Tommy Boy

This story was written by Stewart Tiley, librarian at St. John's College, University of Cambridge, England. Great talent, I love reading his stories and he has been kind enough to let me post this one.

Poor Tommy

Poor Tommy, he lay dead in a ditch. It was me and the Cordish boys who pulled him out. He was so cold even the leeches had dropped off him, although they didn’t me. We had to climb through the briars to get to him. Still got the scars see. His neck were broke, but that didn’t stop him dribbling still. We laid him out amongst the mole hills and everything on him was torn.

So why’s he dead in a ditch? Well there’s a lark. ‘Where’s the ditch?’, you should be asking. Cos the ditch is off Beacon Batch Lane, as it goes over the brow where the gibbet was. Deadman’s Cross. And the dead they thrive round there. My granddaddy would tell me that, “They ghosties’ll draw you in, if you’re lonesome of a night in a lonely place”. Their spirits would get all stirred up in a place like that and make a boggart, out stalking hedges for the lost like the white owl stalks the vole. My granddaddy knew it. You couldn’t set your eyes upon the thing but you’d die cos it weren’t something for mortal man to see. He just caught a glimpse of it once he said, once when he was young, and coming from town late one night. Like nothing he’d seen or ever wanted to see again. Making a pleading, bleating noise which carried on the wind. He said he’d not been able to see without a shadow in his eyes for four year after.

But Tommy, he wouldn’t have known. You could have told him the story a hundred times and he still wouldn’t have known. He’d just dribble at you and smile cos you were talking to him, until you wanted to punch the story into his face. So when he gets a fancy to a nice young piece in one of the farms out that way, that’s the road he chooses to take. He wasn’t any harm to her I shouldn’t think, only out for looking. Offering help for her daddy so’s he could peek from the shed whenever she walked past. No hope of any union though, her father was a sound man, and Tommy weren’t exactly the handsome type a maid might risk anything for. We’d see him skulking off in the morning when we were out in the barn, and we’d warn him as he went. But we could see nothing was going in. It was all chaff in the wind that blew between his ears. Week went by and he’s still off each morn. Well, we’re thinking maybe being an empty vessel he don’t register. But then he don’t come back. And he don’t come back for three days after, and we figure it’s beholden on us to look out for him. So off we sets, and there he is. And we haul him out and we all know what’s what and there’s no need for questions asked. Who knows what he seen? It’s something he weren’t meant to see and something that knew he was seeing. Something dark in the darkness.

See the orchard there. That was the land his daddy left him. Just that little bit was all they had in the world. There was a shack there where they’d lived, his family, for many a-year. Tis ours now, of course, cos he had no-one left, and it was going begging. He’s buried out there too. Yes, he’s feeding the russets what your drink there is made from. Well may you look at the sediment queer. Unbaptized, see. Vicar weren’t keen on having him in the consecrated ground. Might make it go bad. But over there he’s all to the good.