Chapter One

Owld Misther Bucket’s Delicate Condition & The Unfortunate Morning

T’was a magical place, was Miss Havering’s Bog, but the spell cast upon the place had little to do with Miss Havering Herself (bless the auld and miserable spinster). She was, you see, more of a legend than a living and breathing harridan, and had not been seen (at least not by any who’d not drunk their fill of strong spirits) for very many long and rain-drenched years. This, of course, did not deter uncivil tongues (being what they were and looser than a farmyard goose) from maintaining that the old mountebank was more than a little responsible for the coming of The Evil Days, and as proof they offer the following: were not The Twin Sisters her henchcrones, bought and fully paid for? And were they not inseparable companions to The Two Rapacious Monsters, those infamous, great and orange hairy beasts, about whom it was better to say nothing at all? Everyone knew the merest mention of their unpleasant ways and sharp voices and putrid breath (rumoured to be worse that a thousand thousand thunder pots) was guaranteed to curdle the cream of even the most virtuous of local saints, St. Drudgery The Inkblot. Proof positive if ever it was needed.

Most of that, however, is neither here nor there. After all, the entire incident happened so very long ago, some say as much as week and a day. In the intervening eons, those who dwelled in the bog simply got on with their lives, generally enjoying the order of things just as they had done for countless generations, and not worrying a ha’pennth about anything but the common or garden (that is to say, scandalous) behaviour of their neighbours.

As far as everyone knew, the one hundred forty acres known affectionately as ‘Miss Havering’s Bog’ had never been called anything else, which was a fine state of affairs for such a beautiful and mysterious land. Some (those progressive types who stuck needles into the sides of the redoubtable Deputy Mayoress For Life, The Formidable Mrs. DaFarge, in hopes of her ultimate deflation) sought to rename their home in honour of the prevailing winds and incessant Atlantic gales or perhaps the northern lights, but to no avail. “It has been Miss Havering’s Bog since the beginning of time,” pronounced Mrs. DaFarge during a closed meeting of The Village Council’s Heritage Sub-Committee. “It is engraved upon our letterhead. The meeting is now adjourned and we shall take tea and stale cakes at Mrs. Begonia Throttle’s Tea Cosy in five minutes!”

How The Bog came to carry the name of the favourite granddaughter of General The Lord Havering of Abyssinia was a subject for lively debate among the lower orders. Rumours abounded concerning a hapless suitor having scrawled her moniker on the wall separating the demesne from The Bog. “Miss Havering is a Bog” was what it actually said, but time and the relentless scrubbings by Sturdge, The General’s Factotum, partially obliterated two of the more offensive letters (namely the ‘i’ and the ‘a’). All that survived was a worn and faded ‘Miss Havering’s Bog’. Had the land been just any old bog, the sort of place requiring no distinguishing name, the graffiti might have been forgotten, but this wasn’t just any old bog. It was, in the opinions of its denizens, the finest one hundred and forty acres of peat on the western shores of the county, and totally deserving of a distinguished name. And since Miss Havering was already writ upon its ancient boundary wall, the legend became a signpost. Miss Havering’s Bog it became, and Miss Havering’s Bog it would remain. It was convenient. It was expedient. And, in the words of Mrs. DaFarge, it was engraved upon the letterhead.

Few among the denizens of the bog (or Bogites, as they referred to themselves in private) had troubled themselves with the recording of local history. “Why bother?” they said, throwing up their hands in a gesture of ennui. “Our lives are lived the same as they’ve always been. Nothing changes, nothing but the weather, that is, but we can live with that just fine, thank you very much, and we don’t need to make a fuss about such things as are in the hands of God and Our Betters.”

As a result, little had ever been committed to paper (or velum or parchment) by common everyday riffraff working for the common weal. That is not to imply that, here and there, there wasn’t to be found the odd observant soul who kept track of such historical incidents as “are better not forgotten.” Mrs. Emily Elizabeth MacTurf, who lived near the eastern wall, was one who remembered most things. Another was Milly Dainty’s great grandmother, who was too old to remember her name but never forgot anything else. It was the two of them, with more than a little help from zealous members of the ‘Miss Havering’s Bog Women’s Temperance Association’ (established the year the north wall crumbled into the sea), who told and retold the stories and kept them alive, much to the chagrin of folks who, in their own words, “actually had lives.”

Even now, if you pass one or other of the tiny mud and wattle cottages in which the ancient busybodies dwell as grace and favour tenants, you might hear one or both of them (with encouragement from others of their kind) say (between cups of strong, sweet tea flavoured with beebleberry cordial), “It all started the morning Owld Misther Bucket woke up all tiny holes,” and thereby would hang a tale…
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And indeed, ‘it’ had all begun the morning Owld Misther Bucket woke up all over holes. Right on his bottom, they were, where all the water had seeped out and spoilt his new shoes.

