Crybbe (AKA Curfew) Read Online Free

was kind of aglow, and
other hands were pulling on the rope beside his own.
        Spooky?
        Well, he didn't think about it.
Where was the point in that?
     
     
    They walked slowly into the town over a river bridge with old brick
walls which badly needed pointing, the river flat and sullen below. Past a pub,
the Cock, with flaky paintwork and walls that had once been whitewashed but now
looked grey and unwashed.
        A dark, smoky, secretive little
town. There was still an afterglow on the fields, but the town was already
embracing the night.
        Mr. Kettle had never been to
Paris or New York. But if, tonight, he was to be flown into either of them, he
suspected he wouldn't feel any more of a stranger than he did entering Crybbe -
a town he'd lived within twenty miles of all his life.
        This town, it wasn't remote exactly,
not difficult to reach, yet it was isolated. Outsiders never had reason to pass
through it on the way to anywhere. Because, no matter where you wanted to
reach, there was always a better way to get there than via Crybbe. Three roads intersected
here, but they were B roads, two starting in Wales - one leading eventually to Hereford,
the other to Ludlow - and the other . . . well, buggered if he knew where that
one went.
        Max Goff, almost glowing in his
white suit, was striding into the dimness of the town, like Dr Livingstone or
somebody, with a pocketful of beads for the natives.
        They'd take the beads, the
people here. They wouldn't thank him, but they'd take the beads.
        Henry Kettle didn't claim to
understand the people of Crybbe. They weren't hostile and they weren't
friendly. They kept their heads down, that was all you could say about them.
A local historian had once told him this was how towns and villages on the
border always used to be. If there was any cross-border conflict between the
English and the Welsh they never took sides openly until it was clear which was
going to win. Also, towns of no importance were less likely to be attacked and
burned.
        So keeping their heads down had
got to be a way of life.
        Tourists must turn up sometimes.
By accident, probably. Mr. Kettle reckoned most of them wouldn't even bother to
park. Sure the buildings were ancient enough, but they weren't painted and
polished up like the timber-frame villages on the Hereford black-and-white
trail. Nothing here that said 'visit me' with any enthusiasm, because there was
no sense of pride.
        From the church tower, above the
cobbled square, a lone bell was clanging dolefully into the musty dusk. It was
the only sound there was.
        'What's that?' Goff demanded.
        'Only the curfew.'
        Goff stopped on the cobbles,
his smile a great gash. 'Hey really . . . ? This is a real curfew, like in the
old days?'
        'No,' Mr. Kettle said. 'Not really.
That's to say, people are no longer required to be off the streets by
nightfall. Just tradition nowadays. The Preece family, it is, performs the
duty. One of 'em goes up the belfry, God knows how many steps every night,
summer and winter; nine-thirty, or is it ten?'
        He looked up at the church
clock but it was too dark to make out where its hands were pointing. He was
sure there used to be a light on that clock. 'Hundred times it rings, anyway.'
        'Might only be a tradition, but
there's still nobody on the streets,' Max Goff observed. 'Is there?'
        'That's 'cause they're all in the
pubs,' said Mr. Kettle. 'No, what it is, there's some old trust fund arranges
for the bell to be rung. The Preeces get grazing rights on a few acres of land in
return for keeping up the custom. Passed down, father to son, for four
hundred-odd years. Being farmers, they always has plenty sons.'
        They stood in the square until
the ringing stopped.
        'Crazy,' Goff said, shaking his
big head in delight. 'Cray-zee. This is the first night I've spent here,
y'know?'I've always stayed in Hereford. It's magic,