WILLIAM WAS WEARING his Sunday best. He trimmed the freshly cut bough of oak with a hatchet. The young leaves glowed with a green that hurt. The light was in the leaves.
Edward Stanley rode up the lane to the farm.
“Good day, Will.”
“Ay,” said William.
“May I see what it is you are about?”
“Ay.”
Edward opened his book and began to sketch details of how William worked.
William bound the oak to the gatepost with rope, pulling each turn, so that there was no play between bough and post.
“I have read your hand practice,” said Edward.
“Ay.”
“It was done well.”
“Oh, ay?”
“But have you contemplated what it signifies?”
“It’s me practice.”
“The words, Will. What do they mean?”
“Me practice.”
William tested the bough.
‘The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar’s laurel crown,’” said Edward.
“Ay. I recollect.”
“No.”
“It says that all men are equal, none beholden to another.”
“Oh, ay?”
“They have killed their king in France on that account.”
“Ay, well, France.”
“And many such of high degree.”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
William put an extra turn about the post, and tightened the knot. He checked the firmness of the bough once more, and stood back to see that it was upright.
“She’ll do,” he said. “Be good, Yedart.” And he went into the house, leaving Edward. Edward sat for a while, then put the book in his pocket, and rode on.
Esther was in the kitchen. She was wearing an apron over the red petticoat, and the white bodice above. She crumbled bread into a bowl, sprinkled salt over it, and poured hot milk from a pan. She stood at the sideboard and spooned the mess into her mouth.
“No pobs for you today, me lad,” she said.
“I don’t want none,” said William.
He sat at the table, but ate nothing. He took the swaddledidaff from his pocket and turned it in the light.
“You think a lot on that, don’t you?” said Esther.
“You give it me,” said William.
“But it’s nobbut a stone. Yet I’ve a month’s mind you’d rather have that than my china.”
“Oh, I would,” said William.
“What for?”
“You give it me. And, when you turn it, you can see lights, pictures, all sorts. Yon china’s one picture; and it’s a rum un.”
“It’ll wear your britches out,” said Esther. “And it’s me as’ll have to mend them – What the dickens is going on? What’s he up to now?”
There was shouting in the lane, and a horse galloped away. A dog barked.
The kitchen door was banged open and Grandad came in, his stick under his arm, his eyes glittering, as he crumpled a sheet of paper in his hands and thrust it into the fire. He held it down in the ashes with his stick until the flames died. “Right!” he said.
“Whatever is it?” said Esther.
“What is it?” said Grandad. “I’ll tell you what is it! I shall! One of Stanley’s gawbies, that’s what is it! One of Stanley’s gawbies comes riding up, fine as a new scraped carrot, and starts at driving a nail in our gatepost for fixing yon paper. ‘And what are you at?’ I says to him. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘Sir John told me.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘you can tell Sir John it’s on fire back; and you’ll take that nail with you when you go, out of my gatepost.’ ‘Oh, shall I?’ he says. ‘Ay,’ I says, ‘you shall.’ And I ketches him a clinker with me stick aside of his head. ‘Oh!’ he says. ‘Give over!’ ‘Then you get that nail out,’ I says, ‘else I’ll ketch thee another!’ And that were it. Ay! He hoiked out the nail, and away. Ay! I wound his watch for him! What? I did that! I wound his watch!”
He sat in the man’s chair. “Eh dear! Dear, dear!” And he mopped the tears of laughter with his neck cloth. “Now hadn’t you ought get yourselves fettled?”
“We’re ready,” said Esther, and took off her apron.
William put the swaddledidaff in his pocket.
Grandad went with them as far as the gate. He looked at the post, trying to find the nail hole. Then he grasped the oak bough and tested its firmness. “You’ve done a grand job there, youth,” he said.
“Heel, Gyp,” said William.
“Be good, and then,” said Grandad.
Esther took William’s hand. They walked off down the lane, the dog following.
“Ay. Be good,” said Grandad, and looked again for trace of the nail.
“There’s bits everywhere,” said Esther. “What’s it for?”
“Yay,” said William.
“See at them. They’re all over.”
“What?”
“There’s paper stuck all over.”
“Oh, ay.”
