The Quiet Villages - a Northern Story

It was a dreadful experience. It was all I could do to climb into the cab. I shook the lorry driver's hand. I thanked him again and again, until he had to tell me to stop. 'I'm thanked enough,' he said. 'Never mind that. Just tell me what was happening back there. For I clear cannot understand it. Should we not be back and helping?' 'Oh no, no, no, no!' But I saw I would have to tell him all about it, before I could hope to convince him. And this is what I said...

'It was on the eve of bramble-mice in the moon of the longer grass--'
'Ye what?' interrupted the driver.
'Sorry. I was using their terms, for a minute there. I'll start again. A few days ago - for you know I was an accredited supervisory member of the Northumbrish tourist development corps...'
'Sort of boots-on snooper, ye mean?'
'Oh dear no. Accredited. Exec grade. Sort of local proof-reader on the spot, if you must. We draw up all these tourist brochures about wonderful Northumbrisha - well it's a canny county, you can see that for yourself -'
'Quiet enough, usually.'
'That's it. People love the gentle routine of life here, the unspoiled countryside, the sweet scents of ways of life long gone, still remembered and lived in a measure, here in the-'
'Strictly if you like that sort of thing.'
'Well, some people must. City high-flyers I guess. They have the money. They are willing to spend it on weekends in the stone cottage and so on. We discourage settlement, buying out as weekend cottages, but encourage visitors, paying guests, tourists; that approach brings money to the local economy, preserves the village way of life. Benefits all. So I'm usually pretty welcome when I call.'
'Snooping.'
'Not at all. Checking. Verifying. That the details are right. That there is a village green with authentic gallows, or a waterfall within walking distance, or a wishing well in the garden. Little details like that -'
'And the breakfasts.'
'Well, yes. I check those. And usually no one knows I've been checking, I'm just another visitor, you know. A hitchhiker, a walker, an out-of-doors type, reporting on the good samaritan and the bad host, the really spectacular villages and the merely stony and adequate. But we have very catholic tastes. No one's ever been struck off our list for late opening hours.'
'I should think not.'
'Visit a lot of villages yourself do you?'
'Na. Pull-ins. Motorway folk for me.'
'Well, you'ld understand, villages need this sort of income. Now the government's gone anti-farm, it's about the only way they can survive. Even a scruff like me, with boots and open-neck shirt, why, if I can pay, I'm treated as friendly as auht. It's a main attraction of our area.'
'So were them back there a bit untypical like? Or did you just happen to annoy them especially?'
'It wasn't people... oh, you'll have to listen to the whole... anyway what it was was this. A village not on our list was recommended - well not exactly recommended but brought to our attention - by an anonymous letter a few months back. We wrote to the parish clerk - there usually is one - or post office, I think, in this case, and asked if they would like to be included on our listing. For publicity purposes. We got a very strange letter back, hardly English at all, crudely scrawled, saying-'
'Keep your snook out our business, eh?' guessed the lorry-driver with a wide smirk.
I could not suppress a shudder. Snook? How did he know? But I must carry on. For the lorry was taking me mile after mile away from danger, mile after mile nearer safety, and I loved him for it, let him be as sarcastic or contrary as he choose. So I simply said:
'Sort of. It was hard to tell if was writing or smearing, but... Well, they certainly didn't want to be listed. Nonetheless, I was asked, on this tour, if I wouldn't go and report anyway, maybe talk to them, get them to change their mind, if it seemed an appropriate village.'
'Maybe they jis wanted to keep themselves to themselves.'
'But why? It isn't as if we make them all plant hollyhocks in the front garden. Not unless they want to. We help them, don't you see, gain a certain self-respect and dignity. Keep the village way of life alive. It's important. And important to us to know if it isn't working, why it isn't. So we can improve our services.'
