Free Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall by Vengeance Thwarted

have sat here and watched those two fair heads come over the moor when you and he went walking and today I saw only the one. The sun picks you out miles away against the heather. My heart went down into my boots. Which one, I thought and then I made out it was not Daniel with his big loping stride. If one had to go it was well t’was he for he’d not have survived losing you, Nat.”
    Nat leant on her little gate. “But how am I to tell my mother?”
    “They’ll be in the church. I heard the bell but my legs is so bad I cannot walk as far now. If you slip in at the back your father will see you. He’ll finish the service, if I know Parson Wilson, and what can your mother do before the whole village?”
    Nat noticed that on the bench beside her was a bowl with apple peelings, half hidden by a kerchief she had thrown over it. She saw him looking at it.
    “You won’t tell I’ve been at these on a Sunday. The wee lad next door brought me a basket of bilberries and I need the apple peels to make the jam set. Parson won’t mind but your mother’s strict on such things.”
    “She’s not going to mind anything when she hears my news.”
    “Nay, that’s true. Was it a Scots musket bullet took the poor lad?”
    Nathaniel just shook his head. How he was ever going to bring out the truth to all and sundry he had no idea. If he could only lie ... but that he couldn’t do when he looked into his father’s eyes. For now he could only say, “Thank you for your advice, Granny Woodman. I think I will just creep into the church.”
    He had drunk the last of his water hours before and was dry from thirst and the dread of this moment but he wouldn’t stop at the village pump. He replaced his hat that he had been carrying to dry the sweat on his forehead and touched the brim to the old woman and walked on. No one else was about. They were all in the church and to go there now might at least prevent a myriad of different rumours from spreading. The path up to the church was steep in places and he could understand Granny Woodman not being able to struggle there. Shivering with dread as he was he broke into a fresh perspiration as he climbed with the September sun hot on his back.
    The sight of the gravestones reminded him of Daniel’s physical body. Why had he not lingered to demand it back and bring it somehow by a cart all this way he had travelled? The village would never understand that. He pushed open the heavy door. It creaked as it always had and the backs of heads became faces, breaking into welcoming smiles and looking, he could tell, for the lumbering figure of Daniel to follow him in. When it didn’t and he pushed the door shut behind him the smiles faded to anxious frowns.
    He laid his finger to his lips and perched on the rearmost bench. His father, he could see, was before the altar with his back to the congregation in the act of blessing the sacrament. If he had heard the door he was too engrossed to look round. He was vested which meant that someone, perhaps the Squire, had procured him some fresh robes to replace those the soldiery had torn up and burnt. They had wanted to drag the altar down to the crossing but finding it a stone block they had contented themselves with smashing the candlesticks. .
    Nat’s stomach tightened when he saw his mother in their box pew, her red hair partly hidden by the loose black hood she always draped over it for church. As he looked someone nudged her from behind and pointed but she appeared to brush them aside and keep her eyes forward for the most solemn moment of the service.
    Now his father was turning to exhort the congregation to draw near and partake. Nat remembered with relief that he himself could not go forward. He had not been here for the confession and was not absolved. But had his father seen him? He kept seated as the people rose. Would someone tell him? His father took the service with such solemnity that perhaps they would be restrained. Nat watched him as he