Every house had its bough of green, at gate or gable or window or door. And on the posts and the hedge trees there were sheets of paper fastened.
“There’s writing.”
“Sarn it, Het! Hush up, can’t you?”
“Suit yourself,” said Esther. “They weren’t there before, and that’s a fact.”
They came to the oak.
The men of hoodman blind were waiting in the tree. The dead fire had been spread out and pieces of charcoal sorted from the ashes. The men had blackened their faces with the charcoal, and were wearing harness bells tied below the knee, and holding the two halves of a flail. Two branches, the length of William, had been wrenched from the oak and laid against the trunk. Edward Stanley stood, in his normal dress, and clean faced, making notes. No one spoke.
Esther let go of William, and he went and sat on a root.
Niggy Bower took a knob of charcoal, spat into his hand, rubbed the charcoal in the spit and began to daub William’s face. He blackened where he touched: the eyes and ears and neck were harshly white. When that was done, he tied bells below William’s knees and stepped back.
Esther reached inside her bodice and pulled out the ground net. She went forward and cast the net over William and rolled it to form a halter, holding him by the two ends around his neck. Niggy lifted the big branches and gave them to William, one in each hand, so that his body was covered with leaves and his face framed by them. Esther pulled gently on the net, and William stood up, and Esther sang.
“I’ll dye, I’ll dye my petticoat red;
For the lad I love I’d bake my bread;
And then my daddy would wish that I were dead.
Sweet Willy in the morning among the rush.”
The men started to knock their flail halves together in time, and processed out of the tree, Esther and William going before them. They moved with a hopping, stamping tread, everyone but William singing, and Esther leading, dancing backwards, with the net.
“Shoorly, shoorly, shoo-gang-rowl!
Shoo-gang-lolly-mog, shoog-a-gang-a-low!
Sweet Willy in the morning among the rush!”
They danced away. Edward mounted and rode after, past a horseman wearing Stanley livery who had been watching. The horseman touched his forehead to Edward and walked the horse towards the oak. Edward nodded in reply. The horseman took a sheet of rolled paper from a pouch, opened it and nailed it with a hammer to the tree. Edward hesitated.
“— Sweet Willy in the morning among the rush!”
Edward turned, and followed the dancers.
“I’ll dye, I’ll dye my petticoat red;
For the lad I love I’d bake my bread;
And then my daddy would wish that I were dead –”
The dog gambolled round, backwards and forwards; gambolled, and herded.
“– Sweet Willy in the morning among the rush.”
They danced towards the church on its mound. The belfry door was open, and on the shingled spire, below the yellow painted weathercock, was fastened a branch of green oak.
“Shoorly, shoorly, shoo-gang-rowl!
Shoo-gang-lolly-mog, shoog-a-gang-a-low!
Sweet Willy in the morning among the rush!”
As they reached the belfry, the door was slammed shut against them from within.
The dance ended. The dog sat apart.
The men went to the door and banged rhythmically upon it with the butt ends of their flails, chanting.
“Open the way and let us in!
We have your favour for to win!
Whether we sit, stand or fall,
We’ll do our best to please you all!”
The two church wardens, with their staffs, opened the door, and the dancers entered. The door closed; and the dog lay down.
The belfry was a frame of huge timbers, like the trunk of the oak, as big as the oak, but pegged and jointed from its root to the dark narrowing of the spire above; and it held them all about.
The vicar, in his robes, stood in the open doorway to the nave. He said:
“Who stands in the belfry tree?
What have you to do with me?”
William drew his breath and spoke all in one tone.
“Here comes Shick-Shack who has never been It,
With my big head and little wit.”
“Where have you been, Shick-Shack?” said the vicar.
“Through Hickety-Pickety, France and High Spain,
Three shitten shippons, o’er three laughing doorsteps,
And now I have come back to England again.”
“What have you fetched, Shick-Shack?”
“I’ve a pill in my pocket to cure all ill:
Time gone, time yet and time that will.”
“Enter in, Shick-Shack,” said the vicar,
“With those at your back.”
The vicar turned and led the way into the nave.
The church was full, everyone standing. The pews had been taken out to make more room, with only the middle of the nave clear to the altar.