The driver gave a little grunt of mischief, but I took it as a permit to continue. I went on:

'Well, I had a fine tour this time. I started out in the North Pennines, as usual, and headed north-east; followed the occasional valley down, or cut across, so as to cover as much of the country as I could: not all, just random keeping an eye open. Talking to locals, testing the arrangements, the historical detail, listening, not insisting or arguing. All very amicable.
'Then I came to the valley with this odd, recalcitrant village in.'
'Re-what?'
'Resistant. Reluctant. Repulsive. Towards us.'
'What was it called, back there?'
'Speck.'
'Was it very tiny then?'
'I had some trouble finding it. The signposts must be very unreliable round there, or someone'd tampered with them. I walked for miles in vain. Then I went by the map instead. Pictured where Speck had to be and made for it using the features of the terrain instead of the marked roads. You know, hills, streams, natural rock outcrops, anything that can give you a landmark or direction. Well, I had to pass a right long scree and tackle a wearisome waterfall by-pass even to gain a sight of it, a little bundle of farms and farmhouses - many specks rather than one - in the distance still. It was too late by then to cover the final miles, so I camped out. So I could join the villagers fresh and cheerful in the morning, as I supposed. How they reacted to an unshaven walker could give me a good idea of their disposition.
'So I set my tent, made a little soup on the stove, and settled down for the night.'
'No radio, no mobile?'
'No, as it happened. Reception is tenuous, up in the hills. Lone phones don't seem to work either, so I had no way of letting anyone know where I was. Well, what need? I passed a quiet night, as I thought. But when I rose to breakfast, my last quarter-pint milk had vanished. I had put it religiously under the overhang of the tent for a cuppa in the morning, honest. Now it was gone. Not just knocked over by chance or spilt. It was gone, removed, vanished. Now what sort of wild animal would do that?'
'Lots of them like milk, I guess.'
'But they don't open cartons of milk, drink the contents, and then dispose of the evidence. I checked for animal prints, there were some claws over by the waterfall, but I took them to be badger or something harmless, and had a cup black tea instead. After all, the village was not far: I could re-stock there. As I imagined.'
'Didn't they welcome you then?'
'I never saw a soul. It was as though I had arrived on early closing day. But at nine o'clock of the morning? I mean, the farmers should just be finished with the early tasks and sitting down to breakfast themselves then, with lots of milk to spare. But it was unnaturally still. All the shutters were fast, and the doors I knocked at, didn't answer. A mystery village, deserted, like the 'Marie Celeste'. Gardens were tended, windows washed, even a letter - and the postmark was recent, sticking from a door - but no one who could have been the gardener or the postie in evidence. Just a flat empty village green with no sign of life. I looked up into the hills then, and realised the fields were not being tended. There were no cows, no crops, no muddy marks where tractors had climbed, nothing like that. It was like a model village without the plastic figures in place.'
'Illness? Holidays? Voting day in neighbouring townhall?'
'Well, I thought of those kind of things, but usually there's someone left, isn't there? To keep an eye on things, or because they're lame or aged. Like the cripple who couldn't get into the hill after the Pied Piper. It was that lonely, I'm telling you. Well, I did snoop a bit then. I went up to the shutters and peered at the cracks. Nothing to see. No electric light, no TV, no radio, nothing of that kind. Furniture, mostly wooden as far as I could tell. Never got a clear sight of an interior though. Once I got a fright - for a curtain shifted - yes, curtains during the day - and a big snout peered up at me. Furry, in a rough way, not at all what you expect to be lurking in a front room. I thought, well I don't know really, but it must have been a dog, a very quiet dog, for the next minute it was gone, and the curtain back in place. A town run by silent dogs, I thought, who have chased their masters away. Well, you get all sorts of fantasies in a spooky place like that.'
'So what did you do? I'd have booted a door open I reckon.'
'I sat down and waited for the pub to open. Ten. Eleven. Midday. Still no sign of life. I went and knocked on the door. I thought I heard a snigger or a snuffle. I went round the back. A curtain was hastily drawn, I would say, but nobody paid any attention to my calls or my knocking. If there were people inside, they were being jolly secretive and unhelpful.
