'Tomato sauce, more likely,' said another voice irreverently.
There was a titter of laughter, which the dying man cut off with a realistic groan. 'Lord, Lord—Thy will be done,' he croaked.
'Amen,' intoned Davenport.
The bushes on the far side of the stream parted and the first of the Puritan Angels of Mercy appeared exactly on cue, a fine buxom girl bursting out of her tight black dress in unPuritan style.
'Water, water,' croaked the dying man.
Raising her skirts with one hand and grasping her leather water-bottle firmly in the other the Angel stepped bravely into the water.
'Thou comest as an angel of mercy, sister,' said Davenport.
'This poor fellow hath need of thee.'
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The Angel knelt beside the dying man and tenderly lifted his head as she tilted the bottle to his lips.
The crowd murmured appreciatively, cameras clicked, Digby smelt beer and the dying man winked solemnly at him.
Davenport launched himself into his standard five-minute sermon on the wickedness of the Royalists, the diabolical nature of their recent victory, its temporary nature and the inevitable outcome of their obstinate adherence to Popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, profaneness and other abominations contrary to sound doctrine, godliness and the will of Parliament.
It was good stirring, authentic-sounding stuff and the American put it over with hellfire sincerity, thought Digby.
Indeed, it knocked spots off all the modern political harangues he had heard, from National Front meetings to International Marxist rallies, at which each side had bayed for the other's blood, but in dull twentieth-century language lacking the marvellous Old Testament vocabulary which had come naturally to seventeenth-century speakers.
Now the climax was coming—
'The Swine Brook runneth red this day with the blood of the servants of the Lord, shed by those men of Belial whose cause is the horridest arbitrariness that was ever exercised in this world.' Davenport pointed towards the stream. 'It crieth out for vengeance, and be assured that the vengeance of the Lord of Hosts shall be terrible to behold—'
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Digby rose unobtrusively from his knees (those who were not listening open-mouthed to the American were staring pop-eyed down the Angel's cleavage) and made his way back to the stream's edge to check the spread of the dye.
It was still dripping out nicely from the container, and also spreading—Digby looked down, suddenly perplexed. Where the stream had been stained rusty-brown downstream from the container, now it was also already coloured a vile unnatural pink
He stared to his left, into the dark tunnel of overhanging bushes. Some unauthorised joker was at work up there, spiking the water with a chemical of his own—possibly a toxic one. And that must be stopped quickly.
The look on his face as he turned back towards the crowd was caught by the dying man.
'What's up, Henry?' he said, reviving himself miraculously.
'Somebody's playing silly buggers,' hissed Digby angrily.
'Well, you can't go now—the Preacher's just getting to his blood-and-confusion bit. He'll need you for that.'
'This won't wait.' Digby pushed into the crowd.
The Preacher paused in mid-flow. Where—' he caught himself just in time. Where goest thou, brother?' he called out.
Digby raised his hand vaguely. 'Upon the Lord's business, brother, upon the Lord's business.'
He made his way through the crowd and out round the dummy5
straggle of blackberry bushes and young hawthorns to the first gap in the thicket, where Jim Ratcliffe was stationed, carrying with him a gang of small boys who were concerned to discover what the Lord's business entailed. But the gap was empty; without the distraction of the Preacher's performance Jim had obviously spotted the tell-tale stain ahead of him.
Somewhat reassured he continued upstream. The next opening in the undergrowth was nearly a hundred yards on, by a gated farm bridge. That was the most likely place for—
'Mister! Mister!'
The treble yell came from behind him. One of the small boys waved frantically at him, and then pointed at Jim's empty gap.
''E's in the water, mister!' yelled the boy.
Digby pounded back the way he had come. Inside the gap, between the high tangles of thorn and bramble, there was a yard of ground beyond which the stream widened into a dark little pool.
' 'E's in the water,' the voice repeated, from behind him now.
Two slightly larger boys stood on the bank of the stream looking down. One of them squatted down abruptly to get a better view of what lay out of sight.
'Well, I still think 'e's shamming,' said the boy who had remained standing. 'It's what they do, like on the telly.'