There were Buckleys and Rathbones, Slaters, Edges, Sims; Masseys and Thorleys, Barns, Bowers, Beswicks, Lathams, and Birtles. All the parish, filling the aisles, up against the walls, children on shoulders, blocking the windows, crowding the gallery so that the band could hardly play. There were Lawtons and Stubbs and Leas, Worthingtons, Mottersheads, and Baileys. Boys and youths sitting on the windbraces of the roof arches and the boughs of the pillars, making the church one people.
Esther followed the vicar, walking backwards, leading William by the net. Edward Stanley could not find space, and stood at the belfry door, peering where he was able.
The women of hoodman blind were sitting in the north choir stalls, every one holding her cockle-bread. The altar cloth was scarlet and sewn about with oak leaves of gold wire.
The vicar paused at the font, which had water in it, and on the rim of the font lay a twig of oak. Esther and William stood, the men behind them. The vicar dipped the green twig in the font and shook the water over William and said:
“Gently dip,
But not too deep,
For fear you make the golden bird to weep.”
He put the twig back on the rim and faced the altar. The men formed a file, a flail handle on each shoulder. The vicar headed the procession up the aisle, singing.
“Fair maiden, white and red –”
“– Comb me smooth and stroke my head,” the people responded.
“– And thou shalt have some cockle-bread,” sang the vicar.
“And every hair a sheaf shall be –”
“– And every sheaf a golden tree.”
They entered the chancel, and the men went to their places in the south choir stalls: Joshua, John, Charlie, Elijah, Sam, Isaac, Niggy.
Esther led William to stand at the end of the communion rail, while she stood on his left, still holding the net, and facing east.
The vicar went to the other side of the rail and closed it behind him. He bent his knee to the altar, then took the branches from William and placed them on the altar one at a time. He took the net, and put it with the branches.
William knelt at the rail. The women came from the choir stalls, in line beside Esther, and they all knelt.
The vicar lifted a paten from the altar, and on it were two loaves of the cockle-bread: one white, and one charred black. The vicar spoke to William.
“Have you come filled, or have you come fasting?”
“I have come fasting.”
“Which will you take: the burnt bread with God’s blessing, or the white bread with God’s curse?”
“The burnt bread with God’s blessing,” said William.
He held his hands cupped, and the vicar put the black loaf into them. William broke the bread, and it snapped as crumbs and lumps of cinder, which he began to eat. The edges cut his mouth and he tried not to gag on the dust as he chewed. He had no spit to soften the hardness, and the dry flakes stuck and burned in his throat when he swallowed. Each mouthful was more bitter than the one before, and he could not keep the tears from his eyes.
The vicar put his right hand on William’s head.
“The morning star, O Mary, to the bird of the bright wing.
“The rainbow, O Mary, to the shining bird.
“‘My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb which is sweet to thy taste. So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off.’”
The vicar moved to Esther and gave her the white loaf, and said: “Esther. Take, and be fruitful.” And so he went along the line of the women, who held up their cockle-bread in turn to be blessed on the paten. “Betty. Take, and be fruitful. Martha. Take, and be fruitful. Ann. Take, and be fruitful. Phoebe. Take, and be fruitful. Sarah. Take, and be fruitful. Martha. Take, and be fruitful.”
After the blessing, the women went back to the choir stalls and Esther with them. William gulped at the last brutal crust, and joined the men. The vicar put the paten on the altar, bent his knee, and faced the church. He made the sign of the cross.
“The bee, O Mary, to the bird of gold.”
William choked, but Niggy thumped his back.
The vicar climbed the steps into the pulpit. He tucked his hands into his sleeves, and spoke.
“‘And they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one half of which was in flame from the root to the top, and the other half was green and in full leaf.’ Hear, too, what Isaiah saith: ‘And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak.’ And also it is written: ‘And on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.’”
“Gerrit down thee!” whispered Niggy to William.
“Dearly beloved. This day we hold sacred the custom long hallowed in this parish, whereby all that are brought as infants to this House of Oak to be received into Christ’s Church, shall, when they be of mature years, return, and, by tokens of sacrifice and charity, give thanks for the renewal of life and the promise of life everlasting made manifest in these His Creatures of branch and bread –”
There was a hammering of metal on the belfry door, but the vicar continued.