'Then I supposed for some reason they didn't want to know me. Maybe they had come to my tent last night, read my documents - I don't see how, without waking me, but this was what I was thinking - and decided to boycott me because they didn't want the Northumbrish Rescue-the-Villages scheme to come their way.'
'Understandable.'
'Not if you lived in the villages, friend. I mean, look at them. Gormless shacks of dreary stone on the edge of nowhere. About as civilised as a concentration camp. And you want to increase the isolation? I think not. Even if they did know who I was, it made no sense. Isolate themselves? Why? Disease? Deformity from inbreeding? We can help even that nowadays. Nothing to be ashamed of. Unless there was something illegal going on. Illicit dealing of some kind? But there was no evidence of any action of any kind in the area at all! Paths about the size for a walker there were, but no roads to speak of. Having nothing to do, I walked the various paths, out into the country, through woods, and back again. Some led to groves amid the trees, where there was disturbance of the earth, as though they were excavating, but I could not see for what; another ended at a perilous mud-swamp, which may have had some purpose, but did not make much sense to me (at the time). All these tracks went nowhere and back again or ended up as giant circles as far as I could see, as though they liked walking, but didn't care to go out of their own region. Then I thought, maybe they're not avoiding me, maybe it's daylight they can't face. Some sort of stigmatism of the eye. Local weakness. I almost felt sorry for them. Until it occurred to me they might be vampires too. I looked for a local church or graveyard, but there wasn't any. Not so much as a railed off section of wasteland for the dead. Now it has to be a very pauperous village indeed not to have even a chapel of some kind. I began to get a very odd picture of the people round here. But it proved odder than I ever imagined.'
The lorry turned a major corner gracefully. 'I hope you aren't making all this up.'
'Did I look as though I was playing games back there? Do I sound as though as though I'm enjoying myself now?'
'Guess not. Only you're laying it on a bit thick.'
'Sez you. You don't know the half of it yet. Anyway, I wasn't to be put off, so I thought I'll settle down to await the night and see what happens. Maybe they are nocturnal for some reason, I argued, and don't emerge until dusk. Mushroom-farmers or something weird.'
'You are making this up, aren't you?'
'Look. Do you want to hear my story or not?' I challenged him, for we must be a good 20 miles from the spot by now. I felt safer.
'Oh, go on then. Only make it a good un.'
'Listen, this is no fib, what I'm telling you. I'm doing you a favour even. If you have to use that road again, well you'll know what to expect won't you? And you'll be glad I did tell you, if you ever happen to stop along that stretch again.'
'So what was it I ran over?'
'I'm going to tell you. In due course. You have to keep to the story, OK? Anyway, I went to find a barn, full of straw OK, thought this'll serve me, and set down to rest. I fell asleep nearly at once - it's a strenuous job, mine - but when I woke not only was it night... there were lights about and people and voices and all manner of activity on the green, as I supposed. I rubbed my eyes, like somebody in a Walt Disney movie waking up for the first time, and looked more closely. Well, there were great shambling figures all over the green, heavy, sinister shapes, some on two legs, some on four. Much bigger than dogs. Bigger than badgers too. I thought they had to be bears - well, it could have been bears - and I got frightened about going closer to investigate. Then I thought, what if they found me in here? They seemed pretty strong on nosemanship. So I moved out into the open. But it was dark, I didn't make myself obvious, I crawled up behind a bush, where there was a central ring of these figures, sitting and chatting for all like a local council meeting.
'It was then I realised.'
'What?'
'Well, that I must have been potty, I suppose.'
'Go on, what did you see. I won't laugh.'
'They were hedgehogs.'

'Ha-ha-ha! Is that what rattled you back there? Hedgehog's not frightening.'
