The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan

by Cynthia Jefferies

  He followed the deer tracks as far as he could before wading fearfully through the long grass to the door of the church. It stood slightly ajar, just wide enough for him to slip through.

  Leaves and twigs had blown in over the years, and birds obviously nested here. It smelt of foxes too. It seemed God’s creatures worshipped freely here without the interference of men.

  It was a tiny church. On the wall opposite, so close he was only a pace or two away, was the unmistakable image of St Christopher, bearing the Christ child on his shoulder. Damp had attacked the painting, but it was still perfectly clear. Christopher thought how bright churches must have been in the old days, before such pictures were painted over. He could imagine how travellers of old, pausing on their journeys, would have been heartened at such an image. He found himself praying for his son to be returned to him. He didn’t feel his prayers were heard. He didn’t feel God here, or in his heart, but he prayed anyway, using hope as his prop.

  The church was empty. His son had not found shelter here.

  As he turned back to the door he saw another picture, equally old. It was painted onto the plaster either side of the door and continued above it in an arch, a whole scene of figures in an open landscape, not unlike the moor outside. It was a horrible sight. Everywhere devils had people in their clutches. They were dragging poor souls down into hell, tormenting them with the most hideous tortures. In another part of the painting, devils were being vomited from people’s mouths, or erupting from men’s and women’s stomachs or between their legs in a horrible parody of childbirth.

  Christopher recoiled from the painting. For a moment, he feared to pass under the diabolical scene, then he plunged through, emerging with relief into the sunlight. Was it this that would be brought back if the country had another Catholic monarch?

  Christopher rode onto the moor. His voice was hoarse with calling, but he kept on crying out his son’s name the best he could and then listening for any faint sign that he was near. Even after a few days, if he had a broken leg, perhaps, he could have survived and be even now waiting for help? But by the time darkness fell again, Abel was still not found. When Christopher returned to the inn, Jane had news for him, though not of a cheerful kind.

  ‘Some in the village have beaten poor Tinker,’ she said with anger in her voice. ‘It was some of the young lads, but I daresay one of the Johnson boys set them on to it. All to do a favour for you by discovering where the gypsies went who took Abel.’

  Christopher could not help hoping. ‘Did they discover anything?’

  ‘No, sir. They broke his arm, they say, and bloodied him about the face, but Tinker has no secrets, other than who his parents were, and that even Tinker does not know.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Some of them had the sense to drive him in his cart to Coleman’s yard. They have set his arm, I think, and Coleman has given him leave to stay in the yard until he’s better.’

  ‘Coleman has a good heart.’

  ‘He does indeed.’

  Christopher looked at his servant. ‘Do we have anything we could take for Tinker? I am sorry for his trouble.’

  Jane shook her head. ‘They have much more in their kitchen than we do in ours, sir, but I’ll ask William. He is not long back from searching on the other side of the village. Perhaps he would be able to think of some small thing Tinker would like.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him.’

  The days passed. Village life resumed its steady pattern and Christopher alone continued to search. Any hope of finding Abel alive had gone. Even so, Christopher could not give up. In the vain hope that his son might have ridden as far as Chineborough and had suffered some misfortune there, Christopher rode to the port several times and asked in the inns and coffee houses, but no one had seen a boy of his description. At least, there were so many wandering boys that it was hard to know if he had been seen or not.

  Even Christopher now had to admit the most likely explanation was that Abel had fallen from his horse, hit his head and, in staggering, had slipped off the cliff or lay dead under some bush as yet undiscovered. He had left the road, that much was clear, but how far he had wandered and in which direction was unfathomable. There were so many places: numerous brown pools where turf had been dug, many deep enough to drown a boy, as well as the considerable undergrowth. That was the hardest thing for Christopher to accept, that Abel’s bones would lie unclaimed, that there was no body to bury. It was, he thought, punishment for earlier unforgivable deeds. He had fled his wife’s unburied body and so God had seen fit to forbid him the consolation of laying his son to rest.

