White Water Read online

  ‘Go Dido! Spanker! Jewel! After him!’

  The dogs needed no urging. They were already in the water and encircling the otter whose shape could just be discerned below the surface.

  ‘This time they’ve got it!’ shouted Jon.

  ‘They’ve got it! They’ve got it!’ yelled Piers.

  A life and death drama was being enacted in the middle of the river as first one and then another dog tried to close in for the kill. But the otter was not prepared to surrender and put up a tremendous fight, snapping at the dogs, diving below them and trying every trick to evade his tormentors. Bucher, determined to prove himself willing, began to wade into the water but Hugo called him to keep back.

  ‘It could go for your legs,’ he shouted. ‘They’ve a most fearsome bite.’

  Bucher turned at once and waded out, giving Eloise a disappointed look that in no way deceived her but she said kindly, ‘We must return you to your homeland in one piece, Hans. You were wise to take Hugo’s advice.’

  ‘I thought to have him then,’ he said with a shrug and stood beside her to watch the struggle that continued in mid-river. The otter was more than a match for the three dogs. He managed to wound Dido, tearing a flap of skin from her shoulder. The river was at once coloured with blood and the sight and smell of it maddened the dogs still further. One of them — no one could see which one — sunk his teeth into the otter’s flank but a blow from the powerful tail half stunned it and it swam to the bank and staggered out, dazed and trembling. Piers ran to comfort it.

  ‘’Twill make a break soon if it’s going to,’ Hugo warned and the spears were once more raised. His instinct was correct. The desperate otter dived to elude the dogs and suddenly emerged at the water’s edge. Eloise threw first and missed by a foot or more. Allan pinned it by the shoulder, and as the dogs scrambled out after it Bucher’s spear flew wild of the mark and struck Jewel. The spear pierced the neck at the front and drove deep into the lungs. It was an unlucky but fatal blow and the little bitch, already exhausted and bleeding, sank down without a sound and gazed pathetically at Eloise who ran towards her.

  ‘Oh no, no! Dear little Jewel. Oh sweet heaven! Bucher, you fool, you’ve killed her! Killed her, d’you hear?’

  The dog gave a deep sigh which suddenly bubbled obscenely and faltered. The bright eyes glazed over. Jewel was dead. The otter’s end was not so swift. The two remaining dogs set upon it and tore it to pieces. Hugo and Piers waded across the river, but by the time they arrived it was all over. All that remained of the prey was a mangled and bloody corpse. Eloise sobbed over the body of the plucky little hound while Bucher, ashen-faced, vomited a short distance away.

  There was no more hunting that day. They returned slowly to Heron. Eloise was distraught; Bucher, pale and trembling, apologized again and again. Piers was resentful that he had missed the final drama which had taken place on the opposite side of the river. Jon, carrying all the spears, led the two surviving hounds. Allan carried Jewel and Maria kept pace with them on the far side of the river. It was a subdued hunting party which finally returned to Heron and Matt, greeting them, was secretly thankful that he had returned when he did. The afternoon was an unqualified failure and not one of the hunting party had the heart to pretend otherwise.

  *

  Minnie, stood at the table, a large sacking apron round her waist, her sleeves rolled up above her elbows. Beside her on the scrubbed table lay four eels, two large and two smaller. On the opposite side of the table Martin sat, watching her. He had drawn her, skilfully and without rousing her suspicions, on to the subject of her childhood. To her they were the years she spent at Heron as a girl, with Luke Kendal as master of Heron. Luke had rescued her from a brutish drunken grandfather.

  ‘Bought me, he did,’ she told Martin, her knife poised over the longest of the eels. ‘Bought me with a bag of gold. Mind you, he tried to send me back to the old buzzard but I wouldn’t have it. I refused to go home and just kept following behind him. Oh, he was a handsome man, your grandfather. A very handsome man. Even as an old man — even as he lay in his coffin — he was handsome.’

  She sighed as she plunged the eel into a bowl of salt water. ‘Young Nat brought us these,’ she told Martin. ‘A gift, he said. Gift, my eye! Most likely poached from our own river, but what matter. Hugo likes a bit of eel and the mistress is not averse to it.’

