Owldale Two

Some weeks passed, weeks in which Elizabeth and Seth became used to each otherfs ways, as newly married folk must. They got on well together, for Seth was hard-working and a good husbandman, knowledgeable and active, and willing to listen to his wifefs suggestions - which he did with a male smile at her womanly foolishness before acceding to her wishes to humour her and finding that things went no worse, if not the better, for it. As for their nights, they were few when her bedroom was not left ajar in invitation, for both he and Elizabeth were young and lusty and delighted in each otherfs bodies.

Between them, the old farm promised to regain something of its former glory, for all Sethfs efforts went towards repairing the dry-stone walls in order that they might pen the sheep they hoped to acquire by barter or by carrying off those wild sheep of the fells unwary enough to come within the reach of Seth and his dog.

Elizabeth worked no less hard than she had before, cooking and cleaning as usual and caring for her sister and their other beasts, but she was able to devote more time to her vegetable garden and her orchard, both formerly neglected, the produce from which would help to feed them throughout the winter and the following spring and perhaps leave a surplus to exchange for their other needs. As for Elizabethfs wretched sister, Ruth had improved by leaps and bounds under the taming influence of Sethfs dog, whose actions she copied as well as she was able. No longer did she try to lash out through the bars as formerly, even allowing Seth and Elizabeth to stroke her dirt-encrusted flanks and eating from their hands. Only a month after Ladyfs arrival Elizabeth had entered Ruthfs shed to feed her one morning and found her sister looking up at her though the bars of her cage with all the placid innocence of an animal.

Elizabeth and Seth had rejoiced. Sending for a Wise Woman, they found their hopes had indeed been realised: God had won His struggle with Satan for Ruthfs human soul and had gathered it into His bosom. The fiend, left with only the sinless soul of an animal as compensation, had withdrawn, baffled and defeated.

Now, at last, Ruth could be taken from the four foot square wooden cage in which shefd spent the last fifteen years, and a hard task it had proved to be. Seth had buckled a collar around her neck, and to this Ruth submitted docilely, but when Elizabeth attached a leash and tugged on it, Ruth mewed and whimpered pathetically, afraid to leave the shelter of her familiar prison. But she was coaxed out in the end, and led out of the shed into the sunshine she hadnft known for so long. Ruth was chained to Ladyfs kennel and Elizabeth sheared her sisterfs long, filthy, tangled hair, something Ruth submitted to in the manner of a good beast who has learned that her keepers sometimes did things to her that were painful but also necessary.

During daylight, Ruth was led into the old paddock and tethered there on a rope twenty feet long to see if she could recover some use of her thin and wasted legs. And she did, managing finally to run stooped over once shefd launched herself upright by scrambling forward on all-fours. Unable to fully straighten her legs, Ruth could only run like this while she kept up a certain pace, falling to all-fours when she slowed and stopped. Still, it was good enough for what Seth hoped for his sister-in-law; that she would be useful, if Lady could train her in the sheep-dog's art, to help his dog in herding the sheep he hoped to acquire.

But now, as the days wore on towards Lammas, the thoughts of both Elizabeth and her husband turned to the coming autumn and the necessity of storing sufficient food for both themselves and their animals to keep them through the winter and the following spring, amongst the most important of which would be the brewing of the October ale.

This task had been Elizabeth's since the age of twelve, and a good brew it was, getting thicker, stronger and more nutritious as the winter progressed, but for it she needed barley in addition to that she already had. Elizabeth was a good housekeeper and a thrifty, and barley would become more and more expensive as the main brewing season approached. She'd picked a sack of onions, half a hundredweight, and those she thought she could exchange for a like sack of grain with the landlady of the Inn, for Elizabeth's onions were the finest in the Dale.

And so, early one morning in July, Elizabeth put on clothing for the first time since her wedding day and asked her husband to aid her with her load.

Elizabeth draped the harness over her broad shoulders, securing it at the waist with the heavy belt and fitting its single broad front strap into the valley between her breasts before tightening the brass buckles. For his part, Seth lifted up the sack of onions and placed it high on her back, securing it firmly in place lest it chafe her skin through the leather of her carrying-harness and the undyed linen of her thin single garment.

All was now ready, and Seth clipped the thin, plaited-leather woman-leash that had been Elizabeth's mother's to his wife's collar and led her forth. Passing through the the gate at the end of the track which divided their farm from the public road, he tied the end of the leash around the top rail of the fence, then helped his wife with her bulky leather mitts. Finally he secured her arms, forearms horizontal and parallel, behind her back with the leather arm-binder and left her after a tender farewell kiss.