  And yet, every time he tried to force his mind to picture his son as a corpse he could not do it. Troubadour was a quiet old horse. Abel had been a good little rider and a sensible boy. Christopher’s head knew he was seeking hope where there was none, but his heart wouldn’t listen.

  ABEL MORGAN

  9

  I was dreaming of my mother. Having never known her, I seldom dreamt of her, but whenever I did she would be holding me in her arms and rocking me to sleep. My eyes were always closed in these dreams, but invariably she was singing a sweet lullaby and I was filled with an enfolding sensation of being safe and totally loved. As I woke, the feeling was still with me. I had the delicious sensation that the dream had followed me into waking as it never had before, and I wanted to prolong it. I lay on my back gazing up into the sky above. It must have rained, because my face and clothes were damp, but the sun was out now, shining into my eyes. I closed them against the pain, a pain I could not blame on the sun because it came from a deep throbbing at the back of my head. I had never felt such pain. Jane would surely tell me to lie still and would in a moment come to pull the curtains across my window so I could rest, but there was no window, nor was I in my bed.

  I was just a boy. Twelve years old. A little young for my years since my father’s indulgence had seen to it that I did no labour in the fields, nor follow any master. Between child and man, I was full of a boy’s dreaming. The rabbit that would oblige me by entering my snare, the fish that would leap into my cunning hands, the boots I had found in the house and the little knife found hidden within that I kept secret, in case my father took it from me. The vague riches I would present triumphantly to my wondering father. I had been the hero of all my fancies, but now I was in a puzzle not of my making and what I wanted was Jane’s mothering. Like a young prince, I expected to be taken up and ministered to. But around that expectation hovered fear. The swaying surface I lay upon, the sounds, like and unlike the rhythm of the mill by the meadow, the pain at the back of my head – I understood none of it. Where was I? What had happened? I remembered nothing, but my father was knowledge itself. He would explain as soon as he arrived to take me home.

  ‘Look lively there!’

  It was not my father. I did not know who he was, but he must know my father, for everyone did. As soon as this man knew who I was he would send for him. My father would make everything right. I remember that thought so clearly. The moment such certainties are revealed to be false is a profound shifting of the ground under a child’s feet.

  The man whose voice I didn’t recognise loomed over me. He had a large knife in his hand and an unkempt beard on his face. His free hand, as he grasped me, was calloused and horny, like one who follows the plough. I drew my knees under me and scrambled to get up and away from him, but the ground rocked beneath me. I lost my footing and would have gone down again if his hand had not been upon me. The pain in the back of my head was so fierce that I retched, but there was nothing in my stomach. I stood there, helpless in his grip, swaying with the motion of the floor.

  ‘When you send for my father …’ I must have said something of the sort, but I don’t recall him giving me any answer then, or ever any indication that he either heard or was interested in what I said. I did try many times over the next few days to get him to listen, but eventually, after increasingly severe cuffs, I saw the futility of it and c
eased.

  Over the following few days I recalled much of what had happened. I had been on an errand for my father and had been riding Troubadour, to where I could not remember. There had been a cart and me dismounting. For a few days more that was all, and then I remembered the face of the man who owned the cart. It was Mr Johnson, Daniel Johnson, who I had always feared. He had ever been at pains to praise me in front of my father, while secretly giving me sly pinches, and once had stepped heavily onto my bare foot with his shod one. I had never mentioned this behaviour to my father through fear of worse from the bully. He was an adult version of some of the boys in the village who liked to inflict pain on innocent cats, dogs and other children. I despised them, and him, but nothing had ever made it stop.

  Daniel Johnson was not the person I had been supposed to visit, but he had hailed me on the road and asked for help. I remembered drawing rein, feeling like a king on Troubadour’s back, high above my former tormentor. I should have known better. Daniel had hold of Troubadour’s bridle in an instant and would not let go until I had agreed to help with his wayward horse. His request for help flattered me, in spite of my being wary. For the rest, all I could recall was sliding reluctantly off Troubadour’s back into pain and darkness.

