Mr. Pan, the village shepherd, brought his flock of black faced Shropshire sheep in from the hills so that they could eat the stubble left over from the harvest.
Farmer Underwood, Leo's neighbor, plowed his fields for the next year's wheat and winter barley crops. He was a gangly young man with a scraggly little beard and messy brown curls peaking out from under his floppy farmer's hat. The two English longhorn oxen who pulled his plow were called Arthur and Lancelot and Leo often heard him shout directions to them as he dug furrows into the earth.
The Underwood farm was next door to the Leo's forge. Their house was a good sized building with a stone ground story, a timber framed lower story, a thatched roof, and brick chimneys. Mrs. Underwood's garden was enclosed by a rough stone wall. Both the house and the wall were overgrown with ivy.
The closest part of the farm to the forge was the pigsty. On hot, dry, and windy days, Leo usually got the worst of the stink but he often chatted and shared a pipe with Farmer Underwood whenever he came to bring slops to the Tamworth pigs and muck their sty.
That afternoon, Leo could smell the bread that Mrs. Underwood was baking and it made his stomach let out a hollow rumble.
Widow Pomona sent over a boy to fetch Festus, Leo's black pony, who was to help carry baskets of apples in from her orchard.
Leo had agreed to lend Festus to Widow Pomona in exchanged for a barrel of apples and a flagon of cider for each day that they needed him.
Women and girls walked past the forge, carrying baskets filled with sloes, damsons, and crab apples- fruits which were in season. Occasionally, a man would walk by carrying some dead pigeons. Autumn was a popular time for pigeon shooting since shooting the pigeons was a necessary pro-caution to keep the newly planted seed corn from being eaten. Shooting these pigeons was technically illegal since the common land had been enclosed twenty years earlier, putting it solely in the control of the big land owners and excluding the local rustics from using it, as they had the right to do for centuries. A hunter hoping to bring back a few pigeons or rabbits for his family would have to be careful; poaching was considered as serious a crime as murder, if not more. The farmers and laborers of Skye-on-Styx grumbled that the foxes and pheasants His Grace, the Duke and the other landowners hunted for sport had more rights than they did. The landowners had the right to sit on their fat arses and occasionally kill all of game in the forests so they could gorge themselves at their lavish dinner parties and hang trophies on their walls. They on the other hand, had the right to grovel for their leftovers and starve.
Mrs. Juniper Underwood dropped by around tea time. She was a pretty, red-headed lass with delicate, elvish features and was dressed in a mustard yellow and a dark green skirt. Her apron was bright green and her fichu was cream colored and striped. A black ribbon was tied around neck and a ruffled cap held back her strawberry blonde hair.
"Good evening, Leo," she said, "I've brought by some bread I've baked today to thank you for fixing the blade on our plow."
"Thank you," Leo replied, "I've been smelling them baking all day and it has been driving me crazy."
He took the basket from her. It contained several loaves of bread wrapped up white cloth napkins.
"Give your father my best."
"I will."
"Grover bought an old ewe from Mr. Pan. He's going to slaughter it this week and I'm planning on cooking up a big feast to serve after the meeting on Sunday. You and your father are invited."
The Underwoods were Methodists and attended the Wesleyan meetings which took place at the parish Church following Sunday services. Leo sometimes joined them because he liked the group who showed up at these meetings and there was good food after them.
Leo woke up early on Sunday morning, washed up, and put on his best suit. With his father hobbling on his crutch behind him, he made his way to Saint Agnes, the parish church.
Saint Agnes had been built in the twelfth-century from grayish beige sandstone with a slate shingled roof. A tall steeple with a pointed spire stood at the front of the nave. To reach the entrance, the parishioners crossed through a grave yard lined with evergreen pines and dogwood bushes.
The interior was typical of most Anglican churches: white washed walls, two rows of bulky wooden pews, and a vaulted ceiling. Above the altar was a stained glass window depicting the martyrdom of Saint Agnes.
Leo and his father sat down in their pew towards the back of the pew.
Right before the service began, two young gentlemen and two young ladies entered the church. All four of them were well dressed and handsome. The two young men were both dark-haired; one was tall and wiry with green eyes, the other was small and delicate with deep brown eyes. Leo recognized one of the ladies as the lovely Miss Levesque, whose horse he had the pleasure of re shoeing. She wore a light green round gown tied with a black sash, and a white, ruffled fichu decorated with a black bow. Her black hat was adorned with green and white feathers.
The other lady was a tall blonde with a cool, haughty, imperious style of beauty.
Leo figured that they were His Grace's guests, come down from Skye Castle. His Grace and his family were papists and attended mass at their own private chapel.
The Reverend Chiron Bruner ascended to the pulpit. He was a tall middle-aged man of about eight and forty, dressed in the grey wig, black robes, and white collar of a clergyman. His face was lined and intelligent with wise, kindly eyes.
The theme of that Sunday's sermon was giving thanks for a successful harvest and based around Mathew 6:25-32.
"Therefore I say unto you," Reverend Bruner began in his deep and powerful yet gentle voice, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."
Reverend Bruner reminded his flock to be thankful for the bounty that the Lord had seen fit to give them and to trust that the Lord would always provide for them. He quoted James 2:17 (" Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning") and Acts 14:17 ("Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness").
Leo noticed that Miss Levesque was reading along in her bible and looked like a vision of piety and innocence. The people in the nearby pews cast glances in her direction. Some of them even stared at her as if she were a fairground attraction. Leo imagined that her's was the first black face they had ever seen. Perhaps the men were also admiring her beauty.
"Mr. Valdez," she called to him as they were both walking out of the church.
"Miss Levesque," he gave her a slight bow.
"Mr. Valdez is the blacksmith who changed Arion's shoe when he lost it," she explained to her companions.
"It was my pleasure."
Leo took Miss Levesque's hand and kissed it. Gentlemen in novels did that when they greeted ladies and he had always wanted to try it.
"Thank you for looking after our Miss Levesque," the tall blonde added, "She is a precious pearl."
A black pearl, Leo thought, the rarest and most beautiful of pearls. He had only ever seen black pearls once before. Her Grace, the Duchess, had worn a string of them when she drove her high phaeton perch carriage past his forge. The pearls shone and glowed in the sun; a dazzling effect when set against Her Grace's milk white throat. Looking at Miss Levesque reminded him of this image.
"If your horse ever looses a shoe again," he continued, "You know where to find me," he dipped another bow, "Good day, Miss Levesque."
Leo walked back to the pew where his father was seated.
"I'd heard His Grace and Her Grace were hosting Di Angelo's famous mulatto," his father told him, "I didn't know you knew her."
"She was the lady whose horseshoe I changed last week."
"That little Hottentot Venus certainly is a looker."
A/N "Hottentot Venus" was a period term for black women at this time and encapsulates the racism and sexism with which they were viewed: as highly sexualized and animalistic; freakish objects to be treated as sub human.
Leo felt uncomfortable with the term "