'These were. They were mighty. Six foot at least. Giant spines stuck all over their backs like sheets of jagged rough steel armour; their heads were sharp and snouty with serious black eyes glinting in the fire-light - they were sitting round a camp-fire in the open - it seemed they only used the houses for sleeping in during the day. And their talk was a mix of English, and (I should judge) German with many other words I didn't know, that might be native to hedgehog-kind for all I know.'
'What were they talking about?'
'Me. Well, about the need for secrecy, and the risk of travellers, and so on. One of them, a youngster with spotty cheeks and gentle drooping spines spoke up, and said it would be better to make peace with the humans; that was the only long-term solution. An old-timer came over, huge were his niggly teeth and his angry black snout, and he cuffed the little one with a clawed hand, so that blood came in lines on his little face-side, and telled him to shut up, for he was stupid and not worthy to speak. He had not the wisdom of age. How many of them remembered the long trek from - well, I could not hear exactly where - but it sounded like somewhere in Southern Germany, Bavaria maybe, where they had been recognised and befriended by men, and made to wear trousers, and drink beer, and live in houses and use frying pans, and - he could hardly contain his anger - were looked at and made into stories and wooden pictures and postcards for tourists until life became unbearable. That was what having truck with the human led to. That was what they had escaped from, with terrible angst, travelling and travelling over mountain and forest, across the great rivers of light, and using a final ship to bring them safe across the sea. "Here too there are humans, but not so fiel o' them, and not near us by. Here can we shelter in houses, but need not live in them. Here can we be vee civilisit as we like, but keep our ekt native ways."
'Well, I can tell you, my mind swam. Traditional ways, was it? This was amazing! It was a tourist dream that made Dinosaur Park look infantile. I had discovered the coup of the century, and the best thing since singing apes. I would be the most celebrated tourist officer in the North, possibly in the whole of what we call the Viking Orbit. Fantastic! All I had to do was convince them of a little give-and-take, a few concessions here and there, no trouble, show them that the Northumbrish Tourist Council could keep its word as good as another. Better. No harm. Lots of benefits. It had to make sense.
'I stepped out of hiding and began to address them accordingly. It had a strange effect. The little ones gave timid screams of alarm, and scuttled off on all fours. Some of the middle-sized, the adolescents I suppose, rolled convulsively into balls and stayed with heads tucked into tails, refusing to even look at me. The great figures stayed still, like pagan stones, stopped and listening; while the more active, I suspect, were gently passing around behind me, until I was surrounded.
'The eldest and biggest, with a sort of frightful grin, asked me into the place of honour next to the fire, and invited me to address them all, starting over again. He had a very marked grin for someone with so many sharp little teeth, and his speech was dead uncouth, a sort of "Pleez to be talking to us fully, veeder over, all fon start." Like I said, it was a weird mix.
'I began to feel I might have made a mistake. Their warmth and friendliness seemed out of keeping with their earlier avoidance and clear resentment of the human. Were they truly interested or just playing with me? I could not tell. I had to give a good account of myself, if I wanted to be believed. I telled them about the Northumbrish Tourist Council, my honoured and responsible position, my necessary interest in their own village, and the tremendous future I foresaw for them and us if we co-operated. One or two of the youngsters again said, 'Ya! Ya!' excited-like, as though computer games and skate boards were just round the corner. No - I gravely telled them - no modernism did I offer, but security and peace for all time, plus a few visitors. Their nightly meeting could perhaps be improved by a little specialist advice on footwork and some appropriate catchy dance-tunes, Bavarian if they wished; clothing would be ludicrous but a few hats or even aprons might be advisable in some cases; no one wished to be considered uncouth after all; but their traditions would be inviolate, and they could in conscience come to terms with the New World without fear of loss or ridicule.
'Then the old fella replied. "We of the Great Hedgehogs have not only grown gross, we have a wonderbar facilitas of mind, too. This enables us to hear deceivers who are and sort out danger most quick, and toot instant-lick with threats to our krise. Like you."
