“He didn’t mean it,” the pixie says softly. “He’s had a touch ter much o’ t’ war. Thoo’s walkin’ woondit, aren’t thee, Lofty?”
“Yes,” Gog says. “I’m that all right.”
“Well, booger off,” the country lad says. “Lucky ye didna mash up the reaper.” He smiles fleetingly as he feels in his pocket, wincing between smiles as though suffering an exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure.
“Ah’ll tek him off,” the pixie says. “He may not be oop ter Monday. But even talkin’ to a half-rockit man’s better ’n talkin’ ter thesel’ on t’ road. ’Cos talkin’ ter thesel’s three-quarters o’ t’ way ter bein’ half-rockit.”
“Half-rocked?” the country lad says with contempt. “He’s all crazy.” He takes his hand from his pocket. His fingers are bleeding from a hundred little punctures and they grasp the small struggling body of an albino shrew. “Vicious little booger,” the apple-cheeked lad says, “eatin’ me fingers for yer tay.” He tightens his fist round the wriggling shrew, which screams piercingly as its bones crush, and a line of blood comes out from its snout and between its needle teeth. The lad squeezes the shrew finally lifeless, then puts its small face against his ruby nose. “Bite me nose off, yer little booger,” he says, smiling. Then he draws back his arm and lobs the body of the shrew into the standing corn. “I’ve got twenny in the hoose,” he explains. “They dinna get lonely while they’re waitin’, that’d be crooel. They get a rabbit a day, no rations, wish I’d be them.” Seeing the look on the face of the pixie, he adds defensively, “Well, a mon’s got to hae company in the fields, it’s bluidy lonesome.” He puts his goggles down from his forehead over his eyes, so that he now stares at Gog out of two opaque circles fringed with black metal. “Ye dinna bring in the harvest be standin’ on yer flat feet. Skip, yer crazy booger, or I’ll reap an’ bind ye for sure.” His cheeks shine out red and inviting as he turns to walk back to the tractor, where he climbs onto the seat and starts up the engine, while the pixie pulls Gog away by the hand towards the road.
Gog follows the pixie, too drained in the skull to resist. “It teks a Scot,” the pixie says, “ter be reelly gone hissel’. Ah’m from Northumberlan’ mesel’, but Ah knoo one thin’ for certain. Over t’ Border is in ter Bedlam. Oonce pas’ Carlisle an’ thoo’rt in t’crazy hoose. But, o’ coorse, tha’ wooldn’t bother thee.”
“I’m not mad,” Gog says. “Just a bit forgetful these days. But I’m remembering. Slowly. I’m remembering.”
“Happen, thoo shooldn’t,” the pixie says. “Rememberin’s all reet, excep’ when thoo’s got sommat thoo’d do better ter forget. An’ they say, they who do t’ worsest forget t’ most. If thoo’ve forgot everythin’, what hastn’t thoo done!” Here, the pixie stops as if scared at the thought. “Still,” he goes on, “Ah’ve done enough bad ter want ter start agen wi’ a clean slate. But then, meetin’ a stranger’s like havin’ a clean slate. Thoo dostn’t knoo me from Adam. So Ah meet be better’n Adam before he et t’apple!” The pixie chuckles. “But Ah’m not, t’ devil be praisit. T’ name’s Cluckitt.”
The pixie stretches out his hand towards Gog, as they proceed slowly down the road towards the South. Gog stoops to shake the pixie by the hand and reply, “My name’s Gog.”
“Owld Goggie hissel’,” the pixie laughs. “Thoo’rt big enough ter be a boggart.”
“Who’s old Goggie? And what’s a boggart?”
“Thoo doesn’t knoo? Owld Goggie hides in t’ orchards, watchin’ over t’apples till they ripen. Chases away t’ lads. He’s a boggart and bogeyman. Looks like thee, big, braw, fit ter skeer a bairn from his mum’s womb.”
“Well,” Gog says, “I thought you were a pixie.”
“An’ who’s ter say Ah’m not?” Cluckitt says. “Ah may be Puck’s mate, for all tha’. Ah took thee fer a boggart, t’ moment Ah clappit eyes on thee.”
“What sort of a boggart?”
“Mumpoker, Tod-lowrie, Clap-cans, Church-grim, Tom Dockin, Knocky-bo, Rawhead, Bloodybones, t’ Bodach, or Owld Goggie, all boggarts are t’ same, oonce thoo gets ter know them. They’re all spookie an’ no speerit, all ghostie an’ no gutsie. A boggart may be ten feet tall, wi’ saucer eyes an’ clankin’ chains an’ shaggy hair an’ teeth thoo coold spike a rail-track on. An’ he may lurk on t’moor or in t’boles o’ trees ter skeer us. But there’s no stooff ter him. Thoo can walk reet throo him. He’s no match fer t’ pixies. Ah tell thee, when t’ little people meet t’ big folk, it’s t’tinies who get on top.”