Elizabeth, properly helpless and tethered as women should be in public, watched him go, an affectionate smile on her face. Dear Seth! He was such a good man, comfortable at board and warm in bed. Of course, he had his share of male foolishness, as witness his reaction to her news of her pregnancy a week ago. At once he would have it that she do nothing but lie on the sofa in her parlour – a room to which, as a man, he'd never been invited – and rest whilst he waited upon her, or got some girl or woman to do so. Elizabeth, boiling inwardly with laughter, had gently teased him out of his foolish male notions, reminding him that his own mother had given birth to him in a furrow of the field in which she was sowing seed in the wake of his father's plough. He'd turned out none the worse for it, and neither had she!

Naturally, Seth had gone on to outline great plans for his first-born; a son, he was convinced. Elizabeth had meekly agreed, but with a secret inward smile, for she was resolved that their first child of the many she intended to bear would be a girl, not a boy. An elder daughter, hard-working and dutiful, is a strong right arm to any woman, helping to keep her husband and the younger children in order, and an ever constant aid in things of the house from an early age.

Standing in the sunlight, the dust of the track warm under her bare feet, Elizabeth once more entertained an heretical thought common to all the women of the Dale – and to all women everywhere, perhaps. Certain it was, she thought with a smile, that God was male, for if a woman had been responsible for Creation, things would surely have been arranged to better advantage.

At the sound of a calling voice, Elizabeth looked round to see her friend Bathsheba running towards her from the orchard where she'd been spraying her father's apple trees with soapy water against the blight, leaving the cart containing the buckets, her mother harnessed between the shafts and tethered to a tree, behind her.

The meetings of the two friends hadn't been too much hampered by Elizabeth's inability, as a collared woman, to be out in public unleashed, for, where she'd often visited Bathsheba, Bathsheba now visited her, agog to learn how her friend was coping with the restrictions on her movements and, as Elizabeth could tell, secretly longing for the day when she, too, would become a grown woman and wear some man's collar.

Bathsheba had long ago set her sights on a certain God's-Will-Be-Done Ramsclough, a choice which had filled Elizabeth with secret mirth. 'Willy,' as he was universally known, was the only child of Beulah Ramsclough, a poor widow whose husband had died early, and the two eked out a meagre living on a tiny small-holding in the most barren part of Owldale. Poor as they were, they were a cheerful pair, Beulah always ready to bear a hand in the fields of their neighbours, and Willy, a merry little sprig of a man, was a hard worker for all his japes and jesting. Bathsheba, in short, could travel further and fare worse in her choice of a husband, and Elizabeth, regarding her friend's plain, honest, and rather earnest countenance, knew that Willy would be good for her; he would make her laugh, and that was a good thing in a man.

Bathsheba had come to tell Elizabeth that Beulah Ramsclough was coming to tea on Sunday, and her son with her, on a serious mission of intent. Indeed, that was the understanding between her and Beulah, although neither Bathsheba's father nor Willy had any inkling of the purpose of the meeting. Elizabeth laughed; Willy would leave the Ackroyd farm a man spoken for, dazed and bewildered, and perhaps wondering how this state of affairs had come about. His mother and I will see that he proposes to me, Bathsheba told her friend, and Elizabeth smiled, bidding Bathsheba that she have a leather dog-collar handy in her pocket for the great moment, at which the younger girl blushed, and then burst out laughing.

Coming back to practical matters, Bathsheba told Elizabeth that she'd seen young Jesse Holmforth, the blacksmith's son pass along the lane an hour earlier. He'd told her he was en route to his uncle's farm a mile further up the track, there to bring back a young she-goat to be served by the village ram. 'He will be back presently,' she told Elizabeth, and then hugged her in farewell and ran back to where her patient mother waited to be set to work again.

CHAPTER TWO

Jesse Holmforth, a ten year old imp of a boy, led the young she-goat down the track, his mind on the problem of delivering the animal to its destination without being spotted by his mother from their cottage across the Green. She would undoubtedly find tasks for him, and it was too good a day for him to spend doing household chores. He'd seen good strawberries in the garden of old Mister Oldacre on his way from the village, and he had it in mind to entice away his bosom friend Jacob Patterson from his tasks on his father's farm to take advantage of the opportunity. Jacob being just such another daring and black-hearted young ruffian as himself, it would go hard if the two of them didn't manage to eat their fill of the berries, all the sweeter for being illicitly come by. Catching sight of the tall woman tethered to the fence ahead, his face fell. About to pass by with no more than  a respectful 'Good morrow, Mistress Arkwright,' he was halted in his tracks by a frosty glance and a few curt words.

A few minutes later Jesse continued his journey, the leashes of his two charges clutched in his hand. Women must go about their mysterious – and probably sinister female business – and men and boys must lead them. He was in a gloomy mood, not helped by the fact that the long legs of the woman were making him adopt a pace less comfortable than his former slow shuffle. Once, when he was younger, it had seemed a fine thing to seen in control of a full-grown adult woman, but now he realised that his control, and that of all men in like circumstances, was more apparent than real, for women, collared and leashed though they were, would go where they pleased.