It seemed such an unlikely occurrence, him coming on all sievy like that. After all, it wasn’t as though any one of his ancestors had been a strainer, was it? To think! All those years he’d been so dependable, so very ‘always there’. Morning, noon and night the aged gentleman could be found guarding the village’s rainwater, that and carrying the milk for the babbies, and in the process keeping both liquids clean and sparkly in well-separated compartments (and at a perfect temperature). Morning, noon and night he had served the community, all for as long as anyone could remember. And that’s going back a very long time, indeed. Something wasn’t right! Life was not as it should be.

Mind you, he was getting older and more cricketty, no doubt about that. And he would insist on living alone. “I’m not saying this was how I planned it,” he would say in his own defence, “but that’s how my bread was buttered and I’m perfectly content.”

There were those, though not very many, who recalled the time when Owld Misther Bucket hadn’t been Owld Misther Bucket at all. Young Master Bucket, he’d been, way back when his zinc had shone like a new penny and he’d not so many dings ‘round about his edges. Engaged to Louella Sprinkle, he’d been. Full of hopes and dreams. But then she’d dumped on him, hadn’t she? A whole pile of muck it had been, dumped right into his pristine innards! And then she’d flounced out of the barn without so much as a ‘by your leave’. Since then, he’d settled into a solitary life, no longer wanting others to come too near to his heart or take an interest in his life. He’d learned his lesson, he had, and then some!

As for Louella Sprinkle, her heart (such as it was) had been purloined by a Pirate from the Temperate Zones. “I was dazzled, I was,” claimed the most wilful young Watering Can in The Village. “It was like I hadn’t a will of my own.” But anybody can say anything they like in their self-defence, and hers is another story for another time.

To Owld Misther Bucket, it made no difference who he’d been way back then, for the past was gone, done and dusted. The present was what mattered and the truth was, you see, he’d developed these holes in his bum. And holes in his bum were holes in his bum, and not a right and proper thing for a bucket to have! The news was most upsetting to the other citizens of the bog. He was, after all, the “Official Guardian of the Rainwater” (with a brass chain and medallion to prove it). No one else was qualified. Without him and his expertise, the community would sink back into the Dark Days of Bog-Sludge Porter, when pestilence and unpleasantness reigned supreme, when… when… the ugly sisters… but that was too dire to even contemplate, which was why they were never spoken of except in hushed voices and the tiniest possible print. Clearly, something had to be done.

To search for a cure, a cause had to be found, and even faster than immediately. One could not merely sigh and shake one’s head and agree with the others that Owld Misther Bucket was very, very old. So what if (as some said) he was older than the turf itself? What did it matter that Grandfather Berkeley Turf-Peat’s very first ancestor had recorded The Bucket’s coming in the seventh volume of his memoirs? To delve into such piteous and ill researched historical musings would be to admit, just perhaps, that Owld Misther Bucket was simply tooooo old, perhaps even fibble-headed and incontinental. “Could be,” the fretters would say. “Could be, could be, could be.” “Could not, could not, could definitely not,” countered his supporters, adding, “he’s never been known for his travelling ways, not never in his life. He’s never even owned a passport, not even once, has Owld Misther Bucket. Imagine accusing him of being an Incontinental! The very thought, poor crayture. Tis a desperate day for him to be talked about in such a way. And he doesn’t even speak French!”

“But if senility is not his new home, could there be other possibilities?” cried The Opposition. “No, there could not,” answered the elders. “Not as long as the sun shines and the breezes are gentle and the gales blow in from the west.” To these venerables, unknown possibilities were too frightening to consider. The Unknown, you see, was Unknowable and Invisible. It brought about Horrible Tummy Complaints. It inspired panic, and we all know where that takes us. “We must think this through with clear minds and stout hearts,” they would say while stroking their beards and nodding sagely. “A dram or five is called for. Bring out the best, the two hundred year old, put down the year the sheep grew wool as fine as silk and as luxuriant as the Archbishop’s chasuble.” And so the cask would be taped, the toast proclaimed (with The Elders propped upstanding by their juniors), and in such a way the crisis would be diverted, postponed until the next unpropitious omens came their way.