“Nonsense,” Gog says. “The strong always sit on the weak. That’s what all history’s about. Anyway, I’m not superstitious. I’m no more of a boggart than you’re a pixie.”
“An’ no less,” Cluckitt says, lagging well behind Gog as they go forward, Gog slowly strolling and Cluckitt nearly running. “Oonce Ah didn’t knoo wha’ it meant ter stretch me legs. Noo Ah do, an’ Ah’ve ploomb stretchit them so far they’ve snappit. Thoo cooldn’t gi’ me a lift, Lofty?”
Gog laughs and stoops and makes a ladle of his hand and scoops up the withered body and pippin head of Cluckitt and sits him on his shoulders above his pack, so that Cluckitt rides like an aged parody of the Child on the back of St. Christopher, his legs dangling on Gog’s chest and his hands clasped across Gog’s forehead. From time to time, as Gog strides away from where the last field breaks against a stone wall and the moors begin, Cluckitt taps out a little rhythm of joy on Gog’s skull.
“What’s that you’re playing?” Gog says. “It bothers me. It sounds like a drum playing reveille, and that’s a sound nobody likes to hear.” Gog wonders how he knows what reveille sounds like. Yes, there were once many mornings, in a hut, on an iron bed, hearing the brass cheery rooster of the trumpet sound out the rhythm for another bloody day of drill.
“It’s revelly, all reet,” Cluckitt says. “Wake oop, thickhead. Ah’ve proovit thoo’rt a boggart an’ Ah’m a pixie. An’ fer why? ’Cos little people are smarter ’n big uns. They got ter be ter live at all, doon’t they? Who else but a boggart woold be tha’ soft he’d gi’ a pixie a lift on his back?”
And Cluckitt suddenly tightens his legs round Gog’s throat so that Gog chokes, then releases them suddenly and laughs to see the moors open free about them.
VIII
The road over the moors is a haphazard failure of tarmac. The sheep graze on its surface in a puzzled way, expecting to find grass in more than the cracks. As Gog approaches bearing Cluckitt, they bleat and stare until the men are almost upon them, then jerk away in a gawky run. The moors themselves are so green, yet so barren and so endless – with each shepherd’s cottage no more than a blob against the vast indifference of nature – that Gog feels free from the persecution of yesterday. The black car is no longer following him along the road; indeed, there are no cars at all for mile after mile. This lush emptiness would give minutes of warning before a threat. And there is Cluckitt to chuckle and chatter above Gog’s head, spitting out his saws and gleanings of Northumbrian wisdom from his puckered mouth under his red tam o’shanter with its brass cap-badge sporting a cannon and the letters R.A.
They rest from time to time on the peaty grass and finish the rations between them. When they have been a dozen miles and have reached Hermitage Water, it is Cluckitt who insists that they turn west along the road by the stream. “Theer’s a cassle oop theer, t’ biggest on t’ Border, an’ t’ worsest. It’s worth a peek. Sooch wickitness theer! T’ stones soonk three feet inter t’ groond, just for t’ weight o’ wickitness done theer. All a pixie’s fault, o’ coorse. A boggart cooldn’t ha’ done half tha’ bad. Redcap t’ pixie’s name, an’ Ah trust thee marks me own red cap. He was t’ fameeliar speerit o’ t’ Master o’ Hermitage cassle. Lord Soolis, t’ wickitest lord theer ever was roond heer. Redcap usit ter live in a chest, an’ he helpit Lord Soolis build t’ cassle an’ do every sin agen t’ poor theer was, an’ some theer wasn’t befor Lord Soolis thought them oop. But Redcap wooldn’t let Soolis l
ook at his face – he had an oogly moog like me. But one day Soolis tek a peek, an’ then he has his lot. Boilit like a bloater, he was. Boilit like a bloody bloater.”
Cluckitt stops gabbling as Hermitage Castle comes into sight between the trees. A great cube of stone sits on the far bank of the water, with round towers cocking up at its corners. It is nearly windowless; only a few slits slice the cliffs of stone blocks. It seems the essence of all castles, bare and accommodating only war – except for one fussy frill of stonework running under the battlements. “If they build a monument as big as tha’ on top o’ me body,” Cluckitt says admiringly, “Ah’ll tell Gabriel ter shoot oop when he blows his troompet on Joodgement Day, an’ leave me be.”
They pass the castle to the right of them. Two hundred yards ahead, a bridge crosses the stream and leads to the green lawns before the castle. Once over this bridge, Cluckitt yells, “Whoa, neddy,” and brings Gog to a stop by pulling at his forehead until his chin points up at the sky. Then the little man scrambles down from Gog’s shoulders with no more concern for Gog’s flanks than if he were clambering off a carthorse. “Not ter t’cassle,” he says to Gog. “Not yet. T’other way, theer’s a great-great-great-great-great-granny o’ a grandad o’ thesen burit be t’chapel. We’ll see his grave. Nine foot long, it is. Big enough for thee ter kip in.”
