The Throwback

Chapter ten

While Lockhart began to make life uncomfortable for the tenants of his wife's-houses, her mother was doing her damnedest to make life unbearable for Mr Flawse. The weather was not on her side. From a bright spring they passed into a hot summer and Flawse Hall showed itself to advantage. Its thick walls had more functions than the keeping out of the Scots and the keeping in of the whisky; they soothed the summer's heat. Outside, the hybrid hounds might slobber and loll in the dung-dry dust of the yard; inside, Mr Flawse could sit contentedly upright at his desk poring over the parish registers and ancient enclosure deeds to which he had lately become so addicted. Knowing that in the fullness of time he was about due to join his ancestors he thought it as well to acquaint himself with the faults and failings of his family.

That he looked only on the worst side of things came from his natural pessimism and knowledge of himself. He was therefore surprised to find that the Flawses were not all unconscionably bad. There were Flawse saints as well as Flawse si

Old Mr Flawse thrilled to the account just as he thrilled to the verse that sang in the blood of the Flawse balladeers. Minstrel Flawse was renowned for his songs and Mr Flawse found himself almost unconsciously saying aloud the first stanza of 'The Ballad of Prick 'Em Dry' which the Minstrel was supposed by some authorities to have composed beneath the gibbet at Elsdon on the occasion of his hanging, drawing and quartering for misguidedly climbing into bed with Sir Oswald Cap-heughton's wife, Lady Fleur, when that noble lord was not only in it but in her at the same time. Minstrel Flawse's introduction of himself into Sir Oswald had met with that reaction known as dog-knotting on the part of all concerned, and it had taken the combined efforts of seven manservants to prise Sir Oswald from Lady Fleur and the sole resources of the local barber and surgeon to sever the co

I gan noo wha ma organs gan

When oft I lay abed So rither hang me upside doon

Than by ma empty head.

I should ha' knoon 'twas never Fleur

That smelt so mooch of sweat For she was iver sweet and pure

And iver her purse was wet.

But old Sir Oswald allus stank

Of horse and hound and dung And when I chose to breech his rank

Was barrel to my bung.

So hang me noo fra' Elsdon Tree

And draw ma i

What I have done without.

But ere ye come to draw ma heart

Na do it all so quick But prise the arse of Oswald 'part

And bring me back ma prick.

So prick 'em wet or prick 'em dry

'Tis all the same to me I ca

Afore I have a pee.

Mr Flawse found the poem heartening, if crude. He knew exactly how the Minstrel had felt: his prostate had lately been giving him trouble. But it was the dour gaiety of the ballads that gave him the greatest pleasure. The Flawses might, and indeed, had been thieves and robbers, cut-throats and moss troopers, even saints and bishops, but whatever their calling they had laughed the devil to scorn and made a mockery of misfortune, and their religion had been less Christian than that of personal honour. To call a Flawse a liar was to die or to defend yourself to the death and a Flawse who flinched in the face of adversity was an outcast without hame or name, as the old saying had it.

But there was more to old Mr Flawse's ancestral interest than mere curiosity concerning his own relations. There was still the great question-mark that haunted his nights as to the paternity of Lockhart. And behind it lay the horrifying feeling that Lockhart was as much his son as his grandson. It was with this in mind that he added the flagellant clause to the will in part-recognition that if his suspicions were true he deserved to be flogged within an inch of his life and more properly a yard beyond. The question had to be answered, if not in his own lifetime, in that of Lockhart and as he worked his way through ancient deeds and documents Mr Flawse continued to consider possible candidates. They all had this in common: that at the time of Lockhart's conception, which Mr Flawse calculated to be eight months before his birth, they had lived within riding distance of the Hall and had been between the ages of sixteen and sixty. He refused to believe that his daughter, whatever her vices, would willingly have taken to herself an old man. Much more likely the father had been in his twenties. Beside each name Mr Flawse put the age of the candidate, the colour of his eyes and hair, his features, height and, where possible, his cephalic index. Since the latter required the suspect to submit to Mr Flawse measuring his head both back to front and from side to side with a pair of u

Mrs Flawse had, as part of her plan for his early death, decided to play the role of dutiful wife. Far from repulsing his advances she positively encouraged him to strain his heart by sleeping with her. Mr Flawse's prostate redressed the balance and prevented him from rising to these frequent occasions. Mrs Flawse took to bringing him his early-morning cup of tea in bed having first laced it with powdered paracetamol tablets which she had once read affected the kidneys adversely. Mr Flawse didn't drink tea in bed, but, not to hurt her feelings, emptied his cup into the chamber pot with the result that Mrs Flawse's hopes were aroused quite fortuitously by the colour of the contents when she emptied it later in the day. The fact that the potion contained tea leaves, and that she was too fastidious to examine it closely, led her to the vain hope that there was something seriously amiss with his bladder. Finally she put him on an even higher cholesterol diet than usual. Mr Flawse had eggs for breakfast, fried eggs with lamb chops for lunch, pork for di