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predisposed to the religious thing.’ (This last was said as from a great height, and certainly put Marcus in his place.) ‘And I can detail my boy to give a hand with anything this Battersby starts up. There’s bound to be a good turn-out of boys to the fête, and I can get Timothy to round up a few of the more presentable ones and take them along to him. I’ll take him round and introduce him to a few people, if needs be. In the intervals, of course, of peddling near-antiques with your good lady.’
    â€˜Thyrza’s junk,’ I said. ‘Stuff too awful to be taken to Harrogate. I think we’ll work on a system that as soon as either of us has sold five items of Thyrza’s junk, we’ve earned fifteen minutes off.’
    Mr Horsforth smiled thinly, his bow towards a sense of humour.
    â€˜Well, good day to you, Marcus. Good day, Helen.’
    And he allowed Smokey one last roll with Jasper, and then they proceeded in an orderly manner up the path.
    â€˜I’m not sure Mr Horsforth is someone I’d choose as an ally,’ I said, watching him go.
    â€˜He’s not someone I’d care to go out for a drink with, that’s forsure. Still, he’s a useful man in some ways.’ Marcus took my arm, and we went back towards town. ‘And give him his due: he’s too sensible to go along with any of this bigotry that Mary is peddling around the town.’
    â€˜What makes you think,’ I said suddenly, ‘that Father Battersby is any less bigoted than Mary?’
    â€˜Oh, surely not, surely not. Anyway, if he is, we’ll face that problem when we come to it.’
    That was Marcus—a great one for facing problems when he came to them.

CHAPTER 5
WATERY BIER
    The day of the fête dawned bright and clear, as they say in children’s books where it always does. Hexton-on-Weir was seldom so lucky, though it would have been wrong to blame entirely for the dismal atmosphere the drizzle or squally showers with which the town was usually favoured. People had a lot to do with it too. This year, though, the sky was pure blue from early morning, and the sun played on laburnums and lilacs and early roses in the Hexton gardens.
    â€˜No one could make trouble on a day like this,’ said Marcus, tucking into a hearty plateful of bacon and eggs that was designed to make him forget food for eight or nine hours.
    I marvelled at his optimism, particularly in view of the fact that he’d been warned. Thyrza Primp had been along to the surgery two days before with Patch. She wanted Marcus to give him a general check-up, apparently to see if he could stand the excitements of Harrogate. When Marcus tried to give her his little lecture on charity, tolerance and open-mindedness, she said that in her view (and in that of poor Walter) the Church had been a good deal too open in recent years, and it was time to remember that we were not Methodists or Romans but Anglicans, with our own ways. She regretted the necessity of making it clear to Father Battersby that he was not wanted in this parish, but she felt that the need to impress this on him fell to her, in view of her positionin the parish, and she did not intend to shirk it. He would be left in no doubt of the feelings of the town towards him. ‘We shall do it in the politest possible way,’ she added ominously.
    By the morning of the fête Father Battersby had been in Hexton for about twelve hours, and I hoped he had suffered nothing worse than a snub from Thyrza or Mary. He had stayed overnight at the Blatchleys’, and in fact was to stay there until Thyrza moved out of the vicarage on the following Saturday. Marcus was sufficiently involved with the fête to have arranged no special meeting with him, beyond saying that he would meet him there. We both, in fact, were busy enough, in all conscience, from early in the morning. Marcus was helping set up the outdoor games and trials of strength, in