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Authors: Reginald Hill
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those provided by the curved stones with their tracery of mortar. She advanced beyond the cross and squatted to take a closer look.
The briar was studded with such ferocious hooks that she could see why the sheep avoided grazing here. It was hard enough for her to brush aside the veiling vegetation but she finally succeeded at the price of several scratches and stings.
Her reward was to discover her glimpse of regularity hadn’t been delusive. On a huge base stone someone had carved a quatrain of verse, arranging it in a perfect square.
She read the first line and felt the ground tremble beneath her feet as though the ancient dead were turning in their long sleep.
Here lies Sam Flood
She steadied herself with one hand on the cool damp turf and blinked to bring the stone back into focus. Then she read on.
Here lies Sam Flood Whose nature bid him
To do much good. Much good it did him.
Nothing else. No date, no pious farewell, not even an RIP.
She stood up and watched as the wind rearranged the briars and nettles till the carving was once more invisible.
She thought she heard a noise and turned quickly. She was sure she glimpsed a movement on the tower. Well, almost sure. That bloody tower could easily become an obsession. She certainly wasn’t going to interrupt the funeral service to take a look. Probably it was pure fancy, and the sound had come from the stomach of a nearby sheep.
But suddenly the cross, the four dark yews, the crouching building, were an insupportable burden.
She hurried round the side of the church and up the path to the gate.
As she reached it, suddenly there was a burst of sound from behind, the voices of what must be a large congregation upraised in a hymn. There didn’t seem to be any musical accompaniment but she could make out the words quite clearly.
Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophet’s warning!
Heav’n and earth in ashes burning!
Above the church, the wind was shredding the veil of low cloud, and now at last she saw the mountains, much closer than she’d imagined.
The church crouched like a guard dog on their skirts. Back home she’d seen country much wilder and mountains twice as high, but nowhere had she ever felt so out of place.
She turned away and began the long trudge back to the Stranger House.
5 •
A nice straight country road
The weather had improved considerably when Mig Madero came out of the pub. Gaps were appearing in the clouds and westward the sun was setting in a wash of pink against which the intervening heights lay in sharp silhouette.
He took his laptop off the back seat, plugged it into his mobile, got online and checked his e-mail. He had one message from his mother, reminding him to keep in touch. Realizing he was now past his forecast time of arrival in Illthwaite, he keyed a brief equivocating line saying he had safely arrived in Cumbria. Then he wrote an e-mail to Professor Coldstream.
Max, thanks for suggesting Southwell—everything you promised—good and bad! Ever hear of a man called Molloy? Some sort of journalist, up here asking questions about Father Simeon a few years back, possibly in connection with a book on Topcliffe and his associates e.g. F. Tyrwhitt. Talking of whom, anything new from your man Lilleywhite in Yorkshire? Off to Illthwaite now. Mig.
His messages despatched, he brought up the map, which confirmed what he knew, that Skaddale with its village of Illthwaite lay on the far side of those silhouetted heights. The most direct route seemed to be via the next township of Ambleside to a village called Elterwater from which ran what looked like a nice straight country road. With luck, he might at last be able to let the SLK really express itself.
Half an hour later he was beginning to understand why the haddock had been so good. God, being just, had clearly decided that the journey would be expiation enough.
The only traffic he’d met was a slow tractor, but that had been on such a narrow
The briar was studded with such ferocious hooks that she could see why the sheep avoided grazing here. It was hard enough for her to brush aside the veiling vegetation but she finally succeeded at the price of several scratches and stings.
Her reward was to discover her glimpse of regularity hadn’t been delusive. On a huge base stone someone had carved a quatrain of verse, arranging it in a perfect square.
She read the first line and felt the ground tremble beneath her feet as though the ancient dead were turning in their long sleep.
Here lies Sam Flood
She steadied herself with one hand on the cool damp turf and blinked to bring the stone back into focus. Then she read on.
Here lies Sam Flood Whose nature bid him
To do much good. Much good it did him.
Nothing else. No date, no pious farewell, not even an RIP.
She stood up and watched as the wind rearranged the briars and nettles till the carving was once more invisible.
She thought she heard a noise and turned quickly. She was sure she glimpsed a movement on the tower. Well, almost sure. That bloody tower could easily become an obsession. She certainly wasn’t going to interrupt the funeral service to take a look. Probably it was pure fancy, and the sound had come from the stomach of a nearby sheep.
But suddenly the cross, the four dark yews, the crouching building, were an insupportable burden.
She hurried round the side of the church and up the path to the gate.
As she reached it, suddenly there was a burst of sound from behind, the voices of what must be a large congregation upraised in a hymn. There didn’t seem to be any musical accompaniment but she could make out the words quite clearly.
Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophet’s warning!
Heav’n and earth in ashes burning!
Above the church, the wind was shredding the veil of low cloud, and now at last she saw the mountains, much closer than she’d imagined.
The church crouched like a guard dog on their skirts. Back home she’d seen country much wilder and mountains twice as high, but nowhere had she ever felt so out of place.
She turned away and began the long trudge back to the Stranger House.
5 •
A nice straight country road
The weather had improved considerably when Mig Madero came out of the pub. Gaps were appearing in the clouds and westward the sun was setting in a wash of pink against which the intervening heights lay in sharp silhouette.
He took his laptop off the back seat, plugged it into his mobile, got online and checked his e-mail. He had one message from his mother, reminding him to keep in touch. Realizing he was now past his forecast time of arrival in Illthwaite, he keyed a brief equivocating line saying he had safely arrived in Cumbria. Then he wrote an e-mail to Professor Coldstream.
Max, thanks for suggesting Southwell—everything you promised—good and bad! Ever hear of a man called Molloy? Some sort of journalist, up here asking questions about Father Simeon a few years back, possibly in connection with a book on Topcliffe and his associates e.g. F. Tyrwhitt. Talking of whom, anything new from your man Lilleywhite in Yorkshire? Off to Illthwaite now. Mig.
His messages despatched, he brought up the map, which confirmed what he knew, that Skaddale with its village of Illthwaite lay on the far side of those silhouetted heights. The most direct route seemed to be via the next township of Ambleside to a village called Elterwater from which ran what looked like a nice straight country road. With luck, he might at last be able to let the SLK really express itself.
Half an hour later he was beginning to understand why the haddock had been so good. God, being just, had clearly decided that the journey would be expiation enough.
The only traffic he’d met was a slow tractor, but that had been on such a narrow
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