Read Online A Rope--In Case by Lillian Beckwith - Free Book Online

surely washed up venison isn’t fit for people to eat?’ I argued weakly.
    Yawn was an impatient man and his tongue could be scathing on occasion. ‘Not fit to eat?’ In his horror he dropped his knife and the sound of it clattering over the stones was like a derisive echo. ‘Of course it’s fit to eat, woman!’ he bawled at me.
    I felt I had to persist. ‘But we don’t know how long it’s been dead.’ My voice was almost a wail.
    Yawn retrieved his knife and gave me a look of complete disdain. ‘I tell you it’s not more than a few hours has it been in the sea an’ do you not know, woman, that sea water is salt water an’ that salt water makes the best pickle?’
    His contention sounded reasonable enough and I felt my doubts receding a little.
    â€˜Won’t you have some for yourself?’ I suggested subtly.
    â€˜That’s very good of you, Miss Peckwitt. Indeed I would be very glad to have some. I’m very fond of a wee bitty venison.’
    His acceptance made me feel much better. ‘Take as much as you like,’ I told him graciously.
    He stowed the joints in his own sack, roped it on his back and said he would carry it home for me. I rolled up the dripping skin and carried it myself.
    At my cottage he dropped the sack and asked me where I wanted him to put the meat.
    â€˜I’ll just take one haunch,’ I said. ‘You have the rest.’
    His delight was obvious. ‘Are you sure that’s goin’ to be enough for you?’ he demanded.
    I was quite sure.
    He extracted a haunch and hung it for me in the outside cupboard. ‘You’ll enjoy that in a day or so,’ he assured me as he left.
    For two days the haunch hung there and whenever I opened the cupboard I eyed it dubiously wondering if I should ever pluck up courage to cook it.
    On the third day I made an excuse to visit Yawn’s house where his sister Sarah greeted me.
    â€˜My, my, but that’s a grand lot of venison you gave my brother the other day just. We had it with our potatoes an’ it was good. We fairly enjoyed it.’
    â€˜It was all right, was it?’
    â€˜Indeed I’ve never tasted better,’ she enthused and looked at me for confirmation. ‘Did you not have any yourself yet?’
    I admitted I hadn’t cooked my haunch yet but seeing her so hale and hearty I resolved that I would cook it for supper the very next evening when I was expecting Mary, my friend from England, to arrive. I told myself that the venison would probably be as wholesome as any meat I might be able to buy from the unsavoury little butcher’s van which might or might not turn up next morning. I recollected the last purchase I had made from the gore-splashed van. The customer before me had been buying mince and when the butcher had come to serve me he had been unable to find the cloth for wiping down his cutting board. He had looked in the van and then on the road thinking he had dropped it. We had both noticed a sheepdog pulling at a grey-looking something a little distance away. With an oath the butcher had rushed at the dog, wrested the cloth from it and then had returned to wipe down the board with the cloth. So inured had I become to this sort of thing I did not even murmur a complaint.
    The following afternoon I took down the haunch and wrapped it in a pastry case, as advised by Mrs. Beeton. I put it into the oven to cook slowly for several hours. By the time Mary arrived the whole house was full of a tempting aroma.
    â€˜My Golly! That smells good!’ was Mary’s first remark. And a little while later it was: ‘Becky, how long is supper going to be?’
    Debating whether or not to tell her anything of its history I lifted the haunch from the oven and broke off the crust. The meat tin was half full of rich brown gravy. I placed the haunch on a willow-patterned dish and carried it to the table. Beside it I placed a tin of