Extract:
‘AND this is where we become law-breakers,’ said Tyrrell, as they reached a stile set in their way and secured by a Gordian Knot of tangled ropes. ‘Beyond here the path is no longer public.’
‘It doesn’t say so.’
‘It used to, but His Lordship’s men are very casual about such things. The sign rotted away and has never been replaced.’
Tyrrell handed Miss Bell the hat which he wore on Sundays to please her. The rest of the week, unlike most of his countrymen, he preferred to go bare-headed. ‘Now if I clamber over the gate … I can untie some of the ropes … So. And you can just squeeze through.’
Both Miss Bell and her dress were slimmer than most, and she managed it without mishap. Tyrrell scrupulously secured the stile behind them. ‘Now let’s hope we manage to attract the unfavourable attention of Mr Matthews.’
It did not take long. They had gone scarcely another half-mile down an increasingly narrower and wilder path before:
‘Hey! You there, sir!’
Across the fallow field to their left a weather-beaten bandy-legged man hobbled hurriedly towards them. He was perhaps fifty years of age, dressed in tweeds and gaiters, wearing a billy-cock hat, weather-proof Wellingtonian boots, and with a shotgun strapped across his back. He could well have served as an illustration in a child’s picture book: ‘G is for Gamekeeper.’
Tyrrell adopted the method he usually employed when caught out in a minor misdemeanour, that of vague and apologetic incomprehension. ‘Er, yes?’
As the man came nearer he paused and raised his hat. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Tyrrell, I didn’t recognize you.’
Tyrrell touched the brim of his own hat in acknowledgment. ‘Not at all, not at all. I don’t think you’ve met my wife …’
Again Matthews touched his hat. ‘Of course I’ve heard of her. Miss, er … Missus …’
‘Miss Bell will do,’ said Tyrrell with a smile.
‘No,’ she corrected him. ‘Remember, Richard, I’m Mrs Tyrrell on Sundays.’
‘So you are. I hope we’re not confusing you,’ he said to Matthews.
‘Not a bit, sir. And if I may say so, it’s good to see a married couple as can have a bit of a joke together. Sorry to have stopped you, Mr Tyrrell, but on Sundays poaching can be a bit of a problem, what with people being off work …’
‘I’m sure. But from what I’ve heard, Lord Anglesborough is pretty relaxed about such things. I can’t remember the last case of poaching on his land we had in the County Magistrates.’
Matthews nodded understandingly. ‘That he is, sir, that he is. A real Christian gentleman, if I may make so bold as to say so. He reckons himself very fortunate to be highborn and rich, so if poor folk come rabbiting from time to time it don’t do him much harm.’
‘Do you not have a problem with poaching gangs from the big cities?’ asked Miss Bell.
He shook his head. ‘We’re very fortunate here. The Heath don’t seem quite big enough, or rich enough in game, to make it worth their while. I believe they have more trouble down Warwickshire way, and out west, towards Shrewsbury.’
Tyrrell nodded. ‘That’s good to hear,’ he said vaguely. ‘Er, I don’t know if I should mention this, but is there any more news of your brother?’
Again Matthews shook his head. ‘To tell you the truth, Mr Tyrrell, we never had a lot to do with each other. Being the elder son, he were better educated than me, you see, and he were always a bit of a townie, same as our dad. I opted for a simpler job in the countryside, nearer to God’s creation, as you might say. Seemed to me he didn’t really want to know me after that.’
Tyrrell nodded sympathetically. ‘That can happen, I know.’
‘Keen to tell people he were the uncle of a doctor, mind you.’
The more they learnt about the missing man, Tyrrell mused, the less attractive he became. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘And now he’s turned into a wrong ’un, or so it seems. Bug – sorry, Mrs Tyrrell – cleared off with a lot of his employers’ money, so they say.’
‘The police reckon he may be hiding out on the Heath, but I can’t think where.’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about that too, sir.’
He needed more prompting. ‘So have I,’ said Tyrrell. ‘Of course I’m a townie myself, but when I was a lad I spent quite a lot of time on the Heath. Looking for hiding-places I could use as a centre for operations in case Boney, or anyone like him, started his games again and managed to invade. Schoolboy dreams – I saw myself as a heroic leader of resistance, a guerrillero, like they had in Spain. I even learned a little woodcraft, or nature study as they called it at my school. Not to compare with you, of course …’
‘Really, sir?’ Matthews chuckled. ‘Then let me test you, if I may make so bold.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘See those ducks poking about looking for food near the little pond there? What would you say they were?’
‘I’d say they were female mallard.’
‘Quite right, Mr Tyrrell, very good. Now suppose you come across a badger sett, say, the entrance high and not very wide. Stinks a bit, begging your pardon, ma’am.’
‘Sounds more like a fox’s earth to me.’
‘Well, sir, if you aren’t quite the countryman after all. While as for your query about hiding-places, it seems to me that there ain’t too many that you could use for very long. There’s the ramparts of the old Iron Age fort, plenty of nooks and crannies there, and the place near the Mill Ford where they kept the Froggy prisoners during the War against old Boney. They dug a lot of earthworks there which haven’t been either levelled or filled in. Then there’s the sandstone caves at Satnall, and the old mining quarry at Huntley.’
‘I can’t think of anywhere else,’ Tyrrell agreed.
Matthews pulled a face and sighed. ‘My own brother, turned into a wrong ’un. But he’s not the first man to be led astray by a woman, and he won’t be the last. Begging your pardon, Mrs Tyrrell.’ Miss Bell just smiled and said nothing.
‘There aren’t many people who get to middle age, and have never made a fool of themselves over a member of the opposite sex,’ said Tyrrell. He grinned. ‘I was lucky. There was no great harm done.’
‘You’re right enough there, sir. Even in my young days before I met my wife, God rest her soul … And when I consider what some of the high and mighty get up to, and get away with … But what I ask myself, Mr Tyrrell, is this. Are they any the happier for it? Would I change places with any of them? Could I sleep at nights if I did? And the answer is, no, I couldn’t.’
‘I agree entirely,’ said Tyrrell truthfully.
Matthews waved his hand at the landscape around. ‘I wouldn’t change places with anyone else in the world, and that’s a fact. I dare say if I were a Norwegian, or a Froggy, I’d think Norway or France was the best country in the world, but old England’s good enough for me. And Midshire too. They do say, Mrs Tyrrell, that you Yorkshire folk do call it God’s own county.’
Miss Bell nodded and smiled.
‘Well, that’s the way I feel about Midshire. I live in the best county in England, and the best country in the world. I could live off the land if need be, and leave it as I found it. I had a grand wife, and I’ve a son to be proud of. And when my time comes, I hope it’ll be in Midshire, but any road up, I’ll have no regrets. God’s been very good to me, and that’s a fact. But I’m sorry, sir, I must be boring you.’
‘Not at all. “To wish to be none but oneself, no other. Neither to desire death, nor to fear it.” ’
‘I don’t recognize that from the scriptures, sir. But it’s true.’
‘Martial. A Roman. And a pagan. But he knew what he was talking about. And you’ve given me things to think about, too.’
‘Kind of you to say so, sir. Not that I’m an educated man, but I do think about things quite a lot.’
‘That’s perfectly obvious. Well, Mr Matthews, no doubt you’ve got work to do, so we won’t trespass on your time, or Lord Anglesborough’s land, any longer. A very good day to you.’
‘And to you too, sir. And madam.’
‘Of course one can always be wrong,’ said Tyrrell as the gamekeeper stumped away, ‘but if that man’s involved in anything shady, I’ll eat my hat.’ He took it off and looked at it with distaste. ‘And I don’t fancy doing that.’