by Susan Thomas
Miles was clearly expected to look at each item and he did so, handling each one carefully and with reverence. He simply couldn't understand why the girl wasn't allowed to keep these in pride of place. When he had finished and said some admiring words, she put them all away and re-hid the tin and then he made her go to bed. She was a child after all and it was late.
He awoke her early the next day and she sneaked off back to Madge Pendle's place. Miles was busy with village accounts all day but late in the afternoon he set off for the farm where he was to meet Marigold and Annie. It turned out both had been questioned on arriving home as to why Miles had sent for them and when their fathers heard what happened they got another spanking. It was two very sore young ladies that apologised to the farmer and his wife, promising they would always be on their best behaviour in future. When they were allowed to leave, Miles asked about the little strawberry thieves.
"They's just finishing up. Needed to wash un hands, it gets right messy does pickin'. They's bin good lasses all day ain't they m'duck?"
"Yup."
"Worked hard they has an' no moaning. Wife is g'n them some berries to take home with 'em. They has done a good job an' more'n paid for what they took."
"Excellent, so you with draw the complaint?"
"Yup."
Miles was pleased and as he escorted the two very tired girls back to their parents, they kept thanking him and promising him they'd never steal again.
---oOo---
Miles was still at his breakfast the next morning when the constable turned up and he looked, for the first time since Miles first met him, a very angry man.
"What have you done, Mr LaPage?"
"I don't know," replied Miles innocently, "what have I done?"
"Don't get clever with me, you know full well what you've done and that is undermine the good order of our village."
"How on earth have I done that?"
"Them two girls should have tasted the birch on the stage but you got 'em off."
"I did not get them off. They paid a price for their stealing and that is a full day strawberry picking and back breaking hard work it is, especially for youngsters of their age. Besides which, they have had a strong telling off from just about everybody. More than enough of a payment for a small bowl of strawberries I think and a lot better than being whipped in front of the whole village."
"Standards must be maintained."
"And standards were maintained. Those two girls will never want to do that again. Do you realise that even in 1937 in Britain no child of their age would have been birched for such a small crime. Children do naughty things and they didn't get away with it at all."
"It ain't up to you to go changing our traditions. You're just a newcomer and you've gone too far."
The constable left in a barely restrained fury of indignation and Miles knew he had made a serious enemy. However, there was little he could do right now but Miles felt it was just a problem shelved.
The two girls might not be on the charge sheet but there was another court that night so Miles had another busy evening ahead. As he reviewed the charges he was indignant at two of them. There were a couple of cases of petty theft which he thought would end up with a half a dozen strokes of the birch but theft is theft and every society must find ways of dealing with it and they were adults. Two men fighting outside a pub and not stopping when required to would probably get a caning although a birching was also possible.
It was the other two cases that annoyed him. One was a woman who refused to wear a hat and a skirt or dress to church. Instead, she wore trousers and left her hair uncovered. Miles didn't understand the theological implications but he knew it was something to do with what St Paul had written. She had been warned to cover her head and trousers as such on a woman were only acceptable in certain situations and never in church. However, she ignored it all and just carried on doing what she wanted. Miles couldn't see that this was a court matter but everyone else seemed to and Miles suspected she was in for a rough time.
The other case was another person who wouldn't bend to the village norms. She wore trousers all the time and smoked. Smoking for women was considered positively satanic and that she also had short hair made her a suspicious person to the villagers. Miles thought in another age they'd have her down as a witch but couldn't see what she had done wrong, however, she was up on a charge of 'community disrespect'. She was regarded with even more suspicion than the other misfit because she didn't go to church at all.
The two women were left to last and the court dealt with the thieves and the scrapping men first. As he thought, the thieves were sentenced to a dose of the adult birch each but only six strokes as the items were small. The two fighting men got six with the cane for not desisting when ordered. The two women misfits both argued their case strongly and to Miles it was no contest, they were in the right and that was that, but the mood in the hall was against them and it was clear that the three to make judgement were not sympathetic at all. The principle seemed to be that if one didn't conform to the village ideal of normal, then standards were under threat. Miles had no say in it and he knew if he stood up and started arguing in the women's favour it could well make it worse for them so he kept quiet but boiled inside.
Each of the two women were sentenced to six with the adult birch, something the court regarded as a 'warning' followed of course by a morning in the pillory. Usually women got the youth birch but the court seemed to take a serious view of their nonconformity. Neither seemed repentant to Miles and he judged this would be an on-going problem. He sat at his high desk recording all these sentences and wishing he could just get out of this place.
One by one those sentenced were strapped down over the bench and received their flogging. The two thieves howled under the birch for it was extremely painful. The two men who had fought seemed now to be best mates and shook hands before their punishment, both were quite stoical during their caning, though it was clear it hurt a great deal. Then it was the turn of the women, with the non-hat wearing church offender first.
