On Sunday last I climbed Whildermoss Beacon. A glorious Autumn day of bright watercolours with a poached egg sun and lovely runny yellow meadows. I walked the Drovers Way to the third cairn. A stiffish breeze blew up out of West Vale whose steep slopes shone burnished limegreen. Tod and Tad my schnauzers gambolled in the heather, snorting and snuffling joyously in the fresh airs. Bracken lay rusted and dew-pearled. A great goshawk hovered over the Hangman's Copse. Bolt upright and stock-still, two hares stared, then ran lolloping away over Mulligan's Pastures. I could see the blue smoke rising from the huddled cots of Spaswick Leighny, in the golden haze far beneath Bownaster Scar. I was unable to make out the burning spire of St Julian's. It was a blessing that I could not hear the screams, or see the blackened corpses of the virgins, much less witness the gleaming scimitars of the merciless Moors wreaking their havoc amongst the hapless peasant-folk. Playfully I kicked Tad in the ribs, sending him sideways over the rim of Harkness Crag; though he yelped pitifully, Tod was powerless to prevent me grabbing him by the scruff and flinging his raggy body after his pal. The smoke over Spaswick grew blacker and I could now make out the figures on horseback chasing down, trampling and slashing the fleeing villagers. With a "heigh-ho!" and a "nonny-no!" I skipped along Fordeley Edge, delighting in my own distant vista of atrocity. I knew I'd be safe up at Drombe Hall, and I was sure that those schnauzers would turn up in the yard in time. They always do! "My Twin Indestructibles" I call them, and with reason!