“– so that we may partake of the fruits of the earth and the sanctified pleasures of the flesh, rejoicing in the knowledge that –”
He could not go on. The people were restless, looking to the back of the church; and Tiddy Turnock and Squarker Kennerley were already advancing on the belfry with their staffs. But, before they reached the end of the nave, the hammering stopped and the door was pushed open. The morning light glared on a sheet of paper that had been nailed to the door, and a man in Stanley livery stepped back to allow another in. This one was dressed in a coat of brocaded silk, and he gave his hat to the man at the door without looking at him, and entered the church.
The people were silent, and the man’s footsteps were loud on the stone floor. He walked with purpose, towards the chancel, acknowledging nobody.
Behind him, five others, all but one liveried, came into the belfry. Edward Stanley hung back.
“Sir John?” said the vicar as the man reached the pulpit; but he walked into the chancel and stopped.
“Buckley.”
He spoke without heat or question, but as a claim. William stood in the choir: he had no thought or choice.
“Cuff that man.”
Grandad got to his feet at the back of the church as the six followers entered. “Now then!”
“Sir –” said Edward.
“Cuff him.”
Sam Slack, the constable, moved forward with no haste. “Come on, youth,” he said. “You’re summonsed.” He held out a pair of handcuffs.
“I am never!” said William.
“Yay, but you are. Come along, now, there’s a good lad.”
“What for?”
“Sir John says.”
“‘Sir John says!’” cried Grandad. “I’ve known yon since his bum were as big as me shirt button! ‘Sir John says!’ That’s no law!” His neighbours held him. The church was filled with whispers and the noise of women afraid.
“Father –” said Edward, from the door of the nave.
“Cuff him, constable.”
“As heck as like!”
William jumped the communion rail and seized one of the oak branches and held it before him. Sam Slack stepped backwards. John Stanley motioned his men with his head. They came to the chancel steps.
“Sir John!” said the vicar.
“Remain in your clack-loft, parson.”
“This is sacrilege, Sir John!”
“And this is lewdness and Popery, sir; if you will have it.”
The men closed in, and William came over the rail to meet them, the branch raised as a club.
“I’ll bloody kill you!”
“No, Will,” said Esther. “It’s them as’ll kill you.”
“I’ll do for the lot on ’em! I bloody shall!”
The white skin in the black made his panicked eyes seem bigger, and even the men hesitated before his advance.
“I bloody shall! I bloody –! I bloody –!”
He stopped. The bough quivered above his head.
“Bunj-i-i-i-l!!”
He threw the branch high in the air and caught it and whirled it about him, from hand to hand; and, in the whirling, William danced, mocking, taunting, defiant, unafraid before the men, turning his back on them as he leaped high, facing them as he crouched, mouth open, nostrils flared, whooping and howling, and from his mouth came words.
“Mulla-mullung mulla-mullung Tharangalkbek! Goomah! Goomah! Goomah! Minggah! Minggah! Minggah! Thundal!”
“He speaks in tongues!” said the vicar.
The men drew together, uncertain. Children cried.
“He is a clown that gibbers, and is lunatic,” said Stanley.
“No, Sir John. Does not Saint Paul say: ‘He that speaketh in an unknown tongue, speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries’?”
“I say that he is lunatic.”
“Tundun! Binbeal!” declaimed William. “Thuroongarong! Neeyangarra! Murrangurk!”
John Stanley held out his hand behind him, and one of his men put a pistol, ready primed, into it.
“Then let him speak unto God.”
He walked forward to where William danced and pointed the pistol at him. William stopped, and held the branch, not as a club, but as a spear. His mouth was a gash in his black face.
Esther came from the choir, set herself between Stanley and William and took hold of the branch.
“Give us it.”
William looked at her, and frowned.
“Give us it. Come on, love. You can’t do nowt.”
“Tallarwurnin.”
“Give us the branch.”
William opened his hands. He was silent. Then:
“I have been dead before.”
Squarker Kennerley looked across at Tiddy Turnock. “Eh heck.” He raised his staff. “Hallelujah! Shick-Shack!”
Tiddy raised his staff. He turned to the people.
“Yay! Hosanna, and all!”