She was, of course, already naked from the waist down. Miles thought she was in her late thirties and she was extremely trim and clearly someone who got a lot of exercise. She didn't resist or plead or cry, she simply looked defiant as she was strapped down over the punishment bench. A beadle produced an adult birch from a bucket. A metre long (3 feet 3 inches) and made of a half dozen thick, rough-looking switches bound together at one end to form a handle. It was swished through the air to shake off the salt water and then the beadle stepped into position.
Miles thought the adult birch a vicious instrument because there were so few switches and because they were thick and rough it really tore into the delicate skin of the bottom, especially a woman's bottom where the skin seemed far softer than a man. He knew this poor non-conformist would really suffer under her six strokes.
The first stroke whistled its nasty way towards her bottom and landed with that appalling shrack sound. Defiant she may be but she was not immune to pain and she bucked up against the restraints and screeched. The other waiting woman flinched and looked down. Already small bits of birch had broken off and several tiny pieces stuck in her bottom. There were severe scratch like welts on her bottom with darker points from the tips of the switches. The hall made a collective sound of satisfaction.
The second stroke crashed against the woman's bottom and again she screeched, raising up and testing the straps that held her in place. Miles thought they had been left looser than usual. Was that to give a better show for the watching crowd?
The last stroke had landed more on her right cheek and hip than on her left so this time the beadle let it fall mainly on the left, leaving the whole bottom now covered in a maze of welts, scratches and nasty red points. The victim writhing on the bench was now sobbing, but Miles noticed she did not plead for mercy which some of the women did, if a writhing, sobbing woman can be said to be defiant, then she still was.
Shrack, the
birch landed again and she bucked up against the blow and held that position, arched off the bench by maybe an inch. Her feet writhed and curled as she tried to deal with the pain but then the fifth stroke landed and she shrieked again and fell back against the bench, her bottom now an awful tracery of punishment. The beadle stepped back and gave a short run to bring the now tattered birch down even harder across her flogged bottom. The audience seemed satisfied with her last shriek of pain and her collapse down onto the bench sobbing. She was virtually carried off and then the busy beadles returned to deal with the second non-conformist.
She too looked defiant but having to watch her comrade's punishment had left her white and shaking. Nevertheless, she made no attempt to resist or protest, just allowed herself to be strapped into place. Miles watched carefully and noticed they had once again left the straps rather loose. It had to be deliberate and was actually against the rules for punishments which read, "...must be firmly but comfortably restrained to prevent undue movement during punishment..."
Miles stood up and spoke to the magistrates. "Excuse me, but I do not think she has been properly restrained according to the rules."
The vicar stood up and checked. "These are far too loose, please restrain her properly."
The beadles looked far from pleased and one shot Miles a filthy look, another enemy he thought. The two beadles then swapped places and the one that had assisted now carried out the birching. The poor woman receiving it was quite skinny with little flesh on her bottom and somehow the marks looked far worse on her than on her comrade. The birch seemed to tear into her and Miles could see that her bottom was close to bleeding after just three strokes. The doctor stopped the punishment and examined her.
"Use the left side now, she is clearly very sensitive to punishment."
The beadle protested but the doctor was adamant and the beadle seemed to put even more force into the fourth stroke which landed partly on her left cheek but mainly the left thigh. Her cries, though, were no different in intensity, each one filling the hall with its anguish. The last two landed fully on her left thigh which looked horribly painful when the birching was over. She too had to be carried off and as the show ended Miles wrote up all the details including the doctor's intervention. It was late before he finally got home.
Sophie arrived a little early that night and Miles, getting more into a fatherly role, packed her off to bed immediately, telling her she had five minutes to get the light off. She trotted off obediently and he smiled, wondering just what he could do about it if the light wasn't off in five. It was a problem that never arose for at that moment his back door burst open and the fat frame of Madge Pendle came in carrying a short, vicious-looking whip followed by a short, thin, timid looking man who was her husband.
Miles looked at them both and nearly burst out with...
Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean
...but restrained himself just in time.
"What have you done with the little bitch?"
"I don't know any little bitches I am afraid. I am sure there is someone in the village who breeds dogs, try them."
"Don't get clever with me you... you... mist visitor. Where is Sophie?"
"Oh Sophie, she is in bed."
"Your bed?"
"No of course not, a bed I have put in her old room. She feels close to her mother there."
"I'm her mother now."
"No comment."
"I want to see her now."
Miles didn't feel he could refuse but he had no intention of allowing Madge to take the girl away tonight. When they got to her little bedroom they found Sophie scrambling to get her treasured mementos back into the biscuit tin. She had disobeyed him, Miles noted with a wry smile. Clearly she had needed her fix of mummy memories before sleep.
Madge Pendle swiftly realised what the contents of the tin were.
"I'll have those," she shouted.
Miles stepped forward and in a firm voice told her, "No you won't. They are my property. They are in my house and you have no right to them at all."