  Martin smiled and gave her a saucy wink. He knew now that his time spent with her would not be wasted. He would learn all that he wanted to know. At fourteen he looked sixteen and his charming manners won him friends and admirers with very little effort on his part. He was making it his business to discover all the facts relating to the Gillis family, with particular attention to Isobel and Marion. What he would do with the information was not quite clear to him. Tell Eloise, perhaps, or even Allan! It pleased him to think that his knowledge would give him a weapon. The accident of birth which made him second in line to the inheritance could not be overcome. Allan would always be heir to Heron, but Martin felt the injustice deeply. He had better blood in him than Allan, he was more handsome than his brother and he was altogether a more attractive personality — or so he believed. Allan would have Heron and the beautiful and desirable Eloise and Martin envied him both. He was helpless to change the natural order of things. Allan stood to gain all that Martin coveted — but if Martin could not stop him, at least he need not make life easy for him. Allan must inevitably win, but let him fight for his prizes. Martin did not hate his brother but neither did he love him. He knew of the deep friendship between Allan and Oliver and that hurt him, too. While he had been at school it had been possible to put such thoughts aside, but the holidays had never been easy to bear. Now he had left Winchester and would be ‘banished’ to Romney House. He was admittedly more fortunate than many second sons in that respect, but it was still a far cry from Heron.

  ‘Luke must have been a fine looking man to have two wives,’ he said innocently. ‘Did you ever see Isobel Gillis?’

  Minnie shook her head. ‘I was a bit too young to know what was going on. Mind you, I listened at doors — ’

  ‘I’ll warrant you still do!’

  Minnie laughed. ‘I shouldn’t tell you if I did,’ she said, ‘but I got my ears boxed many a time for that. Oh, I heard a lot, don’t you fret, but as to seeing Isobel, no. I never did. She never did come to the house — at least not to my knowledge — but they did say she was a rare beauty and most men would have died for her. But there, ’twas her that died, poor soul. All I can say is if Luke loved her then she wasn’t a bad woman, not by a long chalk.’

  She patted the eel dry, laid it on the board and cut off the head. Then she pulled back the skin and scooped the guts into a bucket which stood on the floor beside her. The stuffing was already prepared in a stone bowl and Martin, pulling it towards him, sniffed it appreciatively.

  ‘Cinnamon,’ he said, ‘and nutmeg and something else.’

  ‘Anchovies — and all mixed with butter the way the master likes it.’

  ‘Shall I add the salt?’

  ‘’Tis done. Leave it be, Martin. You always did have meddlesome fingers.’

  She grinned to soften the rebuke, but he was not really interested in the stuffing. He leaned his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands.

  ‘I bet you didn’t see Marion ducked,’ he said slyly.

  Minnie hesitated, torn between the desire to tell all that she knew and the knowledge that she had been forbidden to go to the river on that fateful day. She began to fill the empty belly with stuffing and then drew up the skin again and tied it where the head should have been.

  ‘Well, I did then,’ she said. She slashed the eel five times along its back and pressed stuffing into the cuts. Laying it aside, she reached for the next one and plunged it into the salt water. ‘I saw it all. Wormed my way to the front of the crowd and saw everything. Oh, she was a witch, no doubt at all. No matter what they did to her up she came again, bobbing like a cork th
o’ the water was deep and fast. Cursing she was, you never heard the like! She cursed them all, the master, the constable, even the minister! They had a rope strung right out across the water from one bank to the other — down below the bridge, ’twas. I could show you the very spot. And she was tied in the middle of it and her hands and feet tied, too. How could she not drown without magic? That’s what they all said.’

  ‘So they knew she was a witch?’

  ‘Oh, aye. ’Twas proof, wasn’t it?’ The next eel was beheaded, gutted and stuffed, and she reached for the third. Martin put a finger into the bowl of stuffing and she tapped his hand sharply with the back of her knife. ‘Fingers out, young Martin! Aye, they knew she was a witch and they hanged her the next day.’

  ‘Did she confess it?’

