Old Carter the Lamp-lighter had never seen so many strangers in the village. More particularly, he'd never seen so many well-dressed strangers. And even more particularly, he'd never seen so many well-dressed strangers carrying paper bags in one hand, canes in the other, and with small rucksacks upon their backs.
It occurred to him that the road needed sweeping again.
Five minutes later he nodded his head at a smart, paper-bag-carrying stranger and said, 'Good day!'
The man nodded haughtily, flourished his cane, and walked on.
Fifteen minutes later another one appeared.
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter nodded at him and said, 'Good day! Fine weather, hey?'
The man looked him up and down, muttered 'G'day!' and pushed past.
When the next appeared, Old Carter the Lamp-lighter stood in his path, grinned broadly, raised his cap, and said breezily, 'How do you do, sir! Welcome to Old Ford! You've picked a fine day for a stroll! What's in the bag?'
The man stopped and looked at him, taken aback. 'I say!' he exclaimed.
'I do too!' agreed Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. 'I say it's a lovely day to go for a walk with a paper bag under your arm! What's in it? A picnic, perhaps?'
'Why, yes, that's it-a picnic! What!' exclaimed the stranger, and made to move away.
'Up your arse!' said the bag.
The two men looked at it.
'Sandwiches?' suggested Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.
'Parakeet,' mumbled the stranger, sheepishly.
'Ah, yes. Training it, perhaps?'
'Yes, that's right. Training. Seeing how fast it can fly back to London, what!'
'Gas-belcher!' announced the bag.
'Is it a convention?' asked Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.
'A con-con-a what?'
'A convention, old bean. A gathering of the Oft-Spotted Parakeet Trainers of Old London Town? I say, you're not the chaps who teach 'em how to swear, are you?'
'Blasted impertinence!' exploded the stranger. 'Let me past!'
'I do apologise!' said Old Carter the Lamp-lighter, standing aside. 'Incidentally, the fishing's not good in that direction. No water, you see.'
'The fishing? What in blue blazes are you on about now?'
'There's a length of netting hanging out of your rucksack.'
The stranger strode away, swinging his cane, his countenance flushed with anger.
'Have a splendid day!' called Old Carter the Lamp-lighter after him.
'Goat-fiddler!' called the bag.
Sneaking along from the untended land to the north, a poacher approached the field opposite the Alsop cottage and quietly slipped into the thick border of trees that surrounded it. It was a good field for rabbits but there'd been police outside the cottage these past few days and he'd been too nervous to check his traps. Were the coppers still there? He was going to have a look.
Treading softly, as was his habit, he moved furtively from bole to bole.
Suddenly, a feeling of unease gripped him.
He froze.
He was not alone.
He could sense a presence.
Moistening his lips with his tongue, he crouched, held his breath, and listened.
All he could hear was birdsong.
A lot of it.
Too much!
An absolute cacophony!
'Maggotous duffers! Cross-eyed poseurs! Scrubbers! Bounders! Dirty baggage! Dolts! Filthy blackguards! Decomposing scumbags! Poodlerubbers! Piss-heads!'
The poacher looked around him in bewilderment. What the hell? The trees seemed to have more birds in them than he'd ever known-and they were screaming insults!
'Bastards! Stink-brains! Stupid fungus-lickers! Lobotomised chumps! Tangle-tongued inbreds! Curs! Fish- faced idiots! Balloon-heads! Little shits! Witless pigstickers! Crap masters! Buffoons!'
His unease turned to superstitious dread.
The poacher was just about to turn and take to his heels when an uncomfortable feeling in his neck stopped him. He looked down and his stubbled chin bumped into a wet red blade that projected from his throat. He coughed blood onto it and watched as it slid back into his neck and out of sight.
'My apologies,' said a soft voice from behind.
The poacher died and slid to the loamy earth.
The man who'd killed him sheathed his swordstick. Like all his fellow Rakes, he was well dressed, carried a bagged birdcage in one hand, and had a rucksack on his back.
Little by little, the Rakes had occupied the shadows under the trees around the field and now there were hundreds of them.
By the time twilight was descending over the village, there were no more smart, bag-carrying, cane- brandishing strangers for Old Carter the Lamplighter to accost.
He'd swept the street until it was practically shining. Now he was settling into his armchair to enjoy a cup of tea and a hot buttered crumpet.
He placed the teacup on the arm of his chair, raised the crumpet to his open mouth, and stopped.
The cup was rattling in its saucer.
'What in the name of all that's holy is happening now?' he muttered, lowering the crumpet and standing up. He crossed to the window and looked out. There was nothing to see, but he could hear an odd thrumming.
Moving to the front door, he opened it just in time to see a plush leather armchair descend from the sky.
It landed across the street from his cottage, the spinning wings above it slowing down, the paradiddle of its motor becoming lazier, steam rolling away.
The noise stopped. The wings became still. The man in the seat pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, lit a pipe, and began to smoke.
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter sighed and stepped out of his house. He closed the front door, walked down the path, opened the gate, crossed the spotlessly clean street, stood next to the chair, and said, 'Sangappa.'
The man looked up, and with his pipe stem clenched between his teeth mumbled, 'Beg pardon?'
'Sangappa,' repeated Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. 'It's the best leather softener money can buy. They send it over from India. Hard to find and a mite expensive but worth every penny. There's nothing to top it. Sangappa. It'd do that chair of yours a world of good, take my word for it.'
'I do,' said the man, raising a pair of binoculars to his eyes and directing them down the street.
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter ate his crumpet and chewed thoughtfully while he looked to where the lenses were pointing: at the high street's junction with Bearbinder Lane, the lower end of the village, beyond which fields and woods sloped up to the next hill.
'Bird-watching?' he asked, after a pause.
'Sort of.'
'Parakeets?'
The man lowered his glasses and looked at the villager. 'Funny you should say that.'
'It's been a funny sort of day. Police, are you?'
'What makes you think so?'
'Your boots.'
'Ah. Oh dear.'
'Good for boots, too, that Sangappa is. They're in the woods.'
'The parakeets, you mean?'
'Yes. In cages, in bags, in the hands of men, in the woods.'
