glaring at us, thin-lipped and pale with fury. “I think you know why I’ve come, Mrs Peaceful,” he began.
“No, Colonel, I don’t,” said Mother.
“So the young devil hasn’t told you.” He was shouting now, shaking his stick at Charlie. Big Joe began to whimper and clutched Mother’s hand as the Colonel ranted on.
“That boy of yours is a despicable thief. First of all he steals the salmon out of my river. And now, in my employ, in a position of trust, he steals one of my foxhounds. Don’t deny it, boy. I know it was you. Where is she? Is she here? Is she?”
Mother looked to Charlie for an explanation. “He was going to shoot her, Mother,” he said quickly. “I had to do it.”
“You see!” roared the Colonel. “He admits it! He admits it!” Big Joe was beginning to wail now and Mother was smoothing his hair, trying to reassure and comfort him as she spoke. “So you took her in order to save her, Charlie, is that right?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have done that, Charlie, should you?”
“No, Mother.”
“Will you tell the Colonel where you’ve hidden her?”
“No, Mother.”
Mother thought for a moment or two. “I didn’t think so,” she said. She looked the Colonel full in the face. “Colonel, am I right in thinking that if you were going to shoot this dog, presumably it was because she’s no use to you any more — as a foxhound I mean?”
“Yes,” the Colonel replied, “but what I do with my own animals, or why I do it, is no business of yours, Mrs Peaceful. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“Of course not, Colonel,” Mother spoke softly, sweetly almost, “but if you were going to shoot her anyway, then you wouldn’t mind if I were to take her off your hands and look after her, would you?”
“You can do what you like with the damned dog,” the Colonel snapped. “You can bloody well eat her for all I care. But your son stole her from me and I will not let that go unpunished.”
Mother asked Big Joe to fetch the money mug from the mantelpiece. “Here, Colonel,” she said, calmly offering him a coin from the money mug. “Sixpence. I’m buying the dog off you for sixpence, not a bad price for a useless dog. So now it’s not stolen, is it?”
The Colonel was utterly dumbfounded. He looked from the coin in his hand to Mother, to Charlie. He was breathing hard. Then, regaining his composure, he pocketed the sixpence in his waistcoat and pointed his stick at Charlie. “Very well, but you can consider yourself no longer in my employ.” With that he turned on his heel and went out, slamming the door behind him. We listened to his footsteps going down the path, heard the front gate squeaking.
Charlie and I went mad, mostly out of sheer relief, but also quite overwhelmed with gratitude and admiration. What a mother we had! We whooped and yahooed. Big Joe was happy again, and sang Oranges and Lemons as he gambolled wildly round the kitchen.
“I don’t know what you’ve got to be so almightily pleased about,” said Mother when we had all calmed down. “You do know you’ve just lost your job, Charlie?”
“I don’t care,” said Charlie. “He can stuff his stinking job. I’ll find another. You put the silly old fart in his place good and proper. And we’ve got Bertha.”
“Where is that dog anyway?” Mother asked.
“I’ll show you,” Charlie said.
We waited for Molly to come and then we all went off up to Ford’s Cleave Wood together. As we neared the shack, we could hear Bertha yowling. Charlie ran on ahead and opened the door. Out she came, bounding up to us, squeaking with delight, her tail swiping at our legs. She jumped up at all of us, licking everything she could, but right away she seemed to attach herself particularly to Big Joe. She followed him everywhere after that. She even slept on his bed at nights — Big Joe insisted on that no matter how much Mother protested. She’d sit under his apple tree howling up at him while he sang to her from high up in the branches. He only had to start singing and she’d join in, so from now on he never sang his Oranges and Lemons unaccompanied. He never did anything unaccompanied. They were always together. He fed her, brushed her and cleared up her frequent puddles (which were more like lakes). Big Joe had found a new friend and he was in seventh heaven.
After a few weeks going round all the farms in the parish looking for work, Charlie found a job as dairyman and shepherd at Farmer Cox’s place on the other side of the village. He would go off before dawn on his bicycle to do the milking and was back home late, so I saw even less of him than before. He should have been much happier up there. He liked the cows and the sheep, though he said that the sheep were a bit stupid. Best of all, he said, he didn’t have the Colonel or the Wolfwoman breathing down his neck all day.
But Charlie, like me, was very far from happy, because Molly had suddenly stopped coming. Mother said she was sure there could only be one reason. Someone must have put it about — and she thought it could only be the Colonel or the Wolfwoman or both — that Charlie Peaceful was a thieving rascal, and that therefore the Peaceful family were no longer considered fit folk for Molly to visit. She said Charlie should just let things cool down for a while, that Molly would be back. But Charlie wouldn’t listen. Time after time he went to Molly’s cottage. They wouldn’t even answer the door. In the end, because he thought I’d have a better chance of getting to see Molly, he sent me over with a letter. Somehow, he said, I had to deliver it to her. I had to.
Molly’s mother met me at the door with a face like thunder. “Go away,” she yelled at me. “Just go away. Don’t you understand? We don’t want your kind here. We don’t want you bothering our Molly. She doesn’t want to see you.” And with that she slammed the door in my face. I was walking away, Charlie’s letter still in my pocket, when I happened to glance back and saw Molly waving at me frantically through her window. She was mouthing something I couldn’t understand at all at first, gesticulating at me, pointing down the hill towards the brook. I knew then exactly what she meant me to do.
I ran down to the brook and waited under the trees where we’d always done our fishing together. I didn’t have long to wait before she came. She took my hand without a word, and led me down under the bank where we couldn’t possibly be seen. She was crying as she told me everything: how the Colonel had come to the cottage — she’d overheard it all — how he’d told her father that Charlie Peaceful was a thief; how he’d heard Charlie Peaceful had been seeing much more of Molly than was good for her, and that if he had any sense Molly’s father should put a stop to it. “So my father won’t let me see Charlie any more. He won’t let me see any of you,” Molly told me, brushing away her tears. “I’m so miserable without you, Tommo. I hate it up at the Big House without Charlie, and I hate it at home too. Father’ll strap me if I see Charlie. And he said he’ll take a gun to Charlie if he ever comes near me. I think he means it too.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why’s he like that?”
“He’s always been like that,” she said. “He says I’m wicked. Born in sin. Mother says he’s only trying to save me from myself, so I won’t go to Hell. He’s always talking about Hell. I won’t got to Hell, will I, Tommo?”
I did what I did next without thinking. I leant over and kissed her on the cheek. She threw her arms around my neck, sobbing as if her heart would break. “I so want to see Charlie,” she cried. “I miss him so much.” That was when I remembered to give her the letter. She tore it open and read it at once. It can’t have been long because she read it so quickly. “Tell him yes. Yes, I will,” she said, her eyes suddenly bright again.
“Just yes?” I asked, intrigued, puzzled and jealous all at the same time.
“Yes. Same time, same place, tomorrow. I’ll write a letter back and you can give it to Charlie. All right?” She got up and pulled me to my feet. “I