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

did not look back & saw no one they came from and so on I went in way of Peterborough and my Home beyond across the summer meadows   I am sat once more about this Journal neath the portico of All Saints on the steps here and I can see down the hill of Gold street where the money lenders have their place & past the Mare fair & Saint Peters spire to where the castle’s piteous ruin stands down near the bridge such as it stands at all — after I came to Town by the Dern Gate a little after noon I walked about a while & finding it to be a Market day resolvd to make a visit to that place not far up Drum Lane from the church where I now sit & scribble   in the sunlight all the traders made a cheerful scene with many varied stripes and colours in their awnings and the fruits and bales of bright new linen on display & I wish now I might recall the half of all the things they cried   the shops and houses that are built around the Market square are for the most part new & raised up since the great fire that they Had here when the square was ringed with flame & all the townsfolk made escape by going through the front door of the Welsh house where they pay the drovers come from Wales then got to safety out the back   there is a fine old coach Inn stood upon the square three hundred years now where black tongues of soot may still be seen that lick across the old rubbd stone & I thank God for his great Providence in saving all who were not burnt that day — after a while when I grew weary of the markets bustle I came to the graveyard at the back side of this church and walked amongst the stones a time   I found a marker for Mat Seyzinger the famous coachman on the Nottingham Times who I saw once & who in his day had a great following — there are not people such as once there were neither do folk now have the humour or the depth of character that they had then — Jem Welby overturned his coach before this very church and when asked to explain he said that He had tipped his passengers out in the road to count them No doubt now hed be thought Mad & put away as I myself shall be   Got up to the asylum on the Billing road not long before I heard the Bells chime three o clock where I am sat now by the gate — On my Way here my thoughts were Mary this & Mary that & nothing else but Mary In my fancy I have scolded her for having been so long apart from me & then have begged her to be kind and to forgive me so confused am I in all my feelings   are they right that say we were not Wed — it can not be for I remember on that day we walked down by the brook did She & I and there was all made right & we were married before God   I kneeled with her beneath the Hawthorns canopy where came a very greenish light & said There now this is our Church   why do they try to keep me from Her and tell me such Stories that it is small wonder if I am made Mad O Mary mary why will you not see me for now I am no where unless in Despair   when I walked here from Essex lame & dizzy in the head for want of food through Peterborough I came next to Walton & then Werrington and was upon the highway with my First Wife’s home not far ahead so that my heart was light & when I saw a cart that came towards me with a man a woman & a boy in it I thought nought of it yet when it drew close to me it stopped   at this the woman jumps down from the cart & tries to get me into it with her saying O John john dont you know me But I did not know her and so thought her drunk or mad as I — but then the man sat with her says Why john this is your wife & so I looked agen and it was Patty and our son young Charles beside her — though it frightend me I had not known her I was filled with Joy to think I had one Wife with me again and so might soon have two & thus I bade them take me on to Northborough that I should be by Marys side   we were soon in the sight of Glinton church but Mary was not there neither coud I get any information about her further then the old story of her being dead six years ago but I woud take no notice of this blarney for was it not one year since the broadsheets said that I myself were dead and lying in my grave   or were they right & this is Hell   I beat upon her neighbors doors & said I thought that She was here at which they said Well you thought wrong like Hobs Hog & and they shut me out — I sat upon the step of Marys cott in Northborough & cried while Patty & our son looked on and Said come away John cant you see shes not here — I picked a pebble up from off the path that once perhaps her tender foot had brushed & set it in my mouth & all was lost and Patty got me to the cart   On the way to our house