The stylish yeoman stomps in from the midnight raging squall through the heavy wooden door. Above him, the spectral serpent sits perched in the rafters in the dust and dark of the defrocked house of worship and spits. It raises up on haunches, back stiffening with anticipation in the foul and fetid public house. With theatrics merely minutes away, the serpent jumps with delight. “Lovely, lovely, yes lovely.”
The cacophony of rabble-routs fills the dusty roadhouse below: ratty jackets, greasy kirtles and corsets. Thieves, whores, and soot-faced colliers make love to their ale, whiskey and gin. Besotted, glassy-eyed, they mingle, crow and squabble in the acrid haze of fireplace and pipe smoke until a slam of the heavy door shatters the folderol. The rancor fades as he swipes rainwater from his shoulders with undeterred notoriety searching for one face among the stunned proles. All eyes then turn from him to the crowd stepping away from the cottar’s daughter, giving her room—alone, center stage, hands on hips, steadfast in righteous fury, glaring at the cad. Tension ignites, for the crowd knows of the scoundrel’s craving for forbidden flesh. And now this brazen cad returns to savor once more the innocence he stole and to face the ire of her scorn. Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation, comes forward a simple farmer with a simple request. “Snare the loon, Maggie. Dagger his heart. Make it quick, lassie. Tarry not.”
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