The Telling

stop me; I’d get there before he could reach me. Down the road came the thudding march of the soldiers, the creak of their leather and jangle of tackle, and hoofbeats of the horse. My way was just a little shorter than theirs; they had the advantage of a start on me, but then they didn’t know that it was a race. My hair was streaming, my eyes wet, my breath caught high in my chest, my ribs crushing themselves against my stays. They couldn’t have him; I wouldn’t let them. I would get to him in time.
    I came flying up to the back wall of our garden and crashed into it. I was too late. They were there. Two soldiers in red coats were trampling the garden, pushing the currant canes aside, crushing the leeks and kale. I saw others through the side windows, already in the house. One stood sentry at the back door. Another stood near the bottom of the front steps. The officer sat poker-straight on his horse. Thomas thundered up and landed against the wall beside me. His breath was noisy; mine had already calmed. I remember that slow strange feeling of certainty as I watched a soldier come out of our house and approach the officer, and the officer lean down in the saddle to hear him.
    They had not found him. I knew they had not found him. Mr Moore was gone.
    The officer straightened up, nodded, and dismissed the man. His voice carried clear across the battered garden.
    ‘Burn them.’
    I couldn’t watch, but neither could I leave. I turned my back and sank down in the blunt stubble. I put my head on my knees. Thomas slumped down beside me. For a while, there was just the noise of the soldiers moving around, and orders barked at each other, and the flutter and thump of books flung in armfuls from the window and landing on the ground beneath. Then there were other voices. I heard Reverend Wolfenden. I heard others too, volunteering details of the local paths and byways, the greenlanes he might have taken. The crackle of kindling; a taint of smoke in the air. Orders were shouted from horseback: three men sent down the coffin lane towards the river crossing, another three to accompany the officer along the wash-house lane and sweep up the river paths towards Lancaster.
    I got to my feet and turned to look. The clatter of running footsteps and hoofbeats was receding, and my father stood there, with the Reverend, and Mr Aitken and Mr Forster, and other men; they were just standing there, not looking at each other, not looking anywhere, not speaking. The Reverend turned and walked away down the village street, towards the vicarage, and the men drifted off up the village, and as they walked they fell into pairs or threes, but still I didn’t hear a single word spoken. No one fell in to walk beside my father. He walked up the street alone.
    Mr Moore would hear them coming a mile off with the noise they were making. He’d slip off the path, dodge down a bank or behind a tree. They had no dogs to scent him out. His eyes would glitter like the river, but he would go unseen. Maybe he hadn’t even gone yet. Perhaps he’d seen them coming, had slipped out the back way and hidden in the fields behind the house. I pressed the tears off my face and turned around to look. Across the sweep of field, the stubble stood brittle and upright in the evening cool. One trampled pathway crossed it, where Thomas and I had crushed it flat. No one else had come this way tonight.
    Thomas stood up beside me. In silence, he put his hand on my shoulder. It was hot and heavy. I did not shake it off.
    *
     
    We trailed back to the dance. We walked up through the middle of the field, retracing our own footsteps. Thomas went ahead, and I followed, my skirt caught up in my hand. The pins had fallen out, and now the hem trailed, the edge thready and raw. Underneath, my stockings were snagged and bloodied. When we reached the stile, Thomas offered me his hand to help me over. We stood like that for what seemed an age, looking at each other, his hand raised to take mine and help me over and down, back on to the green, back among the people, back into the dance. I could have asked him then what part he’d had in this, what had passed between him and the Reverend, what he had been doing at the vicarage that day; but I was worn out, preoccupied, and I still hoped that things would be well; in truth, I didn’t want to know. After all, it was Thomas, only Thomas, with his kind broad face, and his ears that stuck out a little, and he was looking at me with