Coming onto the street they called High Lane in deference to its slight elevation above sea level, Will bore left where it passed through common ground. A few sheep grazed listlessly under the Aldwinter oak, said to have once sheltered troops loyal to the traitor Charles, and which appeared so black it might have been burned to charcoal. Its lower branches had sunk beneath their own weight, and curving down thrust into the earth and after a while up again, so that in the spring the tree appeared surrounded by saplings. The down-curved branches formed seats where in summer lovers sat, and as Will passed a woman spread her red skirts and tossed out a few scraps for the birds. Beyond the oak, set back from the road behind a mossy wall, All Saints with its modest tower made its usual call on him: he ought, really, to sit there awhile on a bare cold pew and wait for a cooling of his temper, but someone might be waiting in the shadows for blessing or censure. In the year past, with the coming of the Essex Serpent (which he took to calling ‘the Trouble’, reluctant to christen a rumour), claims on his time had grown steadily greater. There was a feeling – mostly unspoken, at least in his presence – that they were all under judgment, doubtless well-deserved, from which only he could deliver them; but what comfort could he offer which would not also affirm their sudden fear? He could not do it, any more than he could say to John, who so often woke at night, you and I will go together at midnight and slay the creature that lives under your bed. What was built on deceit, however kindly done, would not withstand the first blow. And time enough for pulpit and pew tomorrow, when the sun rose on the Lord’s Day; for now he felt such an urgent desire to look out on the saltings and fill his self with the empty air that he almost ran.
On past the White Hare (‘My dear Mansfield, impossible for a man of the cloth, as I think you know!’) and past the neat small cottages with cyclamen on the windowsill (‘She’s very well thank you: the ’flu has gone, praise God …’) to the place where High Lane sloped down to the quay. Hardly that, of course, simply an inlet on the Blackwater bolstered with stonework that only ever seemed to last a season and was re-made each spring out of whatever fell to hand. Henry Banks, who racketed up and down the estuary in his barge, conveying who-knew-what to who-knew-where beneath his sacks of corn and barley, sat cross-legged on the deck mending his sails, his cold hands livid as the cloth. Seeing Will, he beckoned him over, saying ‘Still no sign of her, Reverend: still no sign,’ pulling dolefully at a hipflask. Some months had passed since Banks had lost a rowing-boat, and been refused his insurance on the grounds that he’d failed to make it fast to the quay, being probably drunk at the time. Banks felt the grievance deeply, and told anyone who’d listen that it had been stolen away in the night by oystermen from over Mersea way, and that he’d always been a truthful man, as Gracie would’ve witnessed, had she still been living, God rest her. ‘No? I’m sorry for it, Banks,’ said Will sincerely: ‘Nothing’s harder to bear than injustice. I’ll keep a lookout, mind.’ He refused a nip of rum, gesturing ruefully at his collar, and moved on – past the quay, the low water always to his right, where up ahead on a slight incline a row of bare ash trees were like so many grey feathers stuck in the ground. Beyond the ashes was the last Aldwinter house, which for as long as he could remember they’d called World’s End. Its bowed walls were bound together with moss and lichen, and over the years it had been added to so that by degrees of lean-to and annex it had doubled in size, and seemed a living thing feasting on the hard earth. The portion of land around it was fenced off on three sides; the fourth gave directly onto the grasses of the salt-marsh, and from there down to the pale stretch of mud riddled with creeks that glistened in the weak sun.
As Will approached World’s End, its sole resident was so nearly camouflaged against the walls of the house that when he emerged it was as if by a charm. Mr Cracknell seemed made of the same stuff as his home: his coat green as moss and quite as damp, and his beard reddish as the clay tiles that fell from the roof. He held in his right hand the small grey body of a mole, and in his left a folded knife. ‘Stand back a little, Reverend, for the good of your coat,’ he said, and Will obeyed, seeing that strung all along the fence were a dozen moles or more; but these were skinned, and their hides hung from their hindquarters like a shadow. Their pale paws, so like the hands of children, reached blindly for the earth. Will inspected the body nearest. ‘Quite a haul; and a penny apiece?’ Man’s dominion over animals notwithstanding, he’d never been able to shake a fondness for the little gentlemen in their velvet jackets, and wished the farmers’ war of attrition could be ended by kinder means.
