Constable Across the Moors by Nicholas Rhea Read Free Book Online Page B

amazement, a voice apparently from thin air replied, “Thoo’ll call that bairn Tommy, weearn’t tha?”
    The husband, still determined to select his own name, shouted back, “Ah’ll call ma lad what Ah wants. Ah weearn’t change it for thoo or for all t’Nan devils in this country.”
    “Then thoo’ll stay where too is until t’bairn’s born and t’mother dies,” came the horrifying response.
    The poor young farmer was placed in a terrible dilemma. He could not move his pony and trap, nor could he climb from the seat, and he was faced with the death of his dear wife, all for the sake of a lad’s name. As he sat transfixed, he reasoned it all out, and decided there was an element of uncertainty because the child might be a girl. For that reason, he capitulated. He agreed to call the child Tommy if it was a boy. And at that, he found the horse could move and he went on his way.
    My storyteller did not tell me whether the child was a boy, and I did not ask in case she was talking about her own ancestors, but she went on to relate more stories of Awd Nan Hard wick, all showing belief in the curious power of these local witches.
    As I listened, it was evident that she believed the stories, and I could imagine her family relating these yarns as the children gathered around a blazing fire during the long dark evenings of a moorland winter.
    “Is Katherine Hardwick a descendant of Awd Nan?” I asked.
    “She is,” the lady nodded her grey head seriously. “All those Hardwick women were witches, and she’s no better. Mark my words, young man.”
    “What sort of things does she do then?”
    “Turns milk sour if she comes in the house, makes folks ill by looking at them. Little things like that, like her mother and the other women folk did. Milk would never come to butter if a Hardwick was around.”
    “Is that why you said she could sort out her own trouble with this mischief maker?” I asked.
    “Aye,” she said, “any witch worth her salt could sort out that kind of trouble.”
    “But with all due respect, Mrs Atkinson, witches don’t exist …”
    “Balderdash!” she snorted. “Do you know what they did in a situation like this? When folks upset them, angered them, scandalised them?”
    I shook my head.
    “The witch took a pigeon, Mr Rhea, a wild pigeon, a wood stoggie we used to call ’em. They made pigeon pie, but they took the heart out and stuck pins into it, into the heart that is. They put as many pins in as they could, lots and lots, and then put the heart into a tin and cooked it. Then they put it near the door, out of reach of cats and things, out of sight.”
    “And?”
    “Well, it made the mischief maker want to apologise for what he’d done. He went to the house and made his peace. It allus works, Mr Rhea.” She spoke her final words in the present tense.
    “And you think Katherine should do that?” I put the direct question.
    “Nay, lad, Ah didn’t say that. Ah said she could do that, because her previous women folk did that sort o’ thing. If she wants to bring you fellers in, then that’s her business.” She spoke those words with an air of finality.
    “Is Ted Agar in, Mrs Atkinson? I ought to talk to him while I’m here.”
    “Try those sheds at the bottom of our yard, he’s down there fettling t’tractor.”
    “Thanks – and thanks for the story of Awd Nan.”
    “It’s true,” she said as I left the warmth of the kitchen to seek Ted Agar. I found him working on the tractor. He had the plugs out and was cleaning some parts with a wire brush, his face wrapped with concentration as I entered the spacious building.
    “Ted Agar?” I spoke his name as I walked in.
    He glanced up from his work and smiled at me. “Aye, that’s me.”
    “I’m P.C. Rhea from Aidensfield,” I announced, thinking this would give him notice of the reason for my presence.
    He continued to work, acknowledging me with a curt nod of his curly black head. He was about twenty-two or three, I