The atmosphere in the Smuggler’s Rest was wearying, as were the coals in the hearth. Most villagers had left Kelly’s wake fearing they would be caught in a downpour, though a few remained drinking, and Tom Barnaby – hoping to lift the sentiment of the day - played his fiddle merrily whilst sitting on the long-decayed snooker table.
All the curtains were drawn tight, the solar lamps burned brightly, and the storm, nothing more than a shadow far out at sea, would give them little trouble.
Tom came to the finale of his piece, and lay the fiddle down. He picked up his pint and took a large swig, half of which disappeared in his copious moustache. He placed the tankard down with an exaggerated burp and listened in on a conversation between Betty Longshank, the resident handywoman, and John Summer.
She said: ‘It weren’t no cat I tell you, I know a cat as when I see one,’
‘At two in the morning? Tell, me then, what was it?’
‘Were a dog. A dog as big as a man!’
John said nothing, but raised his brow as he sipped his drink.
‘It was!’ Betty insisted, reacting to his incredulity.
‘And who around here owns a big dog?’
‘A dog as big as a man.’ Tom Barnaby corrected.
‘Ferk off, the both of yer! I ain’t saying it belonged to anyone.’ Betty glowered across the room, ‘Could of been wild, couldn’t it?’
‘Not likely,’ John said, finishing his pint and standing to leave. ‘It was probably old Corbin stumbling home from the pub.’
Aside from Kelly’s burial, there was nothing special about that particular Thursday. It was the same as the week before, when James Little stubbed his toe on the pub steps, and had to have it plastered, or the fortnight before, when Samantha Waeshenbach announced the readiness of her tomatoes. It was a quiet village, and no outside influence had affected them for near a century.