Alan Garner - Thursbitch

“I thought I heard. Will you come thy ways?”

“Nay, Missis. But thank ye. If I let this lot melt I’d starve to death.”

“Hast any piddlejuice about you for such a time?”

“I have and all. Good to make a cat speak and a man dumb. Pass us your jug.”

She unbolted the door and opened it enough for her to hand him a small jug. Then she bolted the door. He filled the jug.

“Get that down you, Missis.”

She opened and closed the door at a snatch.

“I always say as how there never has been nowt like your piddlejuice, Jagger; and that’s a fact!”

“Ay, Missis! If you’re on the road all hours in these hills, you must be fit for owt, or you’ll find it’s when bum hole’s shut, fart’s gone. It’s there, you know. Oh, ah. When bum hole’s shut, fart’s gone.”

They laughed on either side of the door.

“Give us a tune, Jagger! I feel a little ditty coming on me and I’ve a flavour for to sing it.”

“Nay, Widder Barber. I must be getting down bank, and me beasts need their rest.”

He saw her shadow. She was hopping and began to dance. Her voice was uncertain at first, but then it broke forth with a strength that not even the wind could quell.

“O, the first great joy of Mary Anne

It were the joy of one:

To see her own son little Jack

To suck at her breast bone;

To suck at her breast bone the blood

From out his father’s thigh.

Euoi! Euoi! Io! Euoi!

Through all Eternity!”

“I must be getting down bank, Widder Barber! The wind’s in Thoon, and me beasts’ll be bangled if they’re not moving!”

Martha Barber was now leaping in her dance.

“The second great joy of Mary Anne

It were the joy of two:

To see her own son little Jack

Inside o’ th’ bull to go;

Inside o’ th’ bull to go for them

To shed for him to be.

Euoi! Euoi! Io! Euoi!

Through all Eternity!”

He led the team into the road and set off from Buxter Stoops on its ridge and down the bank towards Saltersford. The lane was so steep that it had cut the hill, but any shelter it gave was of no use against the snow. He waded into the drift, thrashing right and left to make a softer, wider way for the team. The hollering wind took Martha Barber’s voice from him, but the song was now in the storm itself and came to him out of Thoon’s very own mouth.

“The next great joy of Mary Anne

It were the joy of eight:

To see her own son little Jack

Go down again to Fate;

Go down again to Fate and drink

Death deeper nor the sea.

Euoi! Euoi! Io! Euoi!

Through all Eternity!”

He led them round the Nab End three-went corner, past Great Lowes; and Edward was not in bed. Now the lane was level, for the valley. He opened a pannier, took out a handful of salt and put it in his pocket. Then he closed the pannier and moved along the line of the team, rubbing the noses of each: Samson, Clocky, Maysey.

“Go thy ways, Jinney.”

He checked the buckles and bants.

“See them home, Bryn. I must do right by Nan Sarah. And by the stars. And then. Be good, Bryn.”

THE PEOPLE FILED out of the chapel into the snow. The catch of the sun lessened the stifle of coals in the stone walls. The air nipped.

“Spirit was in thee today, Dickun,” said Clonter Oakes.

“The Lord trod mightily upon my tongue,” said Richard Turner. “Now let’s be doing to fetch that young youth home.”

Edward Turner joined them. Clonter set off down Flake Pits, but Richard Turner called him back.

“We must go by Nab End.”

“This is aimest.”

“Yay.”

They took the lane past Saltersford and Great Lowes to Nab End three-went.

“There’s been me and Ridges this road,” said Edward. “See at foot marks.”

“He’s up bank,” said Richard Turner.

“Up bank?” said Edward. “He’ll not be up bank in this, Father. It’s deep as owt.”

Clonter lifted his arm.

“Hearken.”

“What?” said Richard Turner.

“Hearken ye.”

In the air there was the small sound of bells, jingling twice, above the drift-filled way.

“It’s him,” said Edward. “Daft beggar.”

They floundered through Ewrin Lane. It was a powder of ice, scarcely hollowed from the unbroken snow.

“Here,” said Clonter.

He had come to a recess, an overhang of the wind, and in it a body was showing dark. It was the lead horse of a train; and it was alive. Richard Turner checked it and moved on. A dog yelped.

“There’s another,” said Clonter.

“Leave them. They’ll thole,” said Edward. “There must be two more. Come up! Come up!” He whistled. The dog yelped again.

“I’ve got ’em,” said Richard Turner, without pausing. He forced himself through the crests.

“Where’s Jack?”

“Where he was shaping to be.”

They found him sitting against Osbaldestone below Buxter Stoops above the three-went. He was clarted with snow to his shoulders. Frost silvered each hair of the black goatskin. His arms stretched out to hold. His skin crackled yellow, and ice clad his beard, mouth, nose and eyes. The eyes were wide; and the dog lay by him and licked his face.

“Eh up. He’s laughing.”

“He’s not that.”

“Shut his een, Dickun.”

“No. Let him see. Worser had he flit; more better has he found.”

“You reckon?”

“Blood’s forever at a three-went.”

Edward leaned across and folded the lids. Splinters fell.

“He’ll do,” said Richard Turner.

“Poor as a rook.”

“I said he’ll do.”

“Look ye. On the stone here,” said Edward. “It’s all over honey.”

“Never,” said Clonter. “Them days are done.”

“Anyroad, it’s sweet.”

“Then whatever’s this?”

“Nowt.” Richard Turner reached forward and brushed the snow with his hand. It made a mark on the white.

“What is it?”

“I said: nowt.”

“But I saw,” said Edward.

“You didn’t see nowt,” said Richard Turner. “Be told.”

“I did see. I did that,” said Clonter. “It was a woman’s.”

“I saw it,” said Edward. “I saw.”

“Footprint. Just one. Print of a woman’s shoe.”

“THE MAP DOESN’T say we must keep to the path.”

The way along the ridge was strung with walkers in both directions, urging themselves on their trekking poles.

“Let’s get into Cheshire,” he said. “It’s quiet there.” He pressed down the tangled sheep wire between a break in the walls so that she could cross the boundary.

At once they were on blanket bog and cotton grass. Behind them woollen hats bobbed for a while. The wind was the same, but there was a stillness that the path did not have. Their feet squeezed peat water from the clumps and they kept falling between and catching each other; but it was their own pace at last. Hang gliders, jumping from the scarp of Old Gate Nick, drifted away over Saltersford and down Todd Brook.

They were below the ridge, on a shelving plateau, and beyond was the dark side of Andrew’s Edge, and, in between, a luminous air above the hidden valley. They plodded over the sprung land.

“Fantastic,” she said.

They were on the lip.

“Fan. Tastic.”

“Yes.”

“No. That.”

It was a cube of rock sticking out of the peat a little below them. Its back was buried, its top flat and tilted to give a launch out across the valley. The sides were layered bands, disturbed by running cracks. The front was an arch, and all was hollow within; a cave, a hive, an oven, curved round, with more layers lying on each other, and at the back an upright crevice in the crag, going into the ridge but not through the slab of roof nor through the slab of floor.