Dame Alice was established in a bucket-shaped armchair that cut her off in some measure from anybody that wasn’t placed directly in front of her. Under her instructions, Alleyn drew up a hideous Edwardian stool to a strategic position. Dulcie placed a newspaper parcel on her great-aunt’s knee. Alleyn saw with some excitement a copy of the Times for 1871.
“Time someone got some new wrappin’ for this,” Dame Alice said and untied the tape with a jerk.
“By Heaven,” Dr. Otterly said, waving his cigar, “you’re highly favoured, Alleyn. By Heaven, you are!”
“There yar,” said Dame Alice. “Take it. Give him a table, Dulcie, it’s fallin’ to bits.”
Dr. Otterly brought up a table and Alleyn laid down the book she had pushed into his hands. It was of the kind that used to be called “commonplace” and evidently of a considerable age. The leather binding had split down the back. He opened it and found that it was the diary of one “Ambrose Hilary Mardian of Mardian Place, nr. Yowford, written in the year 1798.”
“My great-grandfather,” said Dame Alice. “I was born Mardian and married a Mardian. No young. Skip to the Wednesday before Christmas.”
Alleyn turned over the pages. “Here we are,” he said.
The entry, like all the others, was written in an elaborate copper-plate. The ink had faded to a pale brown.
“ ‘Sword Wednesday,’ ” he read, “ ‘1798. A note on the Mardian Morris of Five Sons.’ ” Alleyn looked up for a second at Dame Alice and then began to read.
This evening being the occasion of the Mardian Mumming or Sword Dance (which is perhaps the more proper way of describing it than as a morisco or morris) I have thought to set down the ceremony as it was performed in my childhood, for I have perceived since the death of old Yeo Andersen at Copse Forge there has been an abridgement of the doggerel which I fear either through indifference, forgetfulness or sheepishness on the part of the morris side — if morris or morisco it can be named — may become altogether neglected and lost. This were a pity as the ceremony is curious and I believe in some aspects unique. For in itself it embraces divers others, as the mummers’ play in which the father avoids death from his sons by breaking the glass, or knot, and then by showing his Will and the third time is in mockery beheaded. Also from this source is derived the Sword Dance itself in three parts and from yet another the quaint device of the rabbit cap. Now, to leave all this, my purpose here is to set down what was always said by Yeo Andersen the smith and his forebears who have enacted the part of the Fool. Doubtless the words have been changed as time goes by but here they are, as given to me by Yeo. These words are not spoken out boldly but rather are they mumbled under the breath. Sorry enough stuff it is, no doubt, but perhaps of interest to those who care for these old simple pastimes of our country people.
At the end of the first part of the Sword Dance, as he breaks the glass, the Fool says:
“Once for a looker and all must agree
If I bashes the looking-glass so I’ll go free.”
At the end of the second part he shews them his Will and says:
“Twice for a Testament. Read it and see
If you look at the leavings then so I’ll go free.”
At the end of the third part, he puts his head in the Lock and says:
“Here comes the rappers to send me to bed
They’ll rapper my head off and then I’ll be dead.”
And after that he says:
“Betty to lover me
Hobby to cover me
If you cut off my head
I’ll rise from the dead.”
N.B. I believe the word “rapper” to be a corruption of “rapier,” though in other parts it is used of wooden swords. Some think it refers to a practice of rapping or hitting with them after the manner of Harlequin in his dancing. Yet in the Mardian dunce the swords are of steel pierced for cords at the point.
There the entry for Sword Wednesday ended.
“Extraordinarily interesting,” Alleyn said. “Thank you.” He shut the book and turned to Dr. Otterly. “Did the Guiser speak any of this verse?”
“I believe he did, but he was very cagey about it. He certainly used to mutter something at those points in the dance, but he wouldn’t tell anybody what it was. The boys were near enough to hear, but they don’t like talking about it, either. Damn’ ridiculous when you come to think of it,” Dr. Otterly said, slightly running his words together. “But interesting, all the same.”
“Did he ever see this diary, Dame Alice?”
“I showed it to him. One of the times when he’d come to mend the boiler. He put on a cunnin’ look and said he knew all about it.”
“Would you think these lines, particularly the last four, are used in other places where folk dancing thrives?”
“Definitely not,” Dr. Otterly said, perhaps rather more loudly than he had intended. “They’re not in the Revesby text nor anywhere else in British ritual mumming. Purely local. Take the word ‘lover’ used as a verb. You still heard it hereabouts when I was a boy, but I doubt if it’s ever been found elsewhere in England. Certainly not in that context.”
Alleyn put his hand on the book and turned to his hostess. “Clever of you,” he said, “to think of showing me this. I congratulate you.” He got up and stood looking at her. She turned her Mrs. Noah’s face up to him and blinked like a lizard.
“Not goin’, are yer?”
“Isn’t it your bedtime?”
“Most certainly it is,” said Dr. Otterly, waving his cigar.
“Aunt Akky, it’s after ten.”
“Fiddlededee. Let’s have some brandy. Where’s the grog-tray? Ring the bell, Otters.”
The elderly parlour-maid answered the bell at once, like a servant in a fairy-tale, ready-armed with a tray, brandy-glasses and a bottle of fabulous cognac.
“I ’fer it at this stage,” Dame Alice said, “to havin’ it with the coffee. Papa used to say, ’When dinner’s dead in yer and bed is still remote, ring for the brandy.’ Sound advice in my?pinion.”
It was eleven o’clock when they left Mardian Castle.
Fox, running through his notes with a pint of beer before the fire, looked up over his spectacles when his chief came in. There was an unusual light in Alleyn’s eyes.
“You’re later than I expected, sir,” said Fox. “Shall I order you a pint?”
“Not unless you feel like carrying me up to bed after it. I’ve been carousing with the Dame of Mardian Castle. She may be ninety-four, Fox, but she carries her wine like a two-year-old, does that one.”
“God bless my soul! Sit down, Mr. Alleyn.”
“I’m all right. I must say I wonder how old Otterly’s managing under his own steam. He was singing the ‘Jewel Song’ from Faust in a rousing falsetto when we parted.”
“What did you have for dinner? To eat, I mean.”
“Ernie’s victim and sodden Brussels sprouts. The wine, however, was something out of this world. Laid down by one of the gods in the shape of Dame Alice’s papa. But the pièce de résistance, Br’er Fox, the wonder of the evening, handed to me, as it were, on a plate by Dame Alice herself, was — what do you suppose?”
“I don’t suppose, sir,” Fox said, smiling sedately.
‘The little odd golden morsel of information that clicks down into the pattern and pulls it together. The key to the whole damn’ set-up, my boy. Don’t look scandalized, Br’er Fox, I’m not so tight that I don’t know a crucial bit of evidence when it’s shoved under my nose. Have you heard the weather report?”