Sea Change by Francis Rowan Page B

story, the one that's been
handed down for a thousand years, well, it's gone. Always meant to
write a book myself. Set all the local legends down as they should
be." He laughed, but this turned into a cough too, and it was a
moment or two before he could carry on. "Spent a lifetime doing the
research for it, and now it's too late. Maybe Alan will put some of
my notes together, turn something out. He could do it. If he
bothered. And if he could read my handwriting."
    "I was
reading," John said, his mouth dry, "in Parnaby. About Saltcliff,
about the dog."
    Again Charles
laughed, and again John had to wait until the inevitable rattle and
wheeze had subsided.
    "Ah yes,"
Charles said, when he could talk again. "The infamous Saltcliff
Shuck."
    "That's the
one."
    "Saltcliff
Shuck my backside," Charles said. "No such thing."
    John felt his
hope betrayed. There would be no help here.
    "Just Parnaby
feeling left out because other parts of the county have one,"
Charles went on, "and we don't. So he took a perfectly good local
legend that you don't get anywhere else, and turned it into
something that’s just the same wherever you go in the country."
    "So there's no
black dog then?" John asked dully.
    "Oh, there
certainly is. But it's no Shuck, it’s no fiery-eyed harbinger of
death like you see in every bloody book of folklore right across
the country. The Saltcliff hound is more than that, much more."
Another cough, another pause. "You heard of the Hob?"
    "Yeah," John
said, and then quickly, seeing Charles's expression, "I mean, yes.
I've been hearing about how the lads of the village used to have to
spend a night in the Hole."
    "You've been
reading more than Parnaby then lad. Or talking to somebody who
knows the old stories."
    "Davey," John
said. "I don't know his name, but he's really old, about..." He
tailed off into silence.
    "About twenty
years younger than me," Charles said, his eyes twinkling. "Assuming
you're talking about Davey Allthrop. Fisherman. Smokes a stinking
pipe, spins a good tale."
    "That's him,"
John said. "I'm friends with his nephew and niece. So what does the
dog have to do with the Hob?"
    "Hob is the
spirit of this place, he's Saltcliff itself and no-one knows how he
came here, but he's been here as long as the village, longer.
No-one knows why a hob does what it does, and it can be a
trickster, but it does more good than harm, or so the stories
say.
    “Trouble is
though, according to the tales the Hob and its like came from an
older time, maybe from before time, and the Church didn't like the
people thinking about the old times any more. When Whitby heard
that Saltcliff had its Hob a monk there, a man called Oswald, vowed
to banish it forever. But Oswald, he fell ill, so another young
monk volunteered to go in his place. This monk was a chap called
Cedric, and he had grown up in Saltcliff. He knew what the Hob
meant to the place, that it was the place, and he knew that
not all the old things were bad. Cedric thought to himself, well if
the Hob does good deeds, surely it must being doing God's work, and
who are we monks to banish something that does God’s work. It came
into it too, that Cedric thought the luck of the Hob had saved him
too, as a lad, when he was out in a coracle and thought himself
sure to drown.
    “Oswald was
suspicious though, he knew that Cedric was from the village, and he
put whispers around that Cedric would not do his duty, that he
would turn away from the Church and let the old ways win. Which
back in those days, was a dangerous thing to have said about
you."
    Charles coughed
and took a few shallow, rasping breaths.
    "So Cedric was
in a bind. He had to be seen to banish the Hob. But he knew that if
he did, the village would lose its luck, and the boats would come
home with empty nets, and plagues would take their toll, and
Saltcliff would be a sadder, darker place. "
    "So he found
another way," John said.
    Charles arched
an eyebrow.
    “He made it
look as if the Hob was