“But where is he?” asked Will, glad that the Gaffer’s monologue had drifted from its angry beginning.
“In Babylon!”
“Babylon?” gasped Will, whose recent theological excursions had made him almost at home in that purpureal city.
“That’s my nickname for Che’msford, chuck-full o’ lewdness and Church-folk. But Oi’ve been meanin’ to goo and look Sidrach up and hear all about his travels, he bein’ a rare one for adwentures, but somehow what with my carryin’ work and one thing and the tother my days fly by—like the Book says—swifter than a weaver’s shuttle. Happen lucky, though, Oi’ll git over there to-year.”
“I hope so,” murmured Will vaguely.
“No you don’t, drat you!” said the veteran with sudden viciousness. “Tain’t your care whether Oi ever clap eyes on my beloved brother agen. A ’nation cowld day it was he had to goo away—the Brad all ice and they should be tellin’ of the Che’msford coach as come in without the driver, and he fallen down on the road, frozen stiff as a sparrow.”
“What year was that?” asked Will, to keep the conversation on this more agreeable level.
“It was the year my brother Sidrach went away,” said Daniel Quarles simply. “ ’Nation cowld. We heerd that in Lunnon the river was as froze as ourn, and flue-full o’ sports—booths and turnabouts and pigs roasted whole, and great crowds to see a young bear baited. But feyther’s cart went to and fro Chipstone just the same, and brought the news as how a woman was burned at Newgate for coinin’—it dedn’t seem wery dreadful in that weather. Waterloo year that was another cowld winter—all the marsh ditches was solid ice, and all the eels was found dead and frozen. Couldn’t eat ’em neither, not after the first day, they stank so. That numb was my fingers Oi could scarce howld the reins, and you’d ha’ thought by my breath Oi was a wicked smoker. But ’twas wunnerful times, and we heaped up a deadly great pile o’ fagots and bushes for the beacon, top o’ yonder rise where ye see Beacon Hill Farm.”
“Ah, the bonfire to celebrate the victory!” said Will, rejoiced to find irascibility cooled into reminiscence.
“Wictory! That was the name o’ Nelson’s ship as that silly old Dap should say he sarved in. Nay, this was but a bonfire to be lit when Bony landed. All along Blackwater we was ready for the inwasion, and when the beacon was fired, that was to be the signal. The soldiers was to goo to the coast and the ciwilians inland. But Bony never come, and ’twas a great waste. And Sidrach never come neither. ’Nation cowld the day he went away—Oi moind me gooin’ through a foot o’ snow across Chipstone poor-piece to the Church to see the Knight Templar what was dug up in the north aisle, pickled inside three coffins, but they’d put him back in the outer lead time Oi arrived. They should say it was a sort o’ mushroom ketchup as kept him together for the Resurrection Day—a bit blackish, but wellnigh as sound and good-lookin’ as you.”