A Chorus of Innocents Read Free Page B

Cuthberts,” said the older man wisely, “would the minister here be a Mr Burn? A Mr James Burn?”
    â€œWhy?” asked the man at the bar, with narrow suspicious eyes.
    â€œWell,” said the older one, not looking at the younger one, “we’re from a printer in Edinburgh to see about the printing of his sermons and selling them too.”
    This was what he had been told to say by his principal and he was happy to see it worked like a charm. The man might well have been suspicious, after all, and it would be so much easier if they could get him alone.
    â€œYes,” said the barman, “that’d be the pastor.” He wasn’t at the alehouse which was a little odd for a pastor. What was more, he was at the manse and teaching the children.
    The younger man choked on his beer. “Teaching?” he asked. “Why?”
    This touched off a dispute. The dice players looked around and said it was all this new-fangled religion, the arguers agreed and sniggered about it, the barman said it was all very well learning your letters but then what could you do with it, the sleeper said nothing because he stayed asleep, and the man who was hunched over his quart straightened up and told them all that they were fools because the truth was in the Bible and the children would be able to read it for themselves, whereas they couldn’t. One of the dice players snorted and said that was all very well and the truth might be in the Bible at that, but what was the use of it?
    The older man cut through the talk and asked where the manse might be, and learned it was right behind the alehouse from the days when the alehouse was the church’s and ran church ales.
    Both men finished their ales, parried a couple of questions about where they came from. No need to send the boy with them, they could find the manse themselves from the sound of it.
    They went out the door and round the back of the place and there, sure enough, was the manse, a handsome building of stone like the church, though perhaps older. It looked like part of it had once been something else, maybe a little house for monks or something.
    The door flung open and twelve boys came pouring out, shouting and pummeling each other, two of them fell wrestling at the feet of the men. They stepped around the boys and spoke to the man standing at the door, smiling at them.
    He bowed slightly and led them inside. The boys all scattered to their homes except for three who had planned a fishing expedition at the stream. A woman arrived in a hurry, and went in smiling. There was a quiet sound of talking, a woman’s voice, a man’s voice.
    A pause. Then a sudden grunt, like a pig being stuck with a lance, a thump, then a sound like a cabbage being cut. Then the sound of a stifled scream, thumping and bumping and some muffled groans, going on for a while.
    The two men walked out of the house, grinning and rearranging their hose and round the duck pond to where their horses were tethered. Unhurriedly they untied them, mounted and trotted away to the little copse nearby where they had some remounts and a boy guarding them.
    Then they changed horses and went to a canter out of the copse and round by the little lanes that threaded across the countryside, although they could have crossed the ploughed fields in a straight line. As it happened they went north first on an errand and to throw anyone off the trail, and then they went south and west. The boy took the West March-branded horses straight south to a horse-trader.

Friday Morning 13th October 1592
    Lady Widdrington looked at the farmer in front of her and waited for him to stop lying. The horses in question were nice beasts and she knew they were not local. The question was, where had they come from and had they been reived.
    â€œMr Tully,” she said, “I’ve never seen the brands before. Where are they from?”
    â€œThey’re Middle March horses, your ladyship,” he