She had not long to wait for the next part of the performance. The first torch-bearer, followed by his three satellites, reappeared, and these were soon joined by the others. The circle around the open trap-door was re-formed and the long doggerel verse and the unaccompanied dance (if such it could be called) were repeated, but there was a significant and part-ludicrous, part-terrifying addition to the ritual. Apart from the torch-bearers, who still held nothing but their flaring, stinking, smoking illuminations, each member of the party seemed to be carrying either a large bone or a collection of smaller ones. Scorpio, who came last, held a pelvic girdle under his left arm and carried a human skull in his left hand, and Fenella realised that the rest of the bones were also human. The crypt must have been in use as a charnel house, she decided. She had heard of the same thing in a remote parish in Suffolk where the church crypt had been closed because visitors stole the skulls as souvenirs.
When the circle was complete, the trapdoor was ceremoniously lowered and the bizarre company left the inn by the door which Fenella herself had used earlier in the evening. She waited until they had closed the door behind them and then, agog to see the end of the queer business, she stumbled up the black spiral of the stone staircase, regained her room and pulled on a dark overcoat.
Then she groped her way down the stairs and back to the big door, opened it and slipped out into the street, pulling the door to behind her. The torches were plainly visible in the distance and were heading towards the hill-fort which she had noticed earlier, and against which the strange young man had warned her. Curiosity, stronger than fear, drove her on.
Keeping close to the walls of the ruinous cottages opposite the More to Come and glad, once again, that (unlike the villagers’ clobbering boots) her shoes made no sound on the metalled road, Fenella thought that she would have no difficulty in following the mummers without being detected, for there was neither moon nor street lighting.
The company of thirteen soon left the village behind them, for the inn was almost on its borders. The village street became a country road and a little way along this the cortège halted to beat out their torches. Then the clumping of their footsteps was the only guide Fenella had until she lost the sounds as the party presumably came to another halt. She froze back against a hedge and waited for them to resume their pilgrimage.
She strained her eyes in the darkness and thought she could make out a huddled group on the other side of the road. She was closer to them than she had thought, her quick, light, townswoman’s steps having gained on their steady countryfolk’s tramping. She could hear scraps of conversation.
‘Can’t ee find ’em, then? ’Urry up! Gettin’ close to midnight and the lads and lasses rarin’ to go a-Mayerin’.’
‘Take this ’ere bone, then, and let me ’ave a feel round. Must be just about ’ere somewheres. Allus leaves ’em in much the same bush every year.’
‘ ’Old on. ’Ere’s a spade, I do declare.’
‘Ah, and ’ere’s another.’
‘Two’ll do, if us can’t light on a third.’
‘Don’t talk daft. Lucky number is three, make no error. Search around. Can’t be that far away.’
‘All I meant, time’s runnin’ out. Got to bury un afore midnight, else it’s May-Day. Can’t ’ave no buryin’s on a May-Day. ’Twouldn’t be lucky for crops.’
‘What about Squire, then? Don’t ’e count for a buryin’?’
‘Us left the meetin’ too late, that’s what us done,’ said the previous voice, leaving the question unanswered.
‘All on account o’ that dratted maiden comin’ in and interferin’, that’s for why,’ said the other speaker querulously.
‘I wouldn’t ’arf mind ’avin’ she for my May Queen, any road. Proper luscious, I reckon ’er ud be,’ said a lascivious voice, following the remark with a rich chuckle.
‘Ontameable,’ said an older, heavier voice. ‘Who wants a May Queen what’s ontameable? Come on, now, lads. Shoulder they spades and let’s get at it.’
‘Ah, ’ere be third. Come on, then,’ said another voice.
Suddenly the top of the hill, out of which was carved the primitive fort, seemed to burst into flame. The group disintegrated and, by the sounds, its members had broken into a shambling run. Fenella followed. By the lurid light of what must be, she knew, a gigantic bonfire on the top of the hill, she could see so many figures up there that it seemed to her that the whole village must have turned out and that, among them, she would be in a safe and strategic position to be able to find out what was going to be done with the bones from the crypt.
Some kind of ceremonial burial seemed indicated by the scraps of conversation she had overheard, but nothing in her reading had prepared her for what actually took place. She was breathing heavily as she breasted the crest of the hill. She slipped in behind some vociferous young women who were chanting, together with the rest of the company,
‘ ’Ere come the Dear One, a soul to the good.
Take what you want and make payment in blood.’
As Fenella screened herself behind them, she was able to see by the light of the bonfire that a large rectangular hole had been dug about ten yards away from where she was standing. It was at least three times the width of a single grave and appeared to be about three feet deep, she thought. The
