I had chosen, conveniently, to forget Adela’s instruction of ‘well before Saint Patrick’s Day’, but an unexpected twinge of conscience led me to attempt a short cut, leaving the well-worn track between Cirencester and Tetbury and taking to a path recommended by a local forester. As this led through a densely wooded area, I should have known better, but the man’s eager assurances that, this way, I should reach Tetbury before I knew where I was proved irresistible. Unfortunately, it also proved prophetic in the sense that, before very long, I didn’t know where I was, and was totally lost. To make matters worse, it had begun to rain, cold, slanting spears that stung my face and made Hercules whimper with indignation and stare up at me accusingly as he trotted by my side.
‘All right,’ I muttered as he yelped pathetically, ‘I know I’m a fool. You’re hungry, I’m hungry. We’re both wet, chilled to the marrow and dog-tired – if you’ll pardon the expression – but there’s nothing I can do about it. We can only keep on along this path and hope that it leads us somewhere … Christ Jesus! What was that?’
Something hanging from the branch of an oak had brushed my face. I swung round, cudgel at the ready, while Hercules growled and bared his teeth. Happily, there was still sufficient daylight filtering between the overhanging canopy of trees for me to see what it was that had struck my cheek. A corn dolly, with a nail driven through its heart swung from a twig, while a bunch of mistletoe had been placed at the foot of the oak. I shivered, but made no attempt to touch either. Hercules shrank against my legs. I could feel him trembling.
I looked higher up the tree. Long strips of cloth, sodden and darkened by the rain, were tied to some of the other branches. This was an old Celtic custom and indicated the presence, somewhere in the vicinity, of a well or spring, once sacred to the local god of the place (something I had learned from my first wife, Lillis, who was of both Cornish and Welsh descent). And yet I had neither heard nor seen any sign of water for quite some while.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ I muttered to Hercules, picking him up and tucking him under my left arm. He was still shaking and I soothed him as best I could, glad of the warmth of his little body close to mine.
Suddenly, the crowding trees seemed to draw back and we were in a clearing. In spite of the fact that the light was bad, I could see that there were strangely shaped humps and bumps amongst the general scrub and undergrowth. A closer look at one of them convinced me that there was stonework beneath the encroaching ivy and layers of moss. Young saplings, thrusting heavenwards, had dislodged one or two of the stones, which lay scattered around on the grass. Further investigation suggested that a house of some size had once stood on the site, and its broken stumps of walls accounted for the hummocky landscape.
I put Hercules down and he at once began his own inspection, eagerly sniffing everything in sight and leading me on until the path we had been following suddenly reappeared, snaking ahead of us to vanish into another belt of trees. And it was at this point that I stubbed the toe of my right boot against something lying hidden in the undergrowth and measured my length on the ground. For a moment, I was winded and half stunned; then, cursing roundly and fending off the dog’s well-meant attentions, I picked myself up and turned to find out what had felled me.
I knew from my aching ribs that I had fallen across something hard. Tearing aside the long stems of winter-bleached grasses, I soon revealed a large, round wooden cover with a handle. This, when raised – not without a good deal of swearing and exertion on my part, and excited barking on that of Hercules – revealed the dark, rank-smelling depths of an old well, which had once, presumably, provided water for the ruined house. The canopy of the well, the winch and bucket had long since disappeared, but the shaft remained; although, as far as I could make out in the poor remnants of daylight, there was no water in it (I threw a stone down, but heard no splash). A narrow iron ladder, about a foot in width, was attached to the wall of the shaft, disappearing into the murky gloom like the descent into Hades.
I stood up, rubbing ineffectually at the damp and muddy knees of my second-best pair of hose, thankful that at least I hadn’t ripped them. Then I dragged the lid of the well back into place, making sure that it fitted snugly around the ring of stones bordering, and standing slightly proud of, the shaft’s rim, just as I had found it.
I shifted my almost empty pack, which had slipped sideways, to a more comfortable position on my back, and looked down thoughtfully at my discovery. I wondered who had made the lid and fitted it. Such care for the well-being of human and animal life (perhaps not necessarily in that order) argued a settlement, a village or a hamlet, somewhere not too far distant. If that were so, then Hercules and I might hope for food and a place to sleep for the night. Greatly cheered by this reflection, and praying that I was right, I urged a willing Hercules onward.
We followed the path into the trees and, almost at once, found ourselves on a gentle slope, descending almost imperceptibly into an as yet invisible hollow. The rain had ceased and a thin, watery ray of light slanted through the leafless branches overhead. There was the sudden glint of sun on water – and so it was that I saw, even before I heard, the little rill, purling over its stony bed, that had suddenly appeared and was accompanying us downhill. Where its source lay, I had no idea, but it encouraged me to believe that my reasoning was correct, and that we were within reach of warmth and shelter.
The trees ended abruptly and Hercules and I were once again in open country, on an incline whose lush grassland, in spring and summer, would be white with sheep – those four-legged moneybags that made Gloucestershire farmers the envy of all Europe. But for the present, after the lambing season, most of the ewes were still indoors, in barns and folds and hovels, and only a few dotted the horizon. And even as I watched, a man came out of the farmhouse, just visible away to my right, striding purposefully towards them, crook in hand, ready to pen them up for the night. He waved to someone further down the slope; someone beyond my range of vision in the rapidly advancing dusk.
It was indeed growing dark, and my obvious course of action would have been to make for the farmhouse, had I not at that very instant noticed the fugitive twinkle of lights in the hollow below me. I strode out with renewed vigour, whistling tunelessly and encouraging Hercules to hurry along with promises of a bowl of scraps eaten by a warm fireside.
The distance between us and a night’s shelter was, however, greater than I had estimated. We passed the farmhouse and its attendant barns and outhouses, now nothing but black, papery shadows set against a stormy evening sky, and, some little way further on, a much smaller homestead, again only a dark shape on the horizon. It was perhaps another quarter of a mile before Hercules and I found ourselves crossing the wooden footbridge over a broader stream, fed by the rill that had been our companion for the past half-hour.
Beyond the bridge, lay one of those little Cotswold hamlets of slate and stone, lying like a wisp of grey smoke between the surrounding hills. As far as I could see at first glance through the increasing gloom, this one consisted of half a dozen cottages, a tiny church thatched with rough grass and bracken, a mill and – a sight to gladden my heart – an alehouse.
This last was unmistakable. The door stood open, showing an oblong of smoky red light across which flitted a procession of figures. Raised voices could be heard inside, laughing, complaining, shouting, arguing or drunkenly singing snatches of a bawdy song to the accompaniment of a reedy pipe and the scrape of a badly tuned fiddle. A pole with a bunch of leaves tied to its top – its ‘bush’ – indicated that food was available. My empty stomach was already rumbling.