Alan Garner - Thursbitch

He crossed the water, making no sound. The land did not fail. There was a thistle stem. He came to it and draped the neckcloth over, and again was still. The hare did not run.

Jack walked backwards, and the land and the water held him, each foot set down in line with the other. Bully Thrumble met him and he turned around it. On the other side, he lay and looked. The neckcloth nodded in the wind.

Jack crawled on his belly through the reeds, away by a hillock and down to a bend in the brook towards Pearly Meg’s. He crossed the brook, and used the cover of a gully to crouch up the other side as far as Biggening Brom.

From Biggening Brom he crawled until the red and white of the neckcloth was in line with Bully Thrumble. He rose in a clean move, and stood. The song of the sun and the chiming clouds covered all noise, and the wind was still cross-scented. He went on down.

The hare sat in its form, watching the sway of the red and white flower on its stem. Jack slid one hand under the body from behind and with the other flattened the ears back; and he was but a part of the hill that took the hare and lifted it against his chest. “Good day to you, Sir. I bless you with my elbow,” he said.

He stroked the ears and spoke softly as he took the neckcloth and walked down to the ford and up to Bully Thrumble. “Old Bouchert. Old Turpin. Old Wimount. Old Goibert.”

At Bully Thrumble he lowered himself and nestled the hare in the crown of his hat, talking and stroking, until he and the hare and the brook and the valley were one, below Thoon. He lifted his hand, and the hare slept.

Now Jack stood with his stick and the sack, and the reeds caressed him and the marsh did not hold him and he took the way to Pearly Meg’s.

He bent under the roof and down the steps.

At the bottom, he listened to what the water told him, and then tapped the stones lightly; and from the cracks between, the snakes came and curled themselves round the twists of his stick, and when they were all counted and quiet he laid the stick below the roof and reached into the hill. With both hands he felt in the dark for the shelf over which the water ran, and took the weight that sat there, holding its wetness to him until he was free to turn and put it into the sack.

He went to the light and Bully Thrumble. He lifted his hat and nestled it in his arm, slung the sack over his shoulder, and set off, black stooped, down to Saltersford.

THEY WERE GATHERED around Jenkin: Lathams, Adsheads, Potts, Ridges, Lomases, Slacks, Oakeses, Swindells, Turners, Martha Barber; excited, still, and nervous; looking to the sky and where the lane cut a notch in the hill at Pym Chair.

Jack Turner had set the iron kettle on the ground and put the sack against the pillar of Jenkin. He waited for the last to arrive, straggling along the seven ways. The hare was quiet on his elbow, hidden in the red and white neckcloth. Richard Turner stood by him and watched.

“You’ll master him, do you think?”

“Nay, not master, Father,” said Jack. “Thole is best I can hope for.”

“Last time, he took John Pott. And John Pott was three days a-dying.”

“But he wouldn’t be so sharp by then, would he?” said Jack. “He’d done it twice. Not so quick.”

“He was turning sixty; and that with a tail.”

“There you are,” said Jack. “And it had been Potts for a good while, hadn’t it? Maybe it’s not but right to pass it on, so as young uns can learn, and it’s not lost.”

“I don’t know,” said Richard Turner. “But it was you he put it to. His last words to me were, ‘See as Jack’s reared, agen next time’. And you can’t nay a man when he’s dying.”

“I never knew.”

“I never told.”

Jack stroked the hare and looked into its eyes.

“Buckets for wells, Father.”

He stroked the hare and laid the folded neckcloth on the ground. “Right, then,” he said. “Is all here as is coming? Let’s be having you.”

He opened the mouth of the sack and peeled it down. There were mutterings, and some gasps of love. He took the stone head and raised it for them to see. He stretched, and set it on the top of Jenkin, so that the head and the pillar were one being. Richard Turner handed him a wooden cup and Jack dipped it into the kettle.

“Here’s first to Crom.”

He dribbled the blue red juice over the head. It ran into the staring all-seeing blind eyes and down over white Jenkin.

“Next to his Bester.”

He reached inside the cloth and marked the hare with his finger in a line along the nose and between the ears.

The people formed up and Jack dipped the cup full for each and gave a piece of cap or stem. After they drank, they sat at the lane side, waiting.

“Not you, Nan Sarah.” He spoke under his breath.

“Why not?” she said. “See. I’ve fetched Blue John special.”

“You don’t sup when you’re carrying. You could lose it.”

“A wet of me lips, then.”

He looked at the sky. The sun had set behind Pike Low.

“A taste, and no more.”

He took the Blue John and dampened the rim and gave it back to her. She licked the trace, pretended to drink, smiled and put the Blue John in her shawl, and went to sit with the others.

“Don’t you leave yourself short,” said Richard Turner.

“There’s far and plenty, Father. I’ve thought on that.”

He was the last to drink. He wiped the cup dry with his finger, swallowed what was uneaten, and lifted the kettle and drained it. Then he took up the covered hare and sat on the bank.

They waited.

“Ri-chooral!” sang Tally Ridge.

No one spoke or moved, but watched.

Tally Ridge stood and began to dance.

“Ri-chooral! Ri-addiday!” His step was broken, but he did not stagger, and he moved his arms around with his shoulders, graceful, yet to no rhythm or pattern. “Ri-chooral! Ri-chooral! Ri-chooral! I-day!” He sat. His head was dipping and twisting with the same movement, and his mouth made nearly a grin. Then he fell over, asleep.

They waited.

“Ta-ba-li!” sang Jane Thomas. But she did not move.

Jack watched them and the sky. He smoothed the hare’s ears.

“Ku-kur!”

“Ukush-li-li-gi!”

The cries broke out on every side, and many people began to dance, alone and together, but all moved in the smooth way of snakes.

“Jack, I’m frit.”

“No need, wife. Sit close by the bank. There’s no harm in them. They’ll not hurt you.”

“Ta-ba-ri-gi!”

“Sithee!” On the cut of the hill the moon’s rim showed. Tally Ridge was awake. “Goibert in Pym Chair!”

Jack lifted the head from Jenkin. He pulled the sack over it, hoisted it on his shoulder and made his way back along the lane towards Saltersford. The hare rested on his arm.

He lost the moon as the lane dipped. From Saltersford he climbed between the avenue of the high stones, close against the hill. He felt the throb of the ground as he had before and measured it with every stride.

“Walk and do. Walk and do. Walk and do till all is done.”

He crossed the Butts, the Belderstone near the track and the steel ring glinting from it, up by Lankin into Thursbitch. He did not hurry.

“Walk and do. Walk and do. Walk and do till all is done. Walk and do. Walk and do. Walk and do till all is done.”

He crossed the ford and sat by Bully Thrumble, facing Thoon, now a stark rock. He breathed the night flowers of the valley. The hare was calm, but a tear formed in each glowing eye.

“Old Bouchert. Old Bouchert. Not long now. Not long at all. Sithee.”

Light limned the rock of Thoon, and the disk seemed to be born from the cave itself.

“Sithee, sithee, little lad. Why, look ye. There’s your ears, and your pretty head.”