Nor was Jesse's mood improved when, half a mile further along the lane, they met his friend Jacob, as downcast as himself at having to lead his mother to the village with her cart of potatoes. Mister Oldacre's strawberries, it seemed, would live unmolested that day!

It was the work of seconds for Elizabeth to manoeuvre her handler so that she walked level with Mrs. Patterson, a large and cheerful lady in early middle-age who chatted to her about this and that nineteen to the dozen, not that this disconcerted Elizabeth in any way, for she reciprocated, the two of them employing that marvellous feminine ability to speak all at the same time and to understand each other nonetheless.

The little party continued along its route, the two boys united in silent disgust and the two women talking whilst the goat trotted at their side. Elizabeth admired the cart to which her companion was harnessed by a wide belt around her waist and two broad straps up her back and over her shoulders where they came together and returned to the belt at her front as a single strap running down between her bare breasts. The cart held no less than four sacks of potatoes, two hundredweight, and Mrs. Patterson told her that pulling it was infinitely easier than carrying a single such sack on her back. It was much cooler, too, she told the envious Elizabeth, for women pulling loads went naked, as they did on their husband's farms, apart from a fringe of leather stitched to the fronts of their wide harness belts for the sake of modesty. Elizabeth agreed, and wondered how she could entice Seth to build her a cart of her own; it would be very useful in transporting their surplus crops about the other farms in the complicated system of barter which held in Owldale, where coin was scarce and hard to come by.

Without warning, Mrs. Patterson came to a stop, almost pulling her leash from her son's hand. He and his friend turned to regard her in surprise but a few curt words soon acquainted them with her desires. Jesse and his friend, with long-suffering looks on their faces, waited whilst Jacob's mother spread her legs a little and emptied her bladder into the dirt between her bare feet. This done, the little group went on as before, and in twenty minutes or so the two women and the goat were tethered to the Woman rail outside the Inn, waiting to be released whilst the boys made their escape.

Freed from her load and her woman's restraints, Elizabeth resisted the temptation of beer and bacon in the Women's Room for the moment in favour of visiting her father, now comfortably lodged with distant relatives on the other side of the Green. As the Village Common was just that – common ground – she walked unleashed, passing the men sprawled on benches, taking their morning draughts, outside the Inn with only a level stare of disapproval to indicate what she thought of such toping. Leaving them in a satisfactory condition of vague guilt, she walked across the Green, noticing that young Magdalene Briggs was once again being punished, and pausing to stop the young children around her cage poking her naked body with their sticks. Magdalene Briggs would come to a bad end if she didn't mend her ways, Elizabeth thought as she went on. One day, if she continued to disgrace herself, she would vanish from sight, to spend the rest of her days chained up in her father's cellar or behind the bars of a cage in some remote shed. For there was no greater sin than to persuade men, who were made in the image of God, to fall from grace - as had Eve, the first woman and the first sinner.

Elizabeth found her father as well as could be expected, for he'd suffered another stroke and could barely speak. But he could hear well enough, or so Abishag Plowman assured her, for Abishag was a godly woman and a kindly, and took as much care of the old man's soul as she did of his body, reading to him from the Bible morning and night. Satisfied as to her father's spiritual and bodily welfare, Elizabeth knelt again to receive his blessing before departing back to the Inn where she found that the women of the women of the village had gathered to greet her, all eager to learn what she made of married life.

A merry time the women had of it, too, especially when, as always when women are gathered together, the talk progressed to anecdotes of the odd behaviour of their husbands, whose characters were dissected with a merciless and humorous clarity, sparing no detail, that would have horrified the unfortunate men concerned. As it was, the men outside, listening to this sinister feminine levity and rightly guessing its cause, grew uneasy and drifted back to their labours one by one, muttering into their beards as they went.

CHAPTER THREE

The talk turned to Elizabeth herself, and how she got on with Seth, and the affairs of their farm – or, rather, Seth's farm, for, as a woman, Elizabeth could own no property of her own, not even her clothing nor the collar her husband had put around her neck on their wedding day. The news of Ruth's recovery was already known, and Elizabeth was congratulated on it, and on Seth's plans to train her as a sheep-dog if it were possible. There was precedent for this, as all knew, for had not the father of Martha May-God-Be-Praised Hawker, own brother to the father of Jabez Hawker the Inn-keeper, had his unregenerate daughter's arms removed and put her to work as a draught animal many years ago? She lived still, and could often be seen harnessed to a loaded cart, driven about the farm, and she could even pull a plough through the light, sandy soil of the Dale.

