“Are thee feeling well, my lord?” Thos asked.
“Never better.”
This was evidently where locals supped. Burly labourers chatted at the bar with jovial gazes, in a dim corner a shepherd in his smock puffed on a long clay pipe, and a maid served a plate of pie to a grizzled fellow with no teeth.
Redmond grabbed the pot boy’s shoulder. “Jugs of ale and a load of tankards, my lad.”
Ernest held hand to gizzards. “Could I… Could I perhaps have a gin or somesuch to settle the…”
Silence swathed the room as though an arctic north wind had blown the front door in.
The labourers at the counter scowled with gimlet eyes.
The Rothwell lads gawped, brows aloft.
The pipe dropped from the shepherd’s mouth.
The maid slopped gravy over the table.
“Actually…” Ernest cleared his throat. “On second thoughts, I’ll have another ale.”
The labourers at the bar chatted once more.
The Rothwell lads mopped their brows.
The shepherd inspected his pipe for cracks.
The maid soaked up the gravy with her apron.
And the order of this green and pleasant land was restored.
Ernest breathed deep and girded his loins.
It was going to be a long night.
“WHERE ARE WE NOW?”
Ernest peered blearily around a room that could have come straight from medieval times – all dingy corners and low ceilings with even lower beams that he’d whacked his head on. Rough boards panelled the walls and one lone candle struggled to shed light on a cavernous open fireplace where a sack of wool was stored.
“The Bell. Last but not least,” lamented Redmond on the bench at his side. “We got thrown out of The Dolphin.”
Wincing, Ernest gazed out the dusty leaded windows. The hour must be at least…
Well, he had no idea as he’d no pocket watch but he glanced to the deep black of the heavens and hazarded a guess at ‘late’.
With neckcloths loosened and hair dishevelled, the lads and grooms were jostling for room on benches, and chatting cheek by jowl about horses, ale and girls – in that order.
A battered mantelpiece clock began to clang and Ernest counted to–
“Midnight!” Thos shot from his bench, eyes wide as tankard lids. “My pa said I should never be out in Burford High Street past midnight!”
“Why on earth not?” asked Ernest. “Pumpkins?”
Thos scratched his head, his bandage having been abandoned in The Mermaid. “Er, no, my lord. The Tanfields. They’ll sweep I up in their ghostly carriage and take I to hell.”
“Tha stupid tale ain’t true at all,” grumped Daniel. “Tanfields were put in a glass bottle and thrown in the river. We be safe now.”
“Maybe so, but my pa says us Fricketts were cursed when my Great-Great-Grampy Frickett saw them riding one night over the roofs of Burford.”
