[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter Read Free Page A

watch her.'
    She put on her cloak and hood, slipped her feet into their paltens and clattered away down the street. I was left with my deep sense of guilt and the rapidly mounting excitement which I always felt at the prospect of approaching freedom.
    And mixed with that excitement was apprehension, wondering where that freedom would lead me.

Chapter Two

    Margaret had shown great foresight when she told me not to make promises that I might not wish to keep. I had already been on the road for ten days, and although I was less than a dozen miles from Bristol as the crow flies - and could indeed, with steady walking, have been home within the allotted span I was still moving in a south-westerly direction towards the coast and the broad channel of water which is the Severn estuary.
    In spite of the bitter cold and the iron-hard ground, I was savouring my freedom. I had not hurried, searching out every settlement, however small, within a two-day journey both north and south of the main pack-horse track. And everywhere I had been welcomed and feted as one braving the hazardous weather to bring a little pleasure and distraction into people's lives. For the winter months are a dreary, dead time in isolated villages and hamlets, with nothing much for the inhabitants to do except work and sleep once the festivities of Plough Monday are over. Even on the larger farms and holdings the lambing season keeps the men busy out in the fields all day, and the women are glad to see a fresh face and hear city gossip, as well as being able to replenish their stocks of needles, thread and other such haberdashery.
    But that particular January there was another diversion for the good folk of north Somerset to talk about. Wherever I went, however remote the homestead, the name of Friar Simeon seemed to be on everyone's lips, either as having not long departed or as being expected within the next few days. Those who had just heard him preach were distinguished from their fellows by being somewhat more subdued in manner and paying a greater attention to evening and morning prayers. I could not help wondering how long this new-found piety would last; and, in those places where he had preceded my arrival by several days, I noted that the after-effects of his sermon were already beginning to fade. Nevertheless, his message was generally applauded by members of the older generation who deplored, as had my mother-in-law, declining moral standards amongst the young.
    By noon on the tenth day the weather, which had improved somewhat during the past week, once again turned bitterly cold. It had been a morning of heavy frost, and the grass crunched under my feet as I descended a steep slope towards the huddle of cottages at the bottom. On the opposite side of the valley the round-shouldered hills sparkled here and there with rime as a thin winter sunshine, cold as steel, penetrated the gathering clouds. Now and then a spatter of rain stung my face, and above a distant swathe of woodland I could see the bitten-off stump of a rainbow, which sailors call a winddog.
    The children of the village, those not needed by their elders to help in the home or out of doors, were keeping warm with a game of camping, the two 'armies' drawn up at either end of a stretch of level ground beside the stream whose bed was the valley floor. Their 'gauntlet' was an old shoe which had seen better days, judging by the way its sole gaped from its upper. But it proved to be an excellent flier as, with a shouted challenge, it was hurled by the captain of one side high over the heads of his opponents, to land in the stunted scrub and whin behind them. And while the 'enemy' searched desperately to retrieve the token, their numbers rapidly diminished as they were taken 'prisoner' and dragged off to the other end of the field. At last, however, the shoe was discovered and flung back with a cry of triumph, to embed itself in a clump of willows growing close to the bank. The challenge was thus