  The place I awoke in was revealed by degrees. I could see that the stranger and I were in a large space enclosed by wooden walls, but no roof. The ground still rocked beneath me. It was not my head that made it so. It was something to do with the contraption in which the man and I stood. I could make no sense of it.

  The man laughed as I staggered, but not particularly unkindly. ‘You’ll soon find your legs,’ he said. ‘Follow me. There’s meat and drink for you on deck. Once you’ve eaten, I’ll show you your duties.’

  Without further words, he tucked the knife back into his belt and started to leave. Like an abandoned puppy, seeing no other choice, I followed.

  At one end of the enclosed space there was a narrow doorway. The man disappeared into it without giving me a second glance. Inside to my left was a tiny cubbyhole, with a narrow bench and table, and a curtained shelf with a grubby blanket and pillow. The only light came from a very steep stairway, almost a ladder. Eagerly hoping for enlightenment, I clambered up after him and emerged as the sun returned from behind a cloud.

  It took a few seconds to adjust my eyes to what they were seeing. At first, I couldn’t understand. I looked from side to side, searching in vain. Where was the moor, the people, trees, animals? About me was sun and sky … and water, such a huge expanse of water. I staggered forwards and gripped the wooden side. I had never seen one, except in my Orbis Sensualium Pictus, which my father used to teach me both Latin and Dutch. I knew what it was, even though it was not a galley – navis actuaria – nor yet, with its single mast, a merchant ship – navis oneraria – but something smaller. The water could be nothing other than the sea, and I was therefore upon a boat.

  The waves slapped rhythmically against the hull, sending up the occasional splash of water that moistened my face. Above me, a worn rust-coloured sail bellied out with a steady wind. I licked my lips and tasted salt. I had been in the hold and was now on the after deck. These terms were alien to me then, but it was not long before I knew them all and more. Even then, with proof all around me that I was beyond help, I could not quite believe it. The discovery that a parent is not omnipotent is hard, even for one such as me, who well knew his father’s dark, sad moods. But that he would not find me? I wasn’t ready to believe that.

  Even so, I was in pain, confused and frightened. I couldn’t help myself, and perhaps a part of me felt that if I cried hard enough my father would hear, even here, and take away the responsibility for myself that had suddenly been thrust upon me. I sank to my knees with my hands on the deck and gave myself up to howling my grief like an animal.

  ‘Get up, boy.’

  His foot nudging my ribs made me curl into a ball of misery, but then he kicked my spine, and I yelped.

  ‘Get up,’ he said again, and I did so, wiping the snot and tears from my face. I followed him meekly and sat where he told me to sit, on the deck in the sunshine. With his foot he pushed towards me a wooden plate, with a hunk of bread and some cheese on it. It was a grimy bare foot, which had felt like steel when he had kicked me. I picked up the bread and tried to chew but was so thirsty I couldn’t.

  ‘Here.’ A leather tankard was slopped down in front of me and I eagerly took it up. I drained the small beer in one draught and looked for more.

  ‘No more until you have eaten,’ said the man, with a care for my welfare that an owner might give an animal for which he has no affection but prefers not to lose. ‘You need something more than liquid in your stomach.’

  By the time I had eaten most of the cheese and all the bread, I was feeling a little better. I sipped the refilled tankard and began to look about me. We were not so very far from the coast. It was much too distant to swim but close enough to see a smudge that might even be Chineborough. Our single sail was still full of wind. Behind me, another man with a big belly and thinning hair sat steering the boat. When I glanced at him he looked away. At the front of the boat I could see another small area of deck. In between, all was open to the elements. I wondered how many people were on board and soon discovered it was just the two men and me. They were the owners of the vessel. It took a while before I realised that they also owned me.

  They told me nothing apart from the work they required me to do, but I soon understood that they were brothers. Their vessel carried a variety of goods up and down the coast for whomsoever wished to engage them. They were each capable of sailing the boat alone, but I soon found that they preferred to work together, spending as much time as possible jawing with one another. So, I was made to fetch food and drink, set traps for the rats, wash and keep the decks clear of any impediments to their safe progress, and every day pump the bilge. This last was not difficult, but it was onerous. My soft hands soon became blistered, and then raw. If I had been able to let them heal I would have been pathetically grateful, but other than tipping salt water over them, causing me agony, and giving me rags to pad the pump handle, the brothers showed little concern.