On the occasion of Owld Misther Bucket’s bottom, however, there happened to be a callow youth by name of Lairy Billy Bogbug squatting under The Elders’ Table and drinking porter of the cheapest, rawest kind. He was a brazen soul, was Lairy Billy, respecting few and forever spouting off about things wot are best left unsaid, and with a leering smirk upon his hormone-stoked countenance, to boot. After listening to The Elders’ toast and deciding a knee-jerk reaction was what was called for, he drained his tankard and dared to speak the name most dreaded in the bog. “It be thim sisters, the Welliffomething-ffomethings, wot are tae blame!” he slurped. “It be Muffin Welliffomething-ffomething and her vile splap of terror! And her twin sister, Wambledy-Jane, and all.” (Lest The Reader remain in a state of ignorance concerning History as it had always been in that far county, Wambledy-Jane’s granny had been married off to an American serviceman, a really fat one, by name of Burt, and Wambledy-Jane was what he called ‘The Blessing of His Pet Snake’. He was not a man to be encountered in a dark alley, was Burt The Fat American Serviceman).

But back to The Elders’ Toast. It was of course, extremely naughty of Lairy Billy to blurt out the names of the vile sisters Wellingffomething-ffomething, but to give him credit, he really couldn’t help himself. No one, you see, had taught him right from wrong or to respect his elders. At heart he was not a bad sort; he never really got into trouble or resorted to anti-social behaviour. It was just that his mouth had a mind of its own, and didn’t smell all that good, besides. One had to make allowances for Lairy Billy Bogbug, and most people did.

“It be them sisters, the Welliffomething-ffomethings, wot are tae blame!” he repeated again, full of stout and hormones.

Now if truth be told, not only were none living who actually remembered seeing the awful twins, but even fewer could even tell you what they’d done to make themselves so feared. There were, however, those younger worthies among the denizens, namely Peveral Murkin and Ermentrude Pinkley and daff Maud Bunkum, who boasted of having a better education than the others - having stayed at school through thick and thin and balderdash until the cabbage soup ran out. Feeling intellectually inclined and qualified, and superior in every way to their contemporaries, these three dispatched themselves to the local Lending Library in order to conduct a massive, deep and thoroughgoing search. It was a search which took the longest time and gave them plenty to do, and while they were about this weighty and important task, other worthy denizens sat in a very large circle facing the opposite direction. And since they couldn’t think of any other way of occupying their time, they hummed a tuneless dirge through their noses and ears. It went something like this:
Ne nah ne nah ne nah
Num-num,
Ne Nah ne nah mgaw
Gumb-gumb…
… a dirge which continued along in a similar vein for as long as necessary.

While all this important activity was taking up a great deal of time and keeping the worthies out of trouble, gentle Miss Olivia Spider (a single mother of twelve who lived in a sweet, little, fairly untidy and disorganised web between two stalks of marsh grass) was experiencing problems of her own.

You see, the water from Owld Misther Bucket had quite washed away her little, fairly untidy home, taking with it her liveliest child, the rumpusly rambunctious Libbedy Spider. Unfortunately, Olivia’s web had been built at the far edge of the desolate Not Very Nice Neighbourhood, on a plot not at all protected from the elements (her name had been on the council’s list for ever such a long time, and the derelict lot behind The Abandoned Slop Barrel – as that end of the Not Very Nice Neighbourhood’s Bog Hole was called – was the best she could manage until the Deputy Mayoress and her Homes For The Deserving Monetarily Challenged sub-committee got ‘round to sharpening the Official Pencils and signing on The Official Dotted Line).

Olivia Spider, it must be said, was an extremely conscientious mother, and so occupied was she in the proper bringing up of her many babbies that she was rarely out and about (except to take care the essentials and to hold down two stressful part-time jobs). Because of that, many of those denizens occupied in the hurly burly of life rarely gave her as much as two and a half thoughts (unless, of course, they needed a pair of strong, willing hands with an attached conscientious disposition to polish their floors and the vessels upon which they performed their sacred movements). When her services were not required, she was as invisible as mist when it was not there. “Olivia who?” they might say with a look of vague recollection upon their brows. “Oh yes, Her. Pretty little thing and SUCH a hard worker. Such a pity about the children…”

On this particular morning, pretty little Olivia stood, with her other wee spiderlings clinging to her shoes and pinny-strings for all they were worth, and wept and keened like a steam-whistle as she watched her tiny Rumpus Libbedy Spider being swept down the bohereen by Owld Misther Bucket’s rampaging water. Bobbing up and down, up and down, and spinning round and round the fearsome eddies. If only she’d been up to her usual tricks, spiking her hair with bogblack and playing her air-guitar, banging her head ‘til her neck had to be taped in place with web-silk so it wouldn’t fly off her shoulders. If only, for once in her life, she’d put on one of the dainty pink frocks Olivia so lovingly stitched for her and applied herself to proper little spidery games like the others. Both hobbies would have kept her at home, safely annoying her beleaguered mother and younger siblings. Safe and sound, sound and safe. If only, if only…

The horrible thing was, there was so little Olivia Spider could do. She was, you see, a very small spider, indeed. She’d never been down the bohereen, she’d never ventured far from home and her little ones. The furthest a field she’d ever travelled was the tallest stalk of grass (the one with the family of red velvet mites living in one of its hidey-holes round the other side), and the only reason she’d gone that far was that one of her shoelaces (she couldn’t remember which one but thought it was near the back on the left side. She was always losing track of what went on back there) got tangled in the tail of a passing mouse and she got knocked for six. But that was a long time ago, when she was six or so and hadn’t yet learned how to hang on to her web.