They turn left and walk along the river bank towards a ruined chapel, marked out by the first few layers of its stone walls and three leaning arches. Ahead, they see half a dozen boys playing between the chapel and the stream. One boy is riding piggyback on his tall friend. Two others hack away at each other with branches as swords. One flaps his arms like wings and jumps, pretending to fly, while the last one cracks a piece of string tied onto the end of a twig, and yells, “Wurrk, ye dogs, wurrk.”
When the boys see Gog and Cluckitt approaching, they stop frozen in their positions, as if they have been seen playing Grandmother’s Footsteps. Then they shriek in terror and run away, scattering and ducking; the devil himself might be at their heels. “Stop,” Cluckitt shouts, “or Ah’ll blast yoo wi’ fire. Yoo’ll rot dead in yoor beds this neet if yoo doon’t stop.” The boys freeze again and look back, hypnotized with horror as chickens in front of a viper. “Aye, it’s Redcap, Redcap,” Cluckitt shouts, “an’ he says ter coom back heer. At t’ dooble!” The boys scuttle back to where Cluckitt and Gog are and they halt a few feet away, goggle-eyed and trembling.
Cluckitt relishes his role as an evil spirit. A menacing tremolo hints the unspeakable in every sentence, as he points up at the huge Gog beside him. “Ah bring t’ Coot back from t’ mole coontry wi’ me, just ter keep me coompany like. But do yoo knoo wha’, boys? He’s been moolderin’ doon theer so long . . .” Here Cluckitt points down at a raised hump of sod nearby, which is nine foot long between its two end stones. “He’s ploomb forgot just hoo he coom ter die. It’s lucky, then, we’ve foond yoo lads ter teach him agen, isn’t it?” The boys nod dumbly, terrified out of a reply.
“Remember Lord Soolis,” Cluckitt goes on in his high and ghostly voice. “T’ Master o’ Hermitage who lookit on Redcap as yoo are lookin’ now. Remember what happenit ter him, when he didn’t do wha’ Redcap tellit him. Will yoo do all I tell?” Again the boys nod in silence. “Thoo, t’ tall un, thoo’rt Soolis, lad, Master o’ Hermitage, t’ wickit magician in person.” The tall boy shivers and bows his head. “An’t’ rest o’ yoo, why, yoo’re Soolis’s men. Unnerstan’?” The boys shuffle their feet and look at the ground.
“What do I do?” Gog says, dropping his pack onto the ground. “Is this a game or history?”
“Theer’s no difference at all between t’ two. History plays wi’ us half t’ time, ’cos we must do just wha’ she tells us. An’ we play wi’ history t’other half, ’cos we never learn from t’ mistakes o’ others, so we go on doin’ just as bad an’ just t’ same as ever. Thoo’rt history, owld Goggie, an’ thoort playin’ t’ game o’ t’ Coot o’ Keeldar, who was a big braw heero from Englan’ like thesel’. An’ if terday isn’t six hunnerd yeer ago, well, t’ weather hasn’t changit a bittie. It was hunch-weather then an’ it’s hunch-weather noo.” Cluckitt puts his cupped hands to his lips and blows an imaginary horn. “Tarra, tarra.” Then he crouches down, hiding his head under his hands. “Ah’m t’ Keeldar Stone, t’ same as t’ big Coot rode roond widdershins long ago befor he went ter hunt across t’ Border in Lord Soolis’s land. Theer weer lines wrote o’ t’ Keeldar Stone.
“Green vervain roond its base did creep,
A pooerful seed tha’ bore;
An’ oft, o’ yore, its channels deep
Were stainit wi’ human gore.”
The boys shudder, as Cluckitt commands Gog, “Ride roond t’ Keeldar Stone, Coot, ride roond. It’s an owld Druid stone. So ride.”
Gog obeys, jumping a little up and down as though in a cantering saddle and circling the crouching Cluckitt, who cries, “Now Ah’m Redcap an’ Ah’m unner t’ stone an’ Ah’m sayin’ . . .” His voice sinks to a sepulchral groan. “Ah coom fer death, Ah coom ter work thee woe.” At this line, one of the boys passes out from fright and collapses on the ground, an action which deters the other boys from trying to slink away. “Aye,” Cluckitt says, “doon’t yoo try ter hoppit, lads, or Ah’ll do yoo all in. Now, Soolis lad, t’ Coot’s heer. Thoo knoost wha’ ter do. Nowt’s happenit on t’ Border for so long tha’ even t’lads are all mindful o’ wha’ happenit hunnerds o’ yeers ago.”
