“Grandfer!” I called, and the woods flung it back.
On again, cursing myself for bringing no lantern.
And the hiss came from behind me, swinging me round.
In the place where I had fallen the Corpse Candle was rising, with the peat bog hissing and sighing. And the flame of it struck then, glowing into a brilliance. Gripping a tree I watched. Now the blaze died, leaving one straight candle, three feet high from the goblin of the peat. Red-topped, evil, it danced and swayed; yellow now, leaping high into incandescent fire, and I felt the warmth of it. Then it moved, rushing past me along the track, thrusting me back, hands to my face.
For I had seen him.
Grandfer, not two yards from the track, ten feet from me, frozen, and in the light of the Corpse Candle I saw his face, eyes bulging, jaw dropped for the scream.
Flat on my belly now, wriggling towards him, grasping the tuft-grasses, the hair of the peat bog, and I reached him in pistol shots of cracking ice.
“Grandfer!” I cried, but he gave no answer. Not a sound he made standing there to his waist in bog, with one hand gripping a bottle and the other hand pointing to Tarn.
The fingers I clutched were frozen solid.
Preserved all right was Grandfer but not in hops as he’d planned it.
Preserved by peat for Cae White’s generations.
As I snatched at his belt he slipped from my sight and his soul flew up to Bronwen, his lover.
And the peat bog sighed and sucked in hunger.
CHAPTER 18
AMAZING HOW many friends one has when it comes to weddings and funerals. Reckon half the county was in Mam’s kitchen, come to pay respects to Grandfer, although we had lost the body, with people sitting around bowed under the weight of the loss. Respectful, kind, generous, but I prefer the habits of the Irish, for a man is grown up when he understands that death is a joke. For instance, a whale of a time Biddy Flannigan gave Dick Churchyard, her man, when he went down, according to reports. Called in his Irish friends from ten miles round, did Biddy, and they boxed old Dick and set him up in a corner with a quart mug of ale in his hand and the feasting went on till dawn. Everyone to their beliefs, said Biddy Flannigan – the Welsh have their black funerals, the Shropshire’s their sin-eating, the Indians their burnings and the Irish their Wakes. Gave my Dick what he requested, face down burial, too – no conscience.
“Buried face down?” whispered Morfydd. “Why?”
“Well, being a gravedigger my Dick wanted something out of the ordinary,” said Biddy. “For he’d put down hundreds proper way up, see?”
“Well!” said my mother.
“But I might just as well have saved myself trouble,” said Biddy, “for a variable man was my Dick and bound to change his mind. Just back home I was, tired to death, for wearing old things be funerals, and then he started. First he hit up the chimney in Dai Alltwen Preacher’s place, then he rattled the pots and pans in by here, which was clever, for a haunted man was Grandfer at the best of times. …”
“Good grief,” whispered Mam.
“And when gravel sprayed my window near midnight I knew it was Dick playing up, see. ‘Abel Flannigan,’ I shouted down. ‘Turn out of bed this minute, your stepfather’s changed his mind again,’ and up got Abel cursing. Pouring cats, it was – I stayed in, mind. It was a four mile walk and a two hour dig to turn my Dick face up. But worth it, eh, son?”
“Aye,” grunted Abel. “Good man was Dick.”
“Lucky in some ways, Mrs Mortymer, if I might say,” added Biddy, “having no body.”
“And Grandfer that variable, too,” said Morfydd. “Anything could happen.”
“Hush,” I said. “Mari is coming.”
Prayers now, but wasting their time in respect of Grandfer. I sat, listening, my heart aching for the living, not the dead. Poor Mari.
“We are gathered here to pay our last respects to our friend,” said Tom the Faith. “Grandfer Zephaniah, rest his soul.”
“Amen,” said Justin Slaughterer beside me. Close as twin nuts was Justin and Grandfer in ale, but I was surprised to see Justin there next to me.
“For a good man knoweth the light of Heaven, and his face shall shine,” said Tom the Faith, and we clasped our hands and bowed our heads, doing our best for Grandfer who was about ten to one on my betting.
And Justin beside me wept for Grandfer’s soul. One sob only, and the silence rang.
“Good God,” said a calf in the terror of that silence. “Just look what Justin Slaughterer is doing to Joe.”
And Justin wept louder while Mari sat dry-eyed. If I’d had my way I’d have straightened him with a right, for I could smell his hops from here.
“Amen,” we intoned.
“Good grief,” whispered the calf in my ear, high-pitched. “Just look at Justin Slaughterer