Then the new ordinance of the Elders was discussed. It was non other than to return to the custom of twenty years ago, which Elizabeth didn't remember, of making women go bridled and bitted in addition to being leashed in public. It was, every woman agreed, just the sort of nonsense to be expected from men, purported to still the lewd tongues of women but in reality to avoid have to listen on their journeys to the leashed women pointing out the many shortcomings of the male sex in general and of the man or boy leading them in particular. But that was the way of it in the Dale, where men were made in the image of Christ and women knew they were little better than the beasts of the field.

Presently the women drifted away to get on with their housework, and to chivvy their husbands into greater effort in their labours, and Elizabeth was left to haggle with Rebecca Hawker, the Inn-keeper's wife, about the relative values of her onions and the latter's barley.

Both women thoroughly enjoyed their bargaining, and Elizabeth became the new owner of a plump sack of good quality barley. She took a meal of fried cow's lung and pease pudding, washed down with plenty of small-beer, and then prepared to depart, Rebecca helping her with her restraints and hoisting the sack of barley on to Elizabeth's back, strapping in firmly in place lest it slip.

Although it was but early in the afternoon, Elizabeth knew from experience that she was in for a long wait before some passing man or boy could be inveigled into leading her home. As it was, the only available male was a seven year old urchin who was willing enough but whose spindly legs would scarce survive the six mile round trip. Besides, he was sure to get lost on the way back, and Elizabeth had been waiting patiently for an hour, sweating freely in the heat and occasionally wriggling her shoulders to ease her heavy load, when she saw two distant figures approaching on the road which left the village for the far end of the Dale.

Elizabeth knew at once the identity of the youth leading the laden donkey. He was Joshua Golightly, and his work was delivering the soft coal his family hewed from the outcropping on their farm high up the Dale. Dusty and tired, his first thought was for a meal and a draught of ale, and water for his donkey, but he readily agreed to lead Elizabeth as far on his way as he could. Even better, he then accepted her offer of a meal and a bed for the night if he'd lead her all the way to her home, and a meal the next morning, and this pleased him as he thought of the two pennies his father had given him for lodging at the Inn on his return journey which he could now divert to buying ribbons for his sweetheart at Lammas Fair.

All the same, he sat an hour over his food and ale, much to Elizabeth's disgust, but he then assented to lead her directly home and deliver his coal the next day to the farm of Ephraim and Manasseh Gotobed, twin brothers who'd married the three sisters Sapphira, Sheba and Sharon Archer, and who lived a mile nearer the village than did Elizabeth.

After making his farewells to his host and checking the security of his patient donkey's load, young Joshua set off, leading his donkey with Elizabeth's leash shortened and tied to one the straps on the beast's load.

It was a weary journey for Elizabeth, bent and sweating under her burden with her hip bumping now and then against the side of the donkey's haunches. After a mile so Joshua halted them outside a roadside cottage and tied the donkey to a tree whilst he went inside on some errand or other entrusted to him by his mother. Elizabeth, whose bladder was feeling the effects of her lunchtime ale and who had been wondering if she could last out, took immediate advantage of Joshua's absence. Spreading her legs as far apart as she was able, she urinated copiously into the dust beneath her feet, feeling the warm liquid splash up over her bare feet and ankles.

Joshua, on his return, made no comment on the pool of drying urine where Elizabeth stood, only to be expected of leashed women and other such cattle,but merely untied the donkey's halter and continued his journey under Elizabeth's direction until they reached the familiar gate of the track leading to her home.

In the farmyard, Joshua took Elizabeth's load from her back, and then removed her arm-binder and unlocked her mitts. Leaving her to remove the rest of her woman's restraints, he began to unload his patient donkey, a task which Elizabeth helped him to complete. Together, they led the donkey into the paddock where Elizabeth's sister leapt about in wild excitement at the end of her rope and Lady ran up to investigate. Seth arrived, his tools over his shoulder, and pumped water for his wife's bath.

Later, clad in a clean dress in honour of their guest, Elizabeth cooked a supper of fried oatmeal porridge with bacon and eggs from her hens, the whole washed down with good ale from the barrel in the corner of the kitchen. After supper, all three sat with pipes and tankards whilst Elizabeth read to them from the Bible, and afterwards discussed the meaning of the words they'd heard in Godly debate.

Joshua, yawning widely, went off to sleep in the barn with the blanket Elizabeth had given him, and Elizabeth went to her bed. Seth went out to take his sister-in-law to her kennel and chain her up, then took a turn in the yard with his pipe and ale-pot before going into the house and up the stairs to his spartan little room. There he found the door to the much larger bedroom of the woman of the house invitingly ajar and the smiling woman herself, clad only in her thigh-length hair, waiting to take him to her bed.