The tall boy mumbles to Gog, “Cout o’ Keeldar, come into me ha’, an’ hae yoor tay wi’ me.” And he leads Gog under the shade of a hanging birch by the top of the slope down to the river; there he pretends to pour Gog out a drink into an invisible goblet. Then Cluckitt pirouettes three times widdershins, holds up both hands above his head, and looses an unearthly shriek, followed by a harangue of gibberish impossible to understand, except that the last word sounds suspiciously like, “Abracarhubarbdabra.”
When Cluckitt pauses to draw breath, he puts on his normal tone. “Tha’s me spell,” he explains. “Ah’ve witchit all t’ Coot’s men. They’ll linger in Hermitage cassle fer ever an’ aye, fixit teeter ’n mortar in t’ stones.” Cluckitt pauses, then yells, “Now at him, lads. Hack him ter bloody bits.”
At this command, the five standing boys leap on Gog and begin beating him with switches and branches and fists; even the fainting boy revives at this promise of a fight and pitches into the bewildered Gog, who is driven backwards down the river bank to where a large pool spreads out a table of brown water.
“Lay off,” Gog shouts. “Stoppit, you little devils.”
“Go on, beat him,” Cluckitt shrills. “Or Redcap’ll do yoo.”
So the boys bash and strike and slap with a will, and Gog dare not reply in kind because they are too small. He stumbles back down the slope to the water’s edge.
“Call ’em off, Cluckitt, you fool,” he shouts. “A game’s a game, but this is bloody murder.”
“Kill t’ Coot, kill t’ Coot, kill t’ Coot,” Cluckitt chants, and the boys take up the chant, “Kill the Cout, kill the Cout, kill the Cout,” until Gog is forced back by the smarts and stings given him by the six imps, forced back onto a large flat rock that projects out into the pool. Glancing behind him, he sees that the upstream side of the rock has a sheer edge, downdropping twelve foot deep through water the colour of lime juice. On the downstream side, the rock shelves into a brown pool, which is only ankle-deep in shallows rippling over small pebbles. Gog backs across the rock into the middle of the pool, flailing his arms in front of him to knock down the prodding branches of the boys, who edge onto the rock after him. As Gog reaches the end of the rock, where he has to step across a channel to a boulder beyond, he sees the frenzied Cluckitt throw a small stone at him from the bank. He cannot duck in time. The stone catches him on his wounded temple and he slips to his left and goes greening downdrown into the deep pool.
As the cold waters envelop him, a flash explodes in front of Go
g’s eyes. Clear in the underwater, he sees himself sitting in a khaki officer’s uniform reading a book fifty fathoms deep. It was so, it was so, he was reading in his cabin when the mine struck without warning, the war in Europe was over, no one was expecting it, and the mighty disintegration left him reading his book in the dark belly of the ocean, fifty fathoms down and trying to turn over the next page. And the ocean bore him again to the surface and threw him up on the sand. Gog, the new man, now remembers the old Gog, the man who was there before he was spewed out from the sea.
When Gog rises in the pool, choking and spluttering, he meets the points of the branches in the boys’ hands pricking him down to bubbledeath, with Cluckitt jumping up and down on the rock, shrieking his incantation, “Kill t’ Coot, kill t’ Coot, kill t’ Coot.” Gog is jabbed down again and held under by wooden prongs; but he manages to struggle up for the second time, only to be shoved back under by Cluckitt himself, who seizes a branch from a boy and opens a wound in Gog’s cheek, using both hands to rake him under. Gog only just manages to come up for a third and last time, so many branches are pegging him down in his watery grave. And he would certainly drown, except that he swings out a desperate hand and grabs Cluckitt by the ankle and drags him also into the pool.
Seeing Redcap proved mortal and take a ducking, the boys drop their branches and come to the rescue. They stretch out their thin hands to catch at Gog’s hair and clothing and pull him out, while Cluckitt clings for dear life onto Gog’s neck, whining, “Save me! Ah can’t swim! Save poor owld Cluckitt! He never hurt a fly.”
So Gog heaves himself out of the pool onto the rock, with Cluckitt stuck onto him like a harpoon onto a whale. And the boys flee away from the dripping pair, away off the rock and up the bank and out of sight beyond the hanging birches, all the way to home, not daring to look back in case the angry Cout and Redcap, all drowned and dead and dripping, will want to munch boys’ giblets for their lunch. And Gog picks up Cluckitt and carries him to the bank and holds him a good yard off the ground and shakes him up and down and from side to side, this way and that way and all the way to Biscay Bay, while the spray flies off Cluckitt and he gibbers for mercy, until his false teeth fly out of his mouth and snap against Gog’s nose, which gives the big man such a start that he drops Cluckitt quicker than a squirting toad.
Gog Page 7