The women went into a fury and came at him with the whip but he had no difficulty taking it from her.
Turning to her husband she screamed, "If you were a real man you'd defend me."
Miles looked at Mr Pendle who looked frankly terrified of the whole situation. "No need for us to start fighting, old chap. It is your wife that is out of order here."
Seeing that her man was of no help, Madge told Sophie to follow her but Miles refused to allow Sophie to go, telling Madge the child needed sleep now not whipping. He went on that they could sort it all out in the morning, though he didn't really think anything in this situation was capable of being sorted.
"I'm getting the constable and the beadles, she needs whipping for her disobedience and I am laying a charge against you."
"You'll not be popular waking them in the middle of the night. The morning will do well enough. Why don't you take you wife home, Mr Pendle?"
Madge Pendle suddenly saw the folly of waking the village over this but vowed to be back in the morning. She banged out of the back door and as her husband apologetically followed, Miles gave him the whip back. He didn't seem keen to get it and Miles wondered if Madge would take out her anger on her husband. He had never met anyone more unsuited to the care of a child than that woman.
It took Miles some time to get Sophie off to sleep for the child was terrified of the whipping she would get in the morning. Miles didn't tell her that if the matter came before the village court they would both be publicly birched and severely at that.
When morning came, Miles found he had developed a sort of cheerful anarchic feel - somehow he would defy them all and in the meanwhile, he and Sophie deserved a good breakfast. He set to with pans and Sophie, looking rather dark under the eyes, was drawn down by the smells and sounds. They sat together in a sort of fatalistic enjoyment of the moment and polished off a substantial breakfast as if they both were about to be executed and intended to make the most of this last meal.
As they washed up, the door burst open and the constable followed by the beadles burst in.
"Does no-one knock in this village? Wipe your feet please, I like my kitchen floor clean."
Miles was most amused when the men, trained by their wives no doubt, did as he instructed.
"I am arresting you both," began Constable Butterfield. "Sophie Pendle for running away from home and you for child abduction. A special sitting of the village court is being convened right now and you will both be up in front of it.
"You've gone too far this time, Mr Clever-Dick mist visitor, you'll both be howling under the birch before long."
Miles was not a violent man, but he had been repelled not attracted by the severity of the punishments doled out for really quite trivial reasons. The thought of this delightful orphan being publicly beaten simply because she would not forget her mother was too much. As for himself, he had no intention of meekly accepting a beating on the stage. He wasn't conscious of making a decision at all and had no experience of punching anyone, but the punch he gave Constable Butterfield began at the waist and hit the man's chin from below with considerable force, lifting him right off his feet and dropping him to the ground like so much rubbish. The two bailiffs were shocked into immobility for a moment. Long enough for Miles to seize their heads and bang them violently together - one fell unconscious the other sank to his knees holding his head and moaning softly.
Taking Sophie's hand, Miles began to run. "Hurry," he urged, "we only have just enough time to be out of sight."
Even so, Sophie wouldn't run. She grabbed her biscuit tin and Miles, seeing she would never flee without, grabbed his rucksack, stuck the tin it and threw it on his back before shoving her out of the door. Instinctively, they went uphill and out of the valley. They ran until they were breathless but at least out of sight, up
roar behind them told of pursuit. The ground was rough and Sophie was slow over it but he wouldn't leave her and just tugged and urged her on. The sounds of a chase constantly came to their ears and Miles began to sweat, not just with exertion but the possibility of capture.
Abruptly, a thick mist descended. Miles had never been so pleased to be in mist before, that would certainly handicap pursuit, but it also handicapped flight for now the going was even slower. At last they found themselves on a level stretch of ground but if anything the mist was thicker. Miles checked his compass but it was still whirling round as it had been since he first got lost. A drop appeared on one side of the path but they couldn't see anything other than mist below and anyway instinct told them to keep up. Sophie tripped. A root, a stone or some other obstruction caught her shoe and she tripped but fell not forwards but sideways and crashed down the steep side. Miles could not see her.
He sat down on his bottom and slithered cautiously down, until he found her caught on a small tree. She had banged her head which was bleeding slightly, and was unconscious. There appeared to be no broken bones and as he had no possibility of help, he decided he would have to get her back up to the path again. How he managed is something he can't tell you to this day. His hands were raw from clutching branches and his whole body screamed with the effort, but he did it and got her back to the path, though still unconscious. Putting her in a fireman's lift he set as fast a pace as he could, his ears tuned for any pursuit. Abruptly, he came upon a path he knew and he felt suddenly stronger. Was it possible he had escaped the strange valley? He kept moving just in case he was mistaken, but now buoyed up by hope and finding he knew more and more where he was. Suddenly, he was walking back into the car park at the foot of the moors. Anxious walkers and riders came running and soon he and Sophie were whisked away in an ambulance.