“Shick-Shack!” The voice of the people made the timbers of the church boom. “Shick-Shack! Shick-Shack! Shick-Shack! Hallelujah!”
At once, William sagged; the grace and arrogance were gone. “Het. Don’t leave me.”
“Come on, love.”
Esther led him to Sam Slack, and the cuffs were put about his wrists and the men took him. John Stanley returned the pistol.
“Yet he did speak in tongues,” said the vicar.
Esther rounded on John Stanley.
“My thanks to you – Cumberbach?”
“Esther Cumberbach. Sir. Now! What’s up with you? What the holy buggery is up?”
“Whose hand is this?” said John Stanley. He took a paper from his pocket and held it in front of William.
“It’s me practice,” said William.
“Did you write this?”
“Ay.”
“Sir!” said Edward. “That was in my chamber!”
“And how should I not know it?”
“Sir!”
“By the God!” said Grandad. “The youth’s done nowt wrong!”
“This not wrong?” said Stanley. “‘The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar’s laurel crown.’ ‘Ancient abuses are not by their antiquity converted into virtues.’ ‘Man has rights which no statutes or usages take away.’ This Jacobin treason not wrong? What, then, may be right?”
“You talk like a pig piddles!” shouted Grandad.
“It was me practice,” said William.
“The man does not comprehend!” said Edward.
“It was me practice: for writing,” said William. “What’s he on at, Het?”
“He writes, and does not comprehend?” said Stanley. “Let him comprehend me this.” He held out his hand to the man who had nailed the paper to the church door. The man gave him another, rolled up, which Stanley passed to William. William struggled in the cuffs to unroll the paper.
“What is it?” he said.
“Read,” said Stanley. “It would seem that you are able. And let all hear.”
William read aloud, hesitating.
“‘Any person lopping oak trees for the ridiculous custom of decorating houses on May the twenty-ninth will be prosecuted under the recent Act which allows transportation for life for such an offence. J. T. Stanley’.”
There was a murmur of anger through the church.
“You read well,” said Stanley. “But do you comprehend?”
“What does he mean?” said William.
“How may he comprehend, sir?” said Edward. “The man has little use of words!”
“Yet comprehend or no,” said Stanley, “my oaks were lopped, though I have had this intelligence posted throughout the parish, where all may see.”
“I don’t know what he means, Het!” said William. “All them words!”
“He means, Buckley, that you may take your tracts with you to New Holland, and entertain and plot with your fellow Jacobins and Levellers to your heart’s delight. And I wish you God’s speed.”
“Sir John,” said the vicar. “The man is plainly innocent.”
“The oaks are on your altar, sir. Remove him.”
The men marched William towards the belfry. When he reached Grandad he put his shackled arms over the old man’s head and neck, embracing him.
“I’ll be back, Grandad, never fret.”
The old man was crying.
“My song, youth. Fair wind to your arse and a bottle of moss.” Charcoal was smudged on his cheek.
The men took possession again. Esther stood mute on the chancel steps.
John Stanley paused at the font and picked up the twig of oak and crumpled it between his fingers and dropped it to the floor. He spoke to the vicar. “Here’s a thought your teeth should clench: all green comes to withering.”
Helpless shouts began. The people were trying to move among the pillared trunks of the nave, under the curved bracing, the limbs of the roof, lost in a wood. The vicar strove to restore them.
“Hear what our Lord saith!
“‘Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“‘Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake –’”
The church emptied of Stanley, and the people responded to the vicar and his words in that place. They knelt. Esther remained, looking to the door.
“‘Ye are the salt of the earth –’”
As he passed from the belfry, William turned his head over his shoulder to Esther at the chancel steps. Framed in the arches of oak she stood, and their eyes became their memory along the separation of the church.
“‘Let your light so shine before men –’”
“Het! I’ll be back for you! I promise!”
“‘Think not that I come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.’”
William was flung onto the mound. The dog watched. “Gyp! Seize ’em! Seize ’em!”
The dog flattened its ears, and lay still.
Alone in the belfry, Edward blocked his father’s path.
“The man is innocent, sir.”
“He writes. The example is to be made. And my oaks are lopped.”
“This darkness must end.”
“Gyp –!!”
“They shall not write.”