  ‘Aye, and to all the terrible disasters that had befallen folks in the past year. A woman who’d lost her child; a man took in a fit; three horsemen drowned in a mire — she confessed to it all. And she had a familiar in the shape of a dog. A big black dog. I didn’t set eyes on the dog, nor ever wanted to for they’re part of the devil himself. His messengers, they do say, with special powers. If that dog had so much as looked at me I’d likely not be here now.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know. They say it howled by the gibbet where Marion was hanged, but I kept well away from that mournful place. There, that’s done and a right messy job but so tasty. They’ll roast a treat, they will.’ She began to clear away scraps and utensils.

  ‘Did Isobel have any other children?’

  ‘Not that I heard of.’

  ‘Any sisters or brothers?’

  ‘I can’t rightly say. ’Twas a long time ago. Now move your elbows — thank you kindly. She had a father but he moved away after his wife was hanged. Got too hot for him, I reckon. He took Isobel and they went to Tavistock. I don’t know about any family.’

  ‘But if the father took another woman then Isobel might have had half-brothers or sisters.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘Or the father might have had a brother or sister. There might have been cousins, uncles, aunts.’

  ‘’Tis possible.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘You’re mighty interested, all of a sudden. Why all the questions?’

  He shrugged again and smiled disarmingly. ‘Curiosity kills the cat, I know! ’Twas just a thought.’

  She eyed him suspiciously. ‘All that’s in the past,’ she said, ‘and all over and done with. No one’ll thank you to go stirring up muck. You mind what I say, Martin, or there’ll be no good come of it.’

  He stood up and pushed back the bench. ‘Now would I do that, Min? You know me better, I hope.’

  ‘I know that you only call me Min when you’re up to some trick or other. It was always so. You called me Min the day you turned up here in the middle of the night, run away from school! And when you lost all that money at cards.’

  He laughed. ‘Your memory is too good at times! Well then, Minnie, I’ll be out from under your feet — before you throw me out. I promised Piers I’d take him hawking and try out his new bird.’

  He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and was gone before she could say more on the sensitive subject. She watched him go, her face suddenly serious, and then carried on with her cooking. But her expression was thoughtful. She had the uneasy feeling that she had not heard the last of the matter and wished some of her reminiscences unsaid.

  CHAPTER TEN

  There were seven people under the Boord’s roof. Alec and Annie, John Jenkins, Rita Carp, Jake and Alfred Gillis — two of Annie Boord’s brothers — and John Greer. They sat on the straw which covered the earth floor and each one held a mug of ale in his or her hand. Their mood was surly and it showed on their faces, lit by the faint glow of the smouldering fire. They had all tasted the humiliation of unemployment and had given up trying for new employment. The Maudesley mine was not looking for new labour — in fact the rumour was spreading that soon the men would be laid off there also. It seemed more than likely, for although the quality of their ore remained high, the quantity was falling with every month that passed. It was now late August, and the summer would soon be over. Autumn and winter would come and they would be cold and hungry.

  ‘Bucher!’ hissed Greer and spat derisively. ‘What an apology for a man! Have you heard what happened a month or so back? Killed one of their hounds by mistake! Speared it instead of the otter!’

  There was a roar of delighted laughter.

  ‘And the way he walks!’ cried Jake. ‘Mincing along on his toes like a damned wench! He’s soft, that’s what he is. More woman than man.’

  ‘And he comes to England full of fancy ideas, to tell us how to run a tin mine!’ Alf Gillis’s tone conveyed his contempt for the man. ‘And Kendal tells us he’s going to better things and what’s the first thing that happens? They close the mine down for ten days. A fine start!’

  Alf Gillis was short and swarthy and had lost an eye ten years earlier in an underground accident and the closed eyelids were badly puckered and made him ugly. He had a temper to match but that had been an accident of birth. He had left mining and now cut turf for a living. His brother Jake was ten months younger and taller but his face, with its small dark eyes, wore the sly look of a fox. He was a water carrier in Ashburton and had no quarrel with Heron, but his sister Ann had wed Alec Boord and he was now out of work. The Gillises stuck together and when Alec sent word to them, they came willingly, and though nearer fifty than forty, were both eager for the fray. Rita Carp was a widow with three small sons. Her husband had been a tinner all his life and had died in a brawl on the way home from the morning shift. She had asked Hugo for her husband’s job — he loaded the ore into the wagons at the face. Hugo had refused but had put her to work in the washing shed. But she was a born troublemaker and many of the ensuing arguments and fights had been started by her slanderous tongue, so he had taken his chance to be rid of her troublesome influence.

