Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore (essential reading txt) 📕

and found it empty with my cottage all deserted and my first wife Mary gone   Next in   the dream I was married agen and living in the rushes by a river with my new Wife Patty Clare who once was Patty Turner & our childern although in the queer style that things have in dreams it was as if my second wife & childern all were ducks with dark eyes and green feathers until in my sleep I cried out loud and startled them so that they flew away from me across the fens & when I woke my face was wet with tears   went in a carriage to Northampton with my Second Wife & our Son John who at but fifteen years is quite the little man   dressed very smart & with a grave expression — I was proud of him & yet it tickled me to see him take his Mothers arm when we climed down from out the carriage for he played the Husbands part far better than did I myself — there was a bitter drizzle all about the town that hung suspended like an old grey sheet above its meadows yet I loved it still   There is a call this County has and when I was away from here in Mr Allens prison then I knew it well & heard its sweet voice that sang out to me across the fields & miles between us and my Heart was stirrd   though I have lived in Essex and have visited in London on no less than four occasions still my home is here & I do not forsee that I shall ever have the Strength to leave agen nor yet the will to do so — the Town is much changed since I last came here and is not so like the fond imaginings of it I had in my confinement with the Norman Castle little more now than a pile of stones and much of the surrounding common land fenced & enclosed — the fine old Churches though are well but many of the fanciful grotesques about the stonework of St. Peters are destroyed   I wanted to walk up to Sheep Street there to see its wonderful round church but Patty became tired & so made do with sitting on the steps between the pillars at All Saints instead at last went to an Inn to have some bread & cheese & half a pint of Ale I do not now recall its name but it sat at the top end of a lane where Bears were kept and was not far off from the round Church of the Holy Sepulcher — there was much boisterous talk around the Tavern of a folly built nearby in Kings Thorp where the road goes out to Boughton and a Mine was drilled into the Earth with hope of finding coal — it seems the Engineer was something of a rogue & had left bits of Coal about the Pit for men to find so that he might then sell his shares at better Profit — I am not surprised at this for Men of Trade are ever Cheats & Liars such as Edward Drury come from Stamford and the Publisher John Taylor who between them owe me close to fifty pounds that I have not forgot for all they say my wits are ailing   in the afternoon when I might no more put it off we went a walk to the Asylum on the Road to Billing & I must confess that it looks well enough for such a Place with old walls of brown stone that have a rustic look & that the trees beyond have overgrown though in the rain it had a dismal air   we met a Mr Knight who was in my opinion a most serious fellow showing me much sympathy for all the questions I was asked — he seemd most interested in my First Wife & asked when I had last seen Her to which I replied that we had been together but a year ago in Glinton whereupon he said Now come that cannot be when you have been four Years in High Beech at which I became confused and muddled in my Thoughs & so he let me Be   he talked with Patty for a Time alone while John & I walked in the Grounds — we Stood together & we held each other by the hand and both said Nothing looking over the asylum land down to the silverd ribbon of the Nene and all the Villages Beyond   after a short time Patty joined Us saying that it was arranged & that there woud be found a place for me within a month whereat I was Dismayd yet made to seem that I were pleasd for Pattys Sake and for the Boy — they say that I may go out walking when I Like & that I shall not be a prisoner such as they made me there in Essex so perhaps it may not be so Bad though we shall see and in the mean time put as Brave a face on things as Fortune will allow   as we rode back to Northborough we did not speak of much and so I sat and gazed out from the carriage window on the darkning fields where I heard come the brief sore throated screaming of a Jay somewhere above the blackend stubble   we passed by an Inn where Men were Singing a lewd ballad & though Patty made a fuss and scolded little John for listening it made me smile — When I made my escape from High Beech on that Tuesday in July I took the route suggested by my friend the Gypsey though I soon went wrong and missed the lane to Enfield town and so found myself on the Enfield highway where