P. Chisholm - A Famine of Horses

“Now then, Young Hutchin,” Jock was picking absent-mindedly at his ear.

“I’m sorry to see you here, Jock,” said the boy. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Ay, you can find me the keys and a nice sharp dagger.” Young Jock examined his fingernail for trophies.

Hutchin smiled and left while Carey hummed a little tune.

“What are ye waiting for, Courtier.” Jock was delving at his ear again.

“I’m waiting for you to tell me what I asked.”

Young Jock spat messily near Carey’s boots.

“You can wait there until you die, ye bastard, I’m telling you nothing.”

“It could save your neck.”

“Go to the devil, Courtier, my neck’s safe enough.”

Young Jock set himself to eating and Carey nodded, banged on the door to be let out and watched carefully while Fenwick locked it after him.

On his way out, he paused to shout through the Judas hole at Bangtail.

“I want to know what’s going on, Bangtail, and you’ll tell me.”

“I willna,” said Bangtail feebly.

“You surely will,” said Carey ominously. “One way or another, with the use of your legs or without them.”

When she came down the steps of the Queen Mary Tower, Janet was met by Lady Scrope and a gentlewoman she didn’t know. She was intending to see after poor old Shilling who had run like a hero all the way to Carlisle and might need comforting, but when she curtseyed to the ladies, she found her hand taken and the Warden’s wife was speaking to her gently.

“Mrs Dodd,” said Philadelphia, “I’m sorry to hear of the raid, is there anything I can do to help?”

Janet flushed a little. “Well,” she said, “the new Deputy has promised he’ll get my horses back but whether he will or not…”

Lady Scrope grimaced a little. “Knowing my brother, he’ll half kill himself to do it if he promised to. Who was it sold you the beast that belonged to Sweetmilk?”

“Reverend Turnbull, may God rot his bowels.”

“That’s the book-a-bosom man isn’t it?”

Janet nodded. Lady Scrope exchanged glances with the other woman. A certain amount of mischief appeared on Lady Scrope’s pointed little face.

“Shall we go and speak to him, then?”

Janet found herself borne along by the ladies; Lady Widdrington was asking practical questions about the girl Margaret’s miscarriage and the state of their barley crop which distracted Janet’s confused mind until she came to the wynd that led down to the church.

“It’s very kind of you to take so much trouble, Lady Scrope,” she began, “but I think I can…”

“Hush, Mrs Dodd,” said Lady Scrope, “We only want to give Sir Robert what help we can to get back your horses.”

“And this needs doing quickly because when Reverend Turnbull hears what happened, he’ll be out of Carlisle as fast as his legs will run,” added Lady Widdrington. “Ah, look,” she said kindly, “he’s heard already, I think. Is that him, Mrs Dodd?”

The Reverend Turnbull was at that moment shutting the door to the little priest’s house next to the church, wearing a pack on his back and carrying a stout walking stick. Janet nodded.

The Reverend Thomas Turnbull had had very little to do with real ladies in a not always reverend past, but he knew them when he saw them. With the Warden’s wife on one side, and a tall long-nosed lady on the other, he found himself accompanied into his church and sat down on one of the porch benches. It wasn’t that he didn’t think of running nor that he couldn’t perhaps have outrun them-ladies seldom or never ran, so far as he knew, and their petticoats would have tripped them up-it was that he didn’t somehow feel he could do it with the Warden’s wife holding his arm confidingly under hers and the tall one glinting down at him with a pair of piercing and intelligent grey eyes.

When he sat down the third woman, whom he recognised with a sinking feeling as Janet Dodd, helpfully took his walking stick and laid it on the ground near her foot. Lady Scrope sat down next to him, still trapping his arm, while the tall one continued to pin his soul to the back of his head with her eyes. Janet Dodd crossed her arms and tipped her hip threateningly.

“I’m s-sorry, Mrs Dodd,” he stammered at once, deciding immediate surrender would save time, “I had no idea the horse would cause you such trouble. I’d have cut my throat before I sold it to you if I’d known, truly I would…”

“Well, tell us who you bought the horse from and we’ll forgive you,” said Lady Scrope gently.

“And tell the truth,” added the tall woman.

Reverend Turnbull bridled a little as he sat. “Madam,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster, “I am a man of the cloth and…”

“As capable of lying as any other man,” snorted the tall woman.

“Now Lady Widdrington,” said Philadelphia Scrope reprovingly, “I’m sure the Reverend will tell us the truth. You will, won’t you?” she said winningly to him. “I’ll get into trouble with my brother if I give him the wrong information.”

“And so will you,” added Lady Widdrington ominously to the Reverend.

Turnbull shook his head. “I bought the beast from a cadger named Swanders and I’d no reason to think him reived at all. He said he was from Fairburn’s stud in Northumberland and had been sold because of an unchancy temper and…”

“Why didn’t they geld him then?” enquired Lady Widdrington.

Turnbull coughed. “I didna think to ask, your ladyship, I admit it, I was a trusting fool but the Good Book teaches us that it’s better to trust than to be ower suspicious.”

“Does it?” said Lady Widdrington with interest. “Where does it say that?”

Turnbull’s mind was blank. He could barely make out the words of the marriage service and much of the Bible was a wasteland to him.

Lady Scrope got him off the spot.

“Do you know where this man Swanders may be?”

Without question he was halfway back to Berwick by this time, no doubt laughing at Turnbull as he went.

“I dinna ken, your ladyship, I wish I did and that’s the truth.”

“Oh, ay,” muttered Janet.

“What did you pay for the horse?”

“Er…four pounds English,” lied Turnbull. “See, I didna expect to make much profit and it was all to go to the repair of the church roof, which lets in the weather something terrible.”

“Oh be quiet,” growled Janet Dodd. “You know you paid two pounds for the creature and so do we.”

How did they know, wondered Turnbull, when God had made them poor foolish women? How dare they show such disrespect to a man of the cloth.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” said Lady Scrope soothingly. “You can give what’s left of your three pounds profit back to Janet Dodd and then claim the money off Swanders the next time you see him.”

Turnbull’s mouth fell open with dismay.

“B-but it’s all spent,” he protested.

“Is it now?” said Lady Widdrington. “And what exactly did you spend it on?”

A happy night at Madam Hetherington’s bawdy house, among other things, but Turnbull couldn’t bring himself to say so. He muttered the first thing that came into his mind.

“Charity?” said Lady Widdrington. “Well, that’s very Godly of you. Mrs Dodd, when do you think your husband and some of his patrol would be ready to come and talk to Reverend Turnbull?”

“Oh, I can run and fetch him now,” said Mrs Dodd, turning to go, “I’m sure if the lads pick him up and shake him something will fall out.”

“Och Chri…well, I might have some of it about me.”

The ladies turned their backs obligingly as Turnbull unstrapped the pouch from his thigh and the bright silver rolled out in the crusting mud. Lady Widdrington scooped up most of it and gave the money to Janet Dodd.