‘A penny apiece, that’s right, and warm work besides.’ He laid the creature out, and deftly cut a loop at wrist and ankle.
‘Twenty years an Aldwinter man, and still your customs surprise me. Is there no better way of keeping moles from the crops than by scaring them off with their slaughtered brethren?’
Cracknell frowned. ‘Oh, I’ve a purpose in mind, Parson; you know that: you see I have a purpose in mind!’ Delighted, the man slipped a forefinger between flesh and skin and tested the ease with which he could part them. ‘I am aware that in some quarters I am considered not as they say the full shilling, not that I’ve lately seen a shilling, being content with such pence as might now and then come my way’ – and here a pause, and a direct glance at Will’s pockets, then down again to the task at hand – ‘And yet there you stand, God’s own man, and ask if I have a purpose!’
‘I felt it,’ said Will, gravely, ‘as if by instinct.’ The tearing of skin from flesh was like that of paper. Cracknell lifted his handiwork, inspecting it, well pleased with his skill; a ribbon of steam unfurled from the hot bare body in the cold air.
‘Scaring them off, oh yes –’ his jovial mood fractured, he busied himself with a length of wire, which he ran through the animal’s pink nose, nostril to nostril, and looped three times around the fencepost. ‘Scaring them off, says he! Though of what I might be scaring off there mightn’t be knowing now nor later I daresay, when a voice is heard of weeping and lamentation for our children, because they are not, and we will not be comforted …’ His hand on the wire trembled a little, and Will was appalled to see that so also did his lower lip. His first impulse, which came as much from training as from instinct, was to offer a word of comfort – but hard on its heels came a flash of irritation. So the old man too had succumbed to whatever trick of the light had the whole village taken in! He thought of his daughter running home weeping in terror at what might be creeping upriver towards them, and of notes slipped in the collection box urging he preach repentance of whatever sins had brought judgment to their door.
‘Mr Cracknell’ – briskly, with a little humour perhaps; let him see that there was nothing to fear but a long winter and a tardy spring – ‘Mr Cracknell, I may not quite be episcopal material, but I know misquoted scripture when I hear it. Our children are in no more danger now than they have ever been! Where are your wits? What have you done with them?’ Reaching out, he made a show of patting the other man’s pockets. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you’ve strung up these poor beasts to fend off some – some rumoured sea-serpent in the Blackwater!’
Cracknell was coaxed into a smile. ‘Gentlemanly of you to allude to my wits at all, Parson, on account of the general disbelief that I ever was in possession of such a thing as wits.’ He patted the mole on its stripped back with a fond gesture. ‘For all that, though, I do say and always have said that caution is the side best erred on; and if man or creature were minded to make their approaches here at World’s End my little scarebeasts here would give them pause.’ He jerked his thumb towards the rear of his dwelling, where a pair of tethered goats industriously cropped a circle of grass. ‘I’ve Gog and Magog here for companionship, you understand, in addition to providing the milks and the cheeses which Mrs Ransome is so kind as to enjoy, and I’ll not risk their loss! Not I! I’ll not be left alone!’ There was the trembling again, but here Will felt on firmer ground: three times in three years he’d stood with Cracknell at the graveside: first wife, then sister, then son.
He clasped the old man by the shoulder: ‘Nor shall you; I have my flock, and you have yours, and the same Shepherd has their care.’
‘That’s as maybe, and I thank you for it; but I’ll not be darking your church door tomorrow all the same. I made my stand, Parson: take Mrs Cracknell and the Almighty will have to make do without me, you recall were my words; and I’ll not be dissuaded come high or low water.’