The Midsummer Crown Read Free

therefore shouldered the canvas sack containing the clothes I had taken with me to London, picked up my cudgel and descended the path to the farmhouse gate.
    All was now peaceful, so I crossed the courtyard and rapped loudly on the door. Nothing happened, and I had raised my hand to knock again when a snarling sound made me whirl about just in time to see a man and dog appear around the corner of the building. The latter was one of the largest dogs I had ever encountered, with small, malicious eyes and excellent teeth. Heaven alone knew what mixed parentage had gone towards its making. With mounting horror I saw it crouch, ready to spring, and clutched my cudgel horizontally in both hands. My one hope was to thrust it between the animal’s jaws as it launched itself at me, and I braced myself for the attack.
    It did not come. Instead, there was a thunderous roar of ‘Stay!’ and the dog, almost in mid-jump, lay down obediently at his master’s feet, although his beady eyes never left my face and he slobbered in frustration. The man himself was hardly more prepossessing than the beast; a big fellow both tall and heavily built with a bull neck and powerful thighs. His hair was grizzled and there were wrinkles around the slightly protuberant brown eyes. I judged him to be somewhere in his late fifties.
    â€˜What do you want?’ His voice was harsh, suspicious.
    â€˜I was hoping to beg supper and a bed for the night,’ I said, adding, ‘I’m an honest pedlar on his way home to Bristol.’
    His gaze sharpened. ‘A pedlar, are you? Then where’s your pack?’
    I cursed silently. For the moment I had forgotten that I didn’t have my pack with me. There had seemed no reason to take it to London when I had set out in pursuit of Adela, and indeed I had not needed it these past few weeks.
    â€˜I – er . . .’ I was beginning lamely, but the man gave me no chance to explain.
    â€˜Be off with you!’ he shouted (or words to that effect), and indicated his inability to control the dog for much longer.
    I held up my hands placatingly. ‘All right, all right! I’m going,’ I said and turned away just as the door of the farmhouse opened yet again and the woman I had seen earlier reappeared.
    â€˜What’s the trouble?’ she asked. ‘Lower your voice, John. You’re disturbing the child.’
    Close to, I could see that she was much younger than the man, perhaps by about as much as twenty years, but she wore a wedding ring and spoke in that proprietary way wives do when taking husbands to task; a way that is easily recognizable but difficult to describe. She was a pleasant enough looking woman with a pair of fine hazel eyes but a nose that was, unfortunately, somewhat too large for her face. Her apron, over a gown of grey homespun, was scrupulously clean, as was her coif, and she had pinned a sprig of greenery to one shoulder with a small, round pewter brooch in a seeming celebration of the newly burgeoning spring.
    â€˜I’m afraid it’s my fault, mistress,’ I interposed before the man could speak. ‘I was hoping to find a meal and shelter here for the night, but my request seems to have given offence.’
    The woman shot her husband – if I was correct and such he was – a venomous look from beneath lowered lids before she turned a smiling face towards me.
    â€˜I’m sorry, master, if my husband was rude, but our daughter is sick and we are both very worried about her.’
    â€˜That would be the young girl I saw running across the yard just now, would it?’ I enquired caustically. ‘She didn’t look very ill to me.’
    â€˜No,’ the woman answered reproachfully, ‘that was our younger daughter. She’s been set to look after her sister while I do some of the household chores, but she’s only thirteen and resents the enforced inactivity. She tries to sneak out every now