But enough was enough, and it seemed to me that London at the present moment was a particularly dark and dangerous place to be. I was not going back there if I could possibly help it.
Which was how, on this sunny May afternoon I came to be lying on my back on a wooded ridge, staring down into a secluded dell housing a small daub-and-wattle homestead with a roof thatched with twigs and brushwood. A few scrawny hens scratched for food in the courtyard and a black pig dozed in its sty, overcome by the sudden heat. Of human life there was at present no sign and I presumed the goodwife of the house to be indoors, also keeping cool. The homesteader himself could well be with her or, if he had sheep, out somewhere on the neighbouring hills. (Although this was not good sheep country, as even I could tell. But judging by the size of his other animals and the state of the property in general, the owner was not, in any case, much of a husbandman.)
I stared into the interlacing branches overhead where leaves clustered in pendants of lime and jade-green, stirred gently by the faintest of breezes as it went whispering among the trees. A ladybird, emerging from its hideaway, crawled down my arm like a drop of blood oozing from an unseen wound, and a chorus of insects chattered among the grass on which I sprawled. Silence and sunlight were both golden and a bee droned past my ear, searching for clover. I was where I liked to be best on my own, out of the world, where no one could find me.
Don’t mistake me. Anyone who has done me the honour of reading these chronicles thus far will know that I am a devoted family man. We-ell. . all right! Devoted may be too strong a word, but I love my wife and children. The trouble is, I love my freedom more. It was why, after I left Glastonbury Abbey and my life as a novice there, I became a pedlar. Not the life my mother had intended for me, nor one really suitable for an educated man (and my education at the abbey had been of the best: it was noted for its learning). But the open road, the happy encounters with fellow travellers, the protracted silences of early summer mornings or winter afternoons, the decisions when to eat and when to sleep that were mine alone, above all, the luxury of enjoying my own company undisturbed, these were the things that bolstered my determination never to renounce the calling I had chosen for myself.
Naturally, there was a reverse side to the coin. After weeks, even months, of tramping the roads in all weathers, there was nothing pleasanter than returning to a warm house, a loving wife, adoring children and a dog who regarded me as the hero of his canine dreams. (And if you believe that about the children and the dog, you’re more credulous than I gave you credit for being.) For a while at least I enjoyed the domesticity, the comfort of a settled life, the petty trivialities of day-to-day existence, the drinking sessions and meetings with friends in my favourite among Bristol’s numerous alehouses, the Green Lattis (alias the New Inn, alias Abingdon’s; it has had many names in its time). But in the end, the desire for solitude, for freedom continued to assert itself, making me increasingly short-tempered and restless until my understanding wife, God bless her, handed me my pack and my cudgel and told me to get out from under her feet, to go and earn some money further afield than the local villages and hamlets around the city. (It’s different nowadays, of course. Old age and the infirmities of the body make you a prisoner more surely than stone walls or iron bars because there’s no reprieve.)
So, as I said, I lay on my back that sunny afternoon in late spring, basking in the unexpected warmth and sunshine, grateful to be on my own again, particularly as the past week or so had been crowded with too much activity and too many people. I congratulated myself that I had successfully eluded Timothy Plummer should he come chasing after me when he had read my letter, and planning the long, slow route home to Bristol. I would go, I decided, through Avebury and see again the weird and ancient hump of Silbury Hill and the remains of the stone circles raised by our Celtic forebears hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. I had only seen them once before, whereas I had visited the great Giant’s Dance on Salisbury Plain on more than one occasion.
My belly rumbled and I realized that it must be getting on for four o’clock and supper time. I reckoned it was all of six hours since I had stopped at a wayside cottage to buy bread and cheese and home-made ale which I had swallowed sitting on a stone bench in the cottage garden. I also needed to find shelter for the night, although dusk was still some hours distant. But it was always well to be prepared, to have somewhere in mind unless the night was fine and dry enough to spend it under a hedge or in the lee of a barn. Tonight might well be such a night, but May, as I said at the beginning, is a notoriously fickle month and rain could easily arrive with darkness. Besides, I had a fancy for the comfort of a bed such as I had occupied at the Godsloves’ house. I was not yet ready to sleep rough.
I rolled on to my left side, propping myself on one elbow, and looked down again into the farmhouse courtyard. It was still as quiet as the grave, devoid of life, almost eerie in its silence, and I was just wondering if perhaps it really was uninhabited when the door burst open and a child, a young girl, her skirts bunched awkwardly in one hand, went laughing and screaming across the compacted earth towards the gate, scattering the indignant hens as she ran. She was plainly escaping from someone, hell-bent on mischief, and a moment later that someone appeared. A middle-aged woman, the girl’s mother I guessed, also laughing and shouting, emerged from the house in pursuit of her errant daughter, catching her just as she was about to make her bid for freedom. For a moment or two, the girl fought her captor, wriggling and squirming. The woman continued to laugh, at the same time giving the child what seemed to be an affectionate scold, holding her gently but firmly in one arm while wagging a finger of her other hand in mock severity. Eventually, tiring of a game she knew she couldn’t win, the girl collapsed against the woman’s side and allowed herself to be taken back indoors.
As they were about to vanish inside, I got to my feet, stretching my arms above my head to ease the cramp in my shoulders. The woman must have glimpsed the movement out of the corner of one eye for she stopped and stared up at the ridge on which I was standing. I raised a hand in greeting, but she gave no answering wave, merely pushing the girl ahead of her through the open doorway and following herself with all speed. I felt somewhat aggrieved by this unfriendly treatment but decided that there was probably a good reason for it. Perhaps the lass, although she looked young, had an eye for the men; perhaps that was why she had been attempting to escape, to keep a tryst with some youth of the district. In which case, my request for a bed for the night might not be well received, but there was no harm in trying. I therefore shouldered the canvas sack containing the clothes I had taken with me to London, picked up my cudgel and descended the path to the farmhouse gate.
All was now peaceful, so I crossed the courtyard and rapped loudly on the door. Nothing happened, and I had raised my hand to knock again when a snarling sound made me whirl about just in time to see a man and dog appear around the corner of the building. The latter was one of the largest dogs I had ever encountered, with small, malicious eyes and excellent teeth. Heaven alone knew what mixed parentage had gone towards its making. With mounting horror I saw it crouch, ready to spring, and clutched my cudgel horizontally in both hands. My one hope was to thrust it between the animal’s jaws as it launched itself at me, and I braced myself for the attack.