snow, are you?” he asks.
“It’s a tennis racket.” I explain. Knowing St Rodence he has probably never seen one before.
“Dang my withers. I thought it was a snow shoe.”
“It is a bit old,” I say. “It used to belong to my aunt.”
“Use it for catching butterflies, did she?”
“You’re in good form today, Mr Hardakre,” I say soothingly. “Do you think you can still do something with it?”
Ruben looks at me in a funny sort of way. “You want to ask your friend, Miss Green, that question.”
“What did you do for Miss Green?” I ask.
“Ah! That’ud be telling, that would.” Ruben laughs like someone clearing a blocked up drain.
“I haven’t got time to play guessing games,” I say. “Can you restring this thing for me, or not?”
Ruben strokes his whiskers. “I can do. But it’s going to cost ’ee summat.”
“How much?”
Ruben beckons me closer. “Have a glass of molderberry wine and we’ll haggle over it.”
“I haven’t got time to haggle,” I say.
“Then just have the wine.”
“About how much?” I say.
“A couple of glasses should be enough.” An evil grin flickers across Ruben’s face.
“I didn’t mean that,” I say, trying to keep patient. “About how much is it going to cost to repair the racket?”
“Well, to anyone else it would be best part of three sovereigns. But to you—if you’ll take a glass of wine with me—it’ll be done for less than two, and there’s my hand on it.”
“Please take your hand off it, Mr Hardakre!” I say. Really he is the most incredible old man! Give him an inch and he takes a liberty. Not that he isn’t attractive in a funny sort of way. I have always had a soft spot for the outdoor type.
“Just a glass. It’ll put some flute into your snaffers. You need something after your walk.”
I know I shouldn’t, but it seems the easiest way of escaping from the old rogue. One doesn’t want to give offence, does one?
“Just a drop, then,” I say.
“Right you are, young missee.” He scuttles across the room and shakes a couple of wood lice out of a glass before wiping it against his sleeve. “Can’t be too careful, can ’ee?” he says. I smile weakly and watch him prising the top off a battered oil can. “The old Molderberry sticks a bit when it’s maturing,” he explains. At first I think he says “stinks a bit”. I have never been exposed to anything like it since Mum shut the next door’s tom in our kitchen overnight.
The smell is bad enough but the green fumes are the things that really turn me off.
“Are you sure it’s all right?” I ask.
“Course it is. Lovely drop of molderberry, this. It’ll put hairs on your chest.”
At the risk of sounding ungrateful it seems necessary to point out that I do not want hairs on my chest. My one day Mr Right will hardly be overjoyed if our wedding night reveals a pair of shaggy boobs.
“Just a taste,” I say.
“That’s what your Miss Green said,” sniggers the rustic Romeo. “It were amazin’ how she found a hankering for it.”
“Penny has always been partial to a stiff drink,” I say.
“Not just a stiff drink,” says Ruben. I have no idea what he is talking about but it is very strange how his eyes glisten.
“Here we are, my dear.” Ruben hands me half a tumbler full of the steaming brew and I notice that there were in fact three wood lice in the glass. The one now floating on top is lying on its back and has turned white. It is not moving. I remove it, hoping that this does not give offence, and raise the tumbler to my lips—
“Stop!!” Seth Hardakre towers in the doorway, his giant frame blocking out the light. “Are you trying to wimble her gwinnies, Father?” The old man starts to mumble but is cut short by his son’s furious onslaught. “You can’t give a young maid that! You might scradge her nadgepoles! I told you about that after the floddymoddling. Spat my fibes but you’re a contrary old grummock!”
“Don’t ’ee talk to me like that, my lad, or I’ll take my guzzyprodder to you!” Father and son collide in the middle of the floor and I can sense that unpleasantness is in the air. Ruben is trying to strike his offspring with an instrument that I later learn is used to despatch moles and I take the opportunity to make for the door. I do hate family scenes. I have taken about a dozen paces into the autumn sunshine when Seth appears at my elbow.
“Sorry about that, ma’am.” he says, doffing the corduroy cap that sits jauntily atop his forest of curls. “Come Micklemucking, and he becomes fair fazed by the lady-kind.”
“Think nothing of it,” I say. “No harm was done. Perhaps, when he’s feeling himself—”
“He’s always doing that,” says Seth, shaking his head. “Dirty old goatstuffer!”
“I meant, when he’s calmed down, perhaps he could do something with my tennis racket?” I say, blushing.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” says Seth. “He’s done things with most things.”
This is obviously not a very profitable topic of conversation and I am glad when I think of a way of changing it.
“What are you doing now?” I ask.
“I’m going up to Spangler’s Copse to chop logs. You want to take a stroll up there?”
It is a lovely day and I jump at the chance of a little light exercise. Especially in the company of bluff, honest Seth. Strange how a son can be so unlike his father.
“We have a hut up there,” says Seth as we trudge through the drifts of leaves. “I go there sometimes when I want to be alone with my fidgets.”
I nod understandingly. I have no idea what he is talking about but I love this old country language that he and Ruben share. It sounds as if they are making up each word as they go along but it must be some rustic tongue handed down over hundreds of years from father to son—or Gitfodder to Nastrel as they put it.
“It’s beautiful,” I say as we enter the thick woods. “All these trees.”
Seth looks at me and there is respect in his eyes. “You notice things, don’t you, Miss Dixon?”
I blush. I am pleased that he noticed that I noticed. “I’m a country girl at heart,” I say, demurely.
“Would