  The first night I cried myself to sleep, but after that I was mostly too exhausted to do more than drop onto a woolsack, which was our present cargo, and fall unconscious. Father, Jane and William, the Rumfustian Inn and Charlie too – all were increasingly far from me. I began to look for nothing in the future except for my hands to harden and my chores to become lighter. Sometimes, glancing up from my pumping, I would look out at the coastline with ever-decreasing hope. It was always at the same distance, always visible and always out of reach.

  I soon stowed my boots in the hold and went barefoot. It was safer on deck to go unshod. My knife remained safe in my boot because the brothers didn’t show any interest in my paltry belongings. After some days my hands began to harden. I got used to the routine and began to feel a little more alive.

  By the time we reached the estuary I could almost believe that this life was all I had known and that the Rumfustian was but a dream. It was not what I wanted. I missed my father and Jane, but missing just made me sad and so I tried not to think of them. Boys of twelve are, I think, designed to look outward, away from the confines of family. I had not been ready to leave that embrace, but I found I did not succumb to total despair. I reminded myself that many an apprentice or schoolboy was sent away from home at my age or younger. Indeed, the lack of any explanation made me wonder if all had been arranged by my father, he being too fond and too cowardly to say an honest farewell. Daniel had seemed surprised to see me before his usual spiteful expression settled back on his face, so surely no arrangement had been made with him? But perhaps it had, for why else had I been sent alone on the errand, when before I had only been allowed to trot meekly around the village?

  My milk brother, Charlie, already apprenticed to his father, had often scoffed that I would never be a proper man until I had worked. May
be his father had said the same to mine, who had decided I should be toughened for a while by honest labour. My father was a man of sudden fancies and enthusiasms, but I was sure he always had my best interests uppermost in his mind. That being so, I should be a dutiful son and take every advantage of the opportunity he had given me. That is what I told myself to believe, but resentment that he had not informed me of his decision was no proof against the ever-present fear that he did not know where I was.

  In spite of my confusion, I set myself to understand as much as I could about working the vessel, taking as my example the exhortation at the beginning of the picture book I often wished I had with me: Come, boy, learn to be wise. Gradually I began to make the most of what I had: life and new experiences. I had always enjoyed understanding new things and there was much to learn about sailing. I was not treated badly, so long as I did my work, which was, once my hands hardened, often enjoyable. Seeing my quick mind, the brothers gave me an increasing role in sailing the vessel, and I was proud of that. I grew new knowledge in my head and muscle where before there had been none. The hope of seeing my family again still smouldered, but I kept it dampened down, as if under a turf.

  I had very quickly learnt that a watch must always be kept, so when I noticed a large streak of brown water infecting the usual green I called to Zandar, who was steering. He glanced over to where I pointed and nodded.

  ‘Aye. It’s the past rains have done it, bringing mud down the estuary into the sea.’

  I had heard of estuaries but had never seen one and was interested to observe it. However, I was also anxious. Our destination appeared to lie up this narrowing channel and I began to fear what might happen to me. I did not want to be with Zandar and his brother, Samal. They were foreign to me in every way, but at the same time I now knew them. They were not unkind to me, especially Zandar. I was fed well enough. In fact, although the diet might be tedious, there was more of it than at home. And I was out in the open air, which I loved. The thought of being carried off to some new place was not something I wanted to contemplate. Although I had told myself that my father was in charge of my destiny, I did not trust the brothers. It was not that they had said they purposed to sell me on, but I could tell well enough that my life was in their hands and I worried about losing what had only recently become familiar. If I displeased them might they abandon me, and how then would my father know where I was? With that in mind, I worked especially hard to please the brothers, in that sad way children sometimes do, to try to avoid a worse fate.