'I began to remonstrate, of course. I struggled to my feet. But found I was being held by two of the sturdier youth-hogs, their claws impinging on my arms to restrain me. It did not bode well. Your great traditions are hurting me, I cried out, be reasonable! Be adult! Respect the talking-place and the rules of the committee!
'It only seemed to amuse them. In a nasty way. The elders were adamant - "and as for traditions, they said, you shall glikely learn our most shreklick habitude - the mud and roast!" There was a thrill of excitement around the circle, as they realised the implication of the elder's judgement. A few demurred. I heard comments like "Not nowadays" and "We have forgotten how. I vunch", but there was a lot of agreement too. "Only so cannon we deal with trouble-makers" and "Shnell imbiss" were frequent. I was not consulted further. Ropes of rustic vines bound my hands and neck, and I was to be led out of the village straight away, to see the mud, whatever that was. It was dark, but the direction reminded me of an earlier walk I had followed. Their muddy place must surely be the swampy hollow I had come across during daylight, a virtual sea of turgid clay and sludge. What could they want there? It gradually began to dawn on me. Coated in mud and - could it be - roasted alive?! The traditional hedgehog way! Good God! What sort of company had I fallen into? I looked round. Some had itchy scabby ears, from fleas, some had bared spines sharpened to white-hot acuity, some had dribble drooling from their unhygienic mouths, and sniffed at me suggestively, as though they thought of some coming feast. Eat Me? I queried. "It is traditional. Very humane. No need to eviscerate. Gemootlick. And shmack brill!" I had guessed right.
'Well you know the rest.'
'No I don't.'
'You picked me up soon after. The one thing they hadn't calculated on was having to cross the main road to get to the mud patch. As soon as I saw your headlights and heard your engine in the distance I knew I had a chance. I broke free and ran down the road towards you. Just two guards followed me. But whereas I was able to dash aside at the last minute, they froze in your beams and were flattened. You felt the bumps no doubt. You pulled up, God bless you. That was when I threw off my bonds and joined you in the cab. Can you wonder I urged you to drive on?'
'No, no. I see now. I sensed it was quite some emergency.'
'I should say so. No fun waiting for more of their sharp claws to reach us. Believe me.'
'I almost do.'
'All a Tourist Officer can do is warn.'
'But I mean, you said yourself, they talk like human.'
'So I could have handled them better? White Man to White Man? Don't bet on it. Whatever they were, it wasn't a life-form friendly to us. No benign experiment, them, I'm telling you. Things from a fantasy park? Animals learning to copy humans? Or the inevitable rub-off when humans get too close to animals? I don't know. I don't want to know. I shall make no report of the business, officially. I do not mind telling you the details, but have no intention of risking my job with a tale like that.'

I pulled a few remaining spines out of the folds of my woolly socks and ostentatiously jettisoned them via the cab window. To show I was finished with all that. A transfer to a desk job was well due. Well away from any problems of the Laws of Nature, Inherited Instinct, Genetic Predisposition, Racial Memory, etc., in an elegant office with a neat cup of tea and a tie to obscure that excitable adam's apple....
'Brrm, brrm,' went the driver, running down imaginary monster-toys from his cab.
How kinnd-lick! I wrinkled my nose, and scratched at the itchy spots where the spines had lodged. How typically mensh-leppy. I drew out a now well-smirched paperback from my pocket and pretended to read.
It was, of course, a booklet on the Sword Dances of Northern England, indispensable item to executives like myself, and standard issue throughout the Authority. But a shock awaited me, as I turned to the Escrick Sword Dance. The dialogue seemed all too familiar.
'Look! I shouted (stupidly) at the driver. Here, in this book. What this man says!'
'What?'
'Well, he's about to do this morris, see - but he's boasting. And what he sez: "FOR ONCE I KILLED A HEDGEHOG AS BIG AS MYSELF!"'
I could tell what the driver was thinking. Something like, Was that where you got it all from?
'Drugs was it then?' was all he commented.