell… Were you…in love?”
“Ach.” The stable master rubbed his jaw. “I loved that lass so bad that a sea of fiery ashes seven miles wide could not have stopped me from crossing to be with her.”
“Then what did prevent you?”
“The Irish Channel…and her father.”
“Ah.”
“I were a mere under-groom, poor as dirt. Someone tattled of us kissing and before ya knew it, I were beat good and proper, all my belongings taken, and I were dumped on a boat for Ireland.” He shook his head. “I had nothing and only the kindness of a stable master in Cork got me back on my feet, but it took me months to work off my board and clothing. Years to earn enough to return… Only to find her married.” He breathed deep. “I bear no grudge for that now.”
A humbling tale and Ernest dipped his head. “I’m sorry, Redmond.”
The Irishman shrugged.
“And so…do you regret falling in love?”
Redmond slipped a hand inside his woollen waistcoat. “Love can be fierce torment, ya know, but also serene peace. It’s like the fires of hell and the waters of heaven. It can rip ya apart… But it can put ya back together. So, do I regret?” He cast a glance. “Not at all.”
Ernest let out a breath and nodded as the leaf canopy abruptly thinned and they met the main thoroughfare.
A few farmers strolled home from the fields, jackets slung over one shoulder and hats pulled low. A cart laden with pigs bounced over the sun-baked ruts formed in the previous rains, and those damn sheep quietly chewed grass as though bearing no resemblance to the disciples of Beelzebub.
It was all so bucolic and tranquil that Ernest sighed in blissful peac–
Hooves clattered. A trumpet pierced. Yells and rattles. Ernest nigh jumped from his skin whilst Stanley tossed his mane in annoyance.
“What the–”
“Berkeley stagecoach,” yelled Redmond. “Six of the evening, every evening. Come from London. Watch out!”
A storm of dust besieged them as a coachman from hell cracked his whip and his chestnut minions cantered past, blood-red wheels creaking their haste. Atop, roped luggage tottered precariously and passengers held onto their hats with mouths agape in panicked physogs.
And then they were gone.
The air settled, the low sun feebly shone and the countryside sighed in relief.
“Bloody tourists,” muttered Redmond.
At length, the first hostelry came into view, guarding the high entrance to Burford and in prime position for all the carriage traffic from London to Cheltenham and everywhere in between.
Ernest surveyed the crowded stable yard. “I haven’t been here for a while.” Although he oft visited Burford on business, he rarely came for an ale. It was an agreeable town with basket makers, haberdasheries and cordwainers lining the main street, together with the finest apothecary in the Cotswolds. All one needed was here – and all one never knew one needed.
After throwing the reins to the ostler, they lingered in the courtyard until the two dog carts with all the stable grooms pulled up, having taken the more comfortable and quicker main road.
Boots polished to a higher shine than Brummel’s clattered to the cobbles, the lads plucking at their Sunday shirts, hair slicked and faces scrubbed red. At the front was Thos, white bandages wrapping his skull – he looked like one of those strange, embalmed creatures that the newspapers reported they kept digging up in Egypt.
“By the eyebrows of Saint Patrick,” declared Redmond, “are ya well enough to be here, lad?”
“I be fine as a gruntling at the teat, Mr O’Conner, sir. My pa says I’ve a head as thick as a cannonball.”
“Hard as a cannonball, surely?” Daniel said with a frown.