  John Jenkins was older than the others, nearing sixty, and a very sick man. His third wife had just given birth to a son and he had six other children, four by his second wife and two by the first. The youngest children had all arrived at intervals of less than a year, but his two eldest, twin girls, were sixteen and worked in the fields. They would be gleaning after the harvesting and that would mean a sack or two of grain, but apart from their meagre wages there was no money coming in. Hugo had sacked him reluctantly, but he had long since failed to give a fair day’s labour in return for his money. Barlowe had reported that the other men resented him, complaining that he was no longer fit and yet was paid the same as the rest.

  ‘But he’s paid them for the ten days,’ said Rita. She had no respect for Hugo Kendal, but even less for Alf Gillis who was scum in her eyes. Everyone knew the Gillises’ had bad blood in them and could be taunted for it, but it was never wise to go too far with them just in case the evil eye had been passed down through the blood. Their father was the son of Rob Gillis who was cousin to Isobel.

  ‘They’ve paid them for this ten days,’ Alf agreed, ‘but what about next time? I’ll wager ’twill be different next time.’

  ‘You reckon ’twill happen again?’

  ‘I’d swear to it. You mark my words, there’ll be others following us before the month is out.’

  Alec held out his empty mug and Annie refilled it.

  ‘But do we want to wait another month?’ he asked. ‘Do we want to wait another week? Every day that passes is another day’s mischief hatched. I say Bucher should go now!’

  There was a chorus of ‘ayes’.

  ‘’Tis all very fine talk,’ said Rita, ‘but how does it come about? Do we all go up to Kendal and say — we don’t care for your mining man, so would you send him home? He’ll die laughing.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Annie. ‘He’ll not see reason, and likely not even listen to us.’

  ‘There’s ways and means,’ said Jake. ‘The mincing man might — ’
he shrugged expressively, ‘disappear? Or he might trip and fall down the mine shaft. Accidents do happen.’

  ‘Not to bloody Bucher, they don’t,’ said Greer.

  ‘Someone might poison him,’ said Alf. ‘What a terrible thing that would be!’

  ‘Oh, terrible!’

  They all laughed except John. ‘Wait a bit,’ he said nervously. ‘We’re going too fast for my liking. Poison and accidents? I don’t like the sound of it. Too high a price if we’re found out. I’ve no wish to hang.’

  Annie, Alf and Jake looked at him as one.

  ‘There’s nowt to be ashamed of hanging,’ said Annie, ‘lot of good folk has died that way — and noble.’

  ‘And innocent, I dare say?’ Alec jeered.

  ‘Aye, and innocent!’ roared Jake, his fists clenched.

  ‘Is that so? Then if ’tis only good, noble and innocent folk as hang we should all be as wicked as we know how! That way we’ll escape the gibbet!’

  ‘Being wicked’ll come easy to you, Alec Boord!’

  Annie flung her half-empty mug straight into Jake’s face and caught him across the mouth. ‘Don’t you miscall my husband under his own roof!’ she screamed. ‘You’re no saint, Jake, nor ever have been. I know things about you you’d rather forget.’

  Rita shouted, ‘Quiet, you rabble. I’m not here to listen to you settling old scores. If we’re not talking about Bucher then I’m off home. I’ve an ailing mother and two babes to tend.’

  The small commotion died. Annie’s mug was retrieved from the corner and she refilled it with a surly look on her face. She looked into the pitcher and said pointedly, ‘And that’s the last of it. There’s no more and since no one else brought any … ’

  ‘Let it go, Annie,’ said Alec. ‘They’ve brought nowt because they’ve got nowt so hold your tongue. Rita’s right. Our purpose is to talk about Bucher so speak up if you’ve anything to say.’

  ‘Are we all agreed he’s got to go?’ asked Alf.

  They were.