Tom Sharpe - The Throwback

'The epidemic of 1842 or thereabouts,' said the old man, 'wiped out nine-tenths of the population. You'll find them buried in the graveyard. A terrible thing, the cholera, but without it I doubt we Flawses would be where we are today.'

He gave a nasty chuckle that found no echo in his wife. She had not the least desire to be where she was today.

'We bought the land around for a song,' continued Mr Flawse. 'Dead Man's Moor they call it now.'

In the distance there came the sound of an explosion.

'That'll be the artillery wasting good taxpayers' money on the firing-range. You'll get used to the noise. It's either that or they're blasting over Tombstone Law in the quarries.'

Mrs Flawse hugged her travelling rug to her. The very names were filled with dread.

'And when are we getting to Flawse Hall?' she asked, to drive away her fear. The old man consulted a large gold Hunter.

'About another half an hour,' he said, 'by half past four.'

Mrs Flawse stared out the window even more intently looking for the houses of neighbours but there were none to be seen only the unbroken expanse of open moor and the occasional outcrop of rock that topped the hills. As they drove on the wind rose. Finally they came to another gated wall and Mr Dodd climbed down again.

'The Hall is over yonder. You'll not get a better view,' said the old man as they drove through. Mrs Flawse wiped the mist from the window and peered out. What she could see of the home she had set such store by had nothing to recommend it now. Flawse Hall on Flawse Fell close under Flawse Rigg lived up to its name. A large grey granite building with a tower at one end, it reminded her of Dartmoor Prison in a miniature way. The high stone wall that surrounded three sides of the house had the same air of deliberate containment as that of the prison and the gated archway in the wall was large and ominous. A few stunted and wind-bent trees huddled beside the wall and far away to the west she caught sight of dark pinewoods.

'That's the reservoir over there,' said Mr Flawse. 'Ye'll see the dam below.'

Mrs Flawse saw the dam. It was built of blocks of granite that filled the valley and from its base there ran a stone-sided stream that followed the valley floor, passed under a gated bridge, wound on another quarter of a mile and disappeared into a dark hole in the hillside. All in all the prospect ahead was as grim as nature and nineteenth-century waterworks could make it. Even the iron gate on to the little bridge was spiked and locked. Again Mr Dodd had to climb down and open it before the carriage moved through. Mr Flawse looked up the hill proudly and rubbed his hands with glee. 'It's good to be home again,' he said as the horses began the slow ascent to the house.

Mrs Flawse could see nothing good about it. 'What's that lower at the end?' she asked.

'That's the old peel tower. Much restored by my grandfather but the house is structurally much as it was in the sixteenth century.'

Mrs Flawse had few doubts about that. 'A peel tower?' she

murmured.

'A refuge for man and beast when the Scots raided. The walls are ten feet thick and it took more than a passel of marauding Scotsmen or moss troopers to break their way in where they weren't wanted.'

'And what are moss troopers?' Mrs Flawse inquired. 'They aren't any more, ma'am,' said the old man, 'but they were in the old days. Border raiders and cattle thieves from Redesdale and North Tynedale. The king's writ didn't run in the Middle Marches until well into the seventeenth century and, some say, later. It would have taken a brave law officer to come into these wild parts much before 1700.'

'But why moss troopers?' Mrs Flawse continued to take her mind off the looming granite house.

'Because they rode the moss and built their strongholds of great oak trunks and covered them with moss to hide them away and stop them being fired. It must have been a difficult thing to find them in among the bogs and swamps. Aye, and it needed a courageous man with no fear of death in his heart.'

'I should have thought that anyone who chose to live up here must have had a positive longing for death,' said Mrs Flawse.

But the old man was not to be diverted by the Great Certainty from the great past. 'You may well say so, ma'am, but we Flawses have been here since God alone knows when and there were Flawses with Percy at the Battle of Otterburn so celebrated in song.'

As if to emphasize the point another shell exploded to the west on the firing-range and as its boom died away there came another even more sinister sound. Dogs were baying.

'My God, what on earth is that?' said Mrs Flawse, now thoroughly alarmed.

Mr Flawse beamed. 'The Flawse Pack, ma'am,' he said and rapped on the window with his silver-headed stick. Mr Dodd peered down between his legs and for the first time Mrs Flawse saw that he had a cast in one eye. Upside-down, it gave his face a terrible leering look. 'Dodd, we'll gan in the yard. Mrs Flawse would like to see the hounds.'

Mr Dodd's topsy-turvy smile was horrible to behold. So too were the hounds when he climbed down and opened the heavy wooden gates under the archway. They swarmed out in a great seething mass and surrounded the brougham. Mrs Flawse stared down at them in horror. 'What sort of hounds are they? They're certainly not foxhounds,' she said to the old man's delight. 'Those are Flawse hounds,' he said as one great beast leapt up

and slobbered at the window with lolling tongue. 'Bred them myself from the finest stock. The hounds of spring are on winter's traces as the great Swinburne has it, and ye'll not find hounds that'll spring so fierce on anything's traces as these beasts. Two-thirds Pyrenean Mountain Dog for their ferocity and size. One-third Labrador for the keenness of scent and the ability to swim and retrieve. And finally one-third Greyhound for their speed. What do ye make of that, ma'am?'

Tour-thirds,' said Mrs Flawse, 'which is an absurdity. You can't make four-thirds of anything.'

'Can ye not?' said Mr Flawse, the gleam in his eye turning from pride to irritation that he should be so disproved. 'Then we'll have one in for your inspection.'

He opened the door and one of the great hybrids vaulted in and slavered in his face before turning its oral attentions to its new mistress.

'Take the horrid thing away. Get off, you brute,' shouted Mrs Flawse, 'stop that at once. Oh my God…'

Mr Flawse, satisfied that he had made his point, cuffed the dog out of the coach and slammed the door. Then he turned to his wife. 'I think ye'll agree that there's more than three-thirds of savage hound in him, my dear,' he said grimly, 'or would you care for another closer look?'

Mrs Flawse gave him a very close look indeed and said she would not.

'Then ye'll not contradict me on the matter of eugenics, ma'am,' he said, and shouted to Mr Dodd to drive on. 'I have made a study of the subject and I'll not be told I am wrong.'

Mrs Flawse kept her thoughts to herself. They were not nice ones. But they would keep. The carriage drew up at the back door and stopped. Mr Dodd came round through a sea of hounds.

'Get them out the way, man,' shouted Mr Flawse above the barks. 'The wife is afraid of the creatures.'

The next moment Mr Dodd, flailing around him with the horsewhip, had cowed the hounds back across the yard. Mr Flawse got out and held his hand for Mrs Flawse. 'You'll not expect a man of my age to carry you across the door-stone,' he said gallantly, 'but Dodd will be my proxy. Dodd, carry your mistress.'

'There's absolutely no need…' Mrs Flawse began but Mr Dodd had obeyed orders, and she found herself staring too closely for her peace of mind into his leering face as he clutched her to him and carried her into the house.

'Thank you, Dodd,' said Mr Flawse, following them in. 'Ceremony has been observed. Put her down.'