A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley

Author:Alison Uttley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-59017-513-2
Publisher: New York Review Books

The pedlar then brought forth another ballad, written on the hanging of Edmund Campion, the priest who was a friend of Anthony’s but Francis thrust it aside, turning pale with horror, and chose a ballad on the earthquake of 1580, which he read to me. Even as he paid the ballad-monger with pence from his fringed purse a drove of cattle with frightened eyes and tossing horns came along, splashing through the mud and rushing among the crowd, scattering them. We rode away to get from the pressing mob. The wooden shops were open booths with dropped shutters in the front, and ledges upon which goods were displayed. In one were dolls, hobby-horses with carved heads and painted nostrils, balls and ninepins. In another crockery, brown jars and bowls with a small device.

There was a play performed on a wooden platform of “The Raising of Lazarus” which made the crowd shiver with terror as they saw the shrouded figure rise from his grave and come gliding towards them. While we were watching this there came a ragged vagabond, a most ill-favoured dirty scoundrel, with his legs wrapped in filthy bandages and horrible sores exposed. His evil face was bound in a blood-stained cloth, and Francis told me he had dipped it in a cock’s blood to make it worse, and the sores were all painted on him. He begged loudly, and held out a bag for money and scraps, compelling people to give to him. He seized my foot and held it tightly as he pushed his vile-smelling bag under my nose, and uttered outlandish cries. Francis beat him off with his whip, and threw him some pence. He seemed to think nothing of it, but I was filled with alarm. Gipsies and rogues had their habitation in the Peak hills among the rocky caverns, Francis said, and they started from there to travel the roads of England, speaking their own thieves’ language, stealing from country folk as they travelled to London. They missed the sheltered hamlets, and Thackers never saw them.

He pointed out an old man with a long tangled beard, and poor worn hands trembling so much I was filled with sorrow for him. He was a labourer without work, but his hands were skilled and he was getting a small living by peddling his wares. He carried a tray of toy lambs with painted faces and ribbons round their necks and gilded horns. He sang a wailing little song as he offered his goods:

Young lambs to sell, young lambs to sell,

If I’d as much money as I could tell,

I wouldn’t come here with young lambs to sell.

Two for a penny, eight for a groat,

As fine young lambs as ever were bought.

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