“I don’t know so much about that, you know,” Dr. Otterly said, squinting at his port. “The boys and Simon Begg have been talking for a long time about converting the forge into a garage and petrol station. Looking forward to when the new road goes through.”
This, as might have been expected, aroused a fury in Dame Alice. Alleyn listened to a long diatribe, during which her teeth began to play up, against new roads, petrol pumps and the decline of proper feeling in the artisan classes.
“William,” she said (she pronounced it Will’m), “would never’ve had it. Never! He told me what his fools of sons were plottin’. Who’s the feller that’s put ’em up to it?”
“Young Begg, Aunt Akky.”
“Begg? Begg? What’s he got to do with it? He’s a grocer.”
“No, Aunt Akky, he left the shop during the war and went into the Air Force and now he’s got a garage. He was here yesterday.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, Dulcie. Of course I know young Begg was here. I’d have given him a piece of my mind if you’d told me what he was up ter.”
“When did you see William Andersen, Dame Alice?”
“What? When? Last week. I sent for ’im. Sensible old feller, Will’m Andersen.”
“Are we allowed to ask why you sent for him?”
“Can if yer like. I told ’im to stop his grand-daughter makin’ sheep’s eyes at my nephew.”
“Goodness!” Dulcie said, “was she? Did Ralph like it? Is that what you meant, Aunt Akky, when you said Ralph was a rake?”
“No.”
“If you don’t mind my cutting in,” Dr. Otterly ventured, “I don’t believe little Miss Camilla made sheep’s eyes at Ralph. She’s a charming child with very nice manners.”
“Will’m ’greed with me. Look what happened when his girl loped with young Campion. That sort of mix-up never answers and he knew it.”
“One can’t be too careful, can one, Aunt Akky,” Dulcie said, “with men?”
“Lor’, Dulcie, what a stoopid gel you are. When,” Dame Alice asked brutally, “have you had to look after yerself, I’d like to know?”
“Ah-ha, Aunt Akky!”
“Fiddlesticks!”
The parlour-maid re-appeared with cigarettes and, surprisingly, a great box of cigars.
“I picked ’em up,” Dame Alice said, “at old Tim Comberdale’s sale. We’ll give you ten minutes. You can bring ’em to the drawin’-room. Come on, Dulcie.”
She held out her arm. Dulcie began to collect herself.
“Let me haul,” Alleyn said, “may I?”
“Thanks. Bit groggy in the fetlocks, these days. Go with the best, once I’m up.”
He opened the door. She toddled rapidly towards it and looked up at him.
“Funny world,” she said. “Ain’t it?”
“Damned odd.”
“Don’t be too long over your wine. I’ve got a book to show you and I go up in half an hour. Don’t keep ’im now, Otters.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dr. Otterly said. When the door had shut he placed his hand on his diaphragm and muttered, “By Heaven, that was an athletic old gander. But what a cellar, isn’t it?”
“Wonderful,” Alleyn said abstractedly.
He listened to Dr. Otterly discoursing on the Mardian family and its vanished heyday. “Constitutions of oxes and heads of cast-iron, the lot of them,” Dr. Otterly declared. “And arrogant!” He wagged a finger. “ ’Nuff said.” It occurred to Alleyn that Dr. Otterly’s head was not perhaps of the same impregnability as the Mardians’.
“Join the ladies?” Dr. Otterly suggested, and they did so.
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.”