Having never been abroad, as it were, Miss Olivia Spider didn’t know what to do. There was her beautiful rumpus daughter, leaving home without a moment’s notice and in such an inauspicious manner, and she, supposedly a mother, was in a pickle. Even if she did summon the necessary courage to catch the late afternoon breeze that departed the bog at a quarter passed four every afternoon, she couldn’t possibly take her other children with her. They were too young to travel. Too tender and fat and delectable. Succulent even. They’d be eaten up before they’d gone any distance at all, and her with them, and then where’d they be? Homeless, childless and without anything to show for themselves (which, knowing her luck, would the moment the council came through with a lovely new home, complete with pretty herbaceous borders and a vegetable patch and its very own garden gate complete with a shiny brass latch). How could she, a very small spider whose eyes couldn’t look ferocious, no matter how hard they tried, protect her brood? And even if she got that problem sorted out, what were the chances of locating her tiny Libbedy Spider in such an enormous, rough and tumble world?

It was at that point that the neighbourhood watch committee, formed by the older ladies of Miss Havering’s Bog in order to keep an eye on all that went on behind closed doors and shuttered windows, heard Olivia’s sobs and keening. “Oooooooo,” didn’t they say? “What an unpleasant noise. Not at all as it should be,” they added. “Something must be done. There goes that Olivia Spider, keening away like a pig wot’s got stuck in its wallow. If we didn’t know better, we’d say it was on account of her troublesome tiny daughter, Libbedy Spider, being swept away by the tail end of Ould Misther Bucket’s watery gusher!” The Older Ladies then paused for a moment and craned their necks this way and that, all the better to hear themselves think over Olivia’s cries.

“Ooooooooo,” said Miss Mavis Longlegs, the eldest of the harridans. We gotstae hum louder. Miss Olivia’s got such an ugly voice. Miss Wibble the Woodmite added, looking sagely at her compatriot, “It quite turns the milk, it does. Someone ought to tell her tae shut up,” whereupon Missus Ridgley-Grassworm offered to go and punch her in the nose. I shall have her up for disturbing the peace. An ASBO is what she needs.”

“Now, now, my dear,” cautioned Miss Longlegs, ever so demurely, “we are counselled to be patient in all things. Perhaps if we ignore her she’ll go away.” Upon which they all nodded wisely and hummed, “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” more tunelessly than ever.

Meanwhile, there was teeny tiny Libbedy Spider, sailing along as pretty as you please, her head banging away, practicing her obscenities, oblivious to all the extremely bad things grown-ups were saying about her.

Teeny Tiny Libbedy Spider simply flew and flew and flew, and presently, the loveliest flower imaginable, pink and gold and lacy, appeared directly in her path. Throwing out a gossamer thread to catch the scarlet stamen, she immediately took an incredibly deep breath (sucking in most of the air from the surrounding countryside). With a mighty leap, she took flight, up and up and out of the torrent, and drifted down as gently as you please on to one of the petals. Soft as silk. Soft as a cloud. “What a beautiful new home I’ve found!” she said. “And so very far away from the Council’s jurisdiction. I do so wish mummy could see it!”

Without delay, Rumpus Libbedy set about spinning the loveliest, most delicate web imaginable. Downy beds, there were, for all her brothers and sisters. Lace curtains in the windows. And from every window a view stretching beyond the furthest reaches of the bog and out to sea. When she was finished, Teeny Tiny Libbedy Spider was overcome with exhaustion (it had, after all be a most hectic day). She made herself a nursery tea from cakes she’d plucked along the way from passing pantry shelves (some of the very best, they were, with Marzipan and Damson Jam and Marmite soldiers and strawberry jellies and cream cakes lighter than a goose’s down), and after eating every last crumb (never could it be said that Teeny Tiny Libbedy Spider had a dainty appetite), she wrapped herself in the downy quilt she’d woven for her mummy and settled in for a nap. “Surely,” she thought, “if I sleep the sleep of the moon and the stars, I shall know what to do when first I wake!”

***
Copyright 2007 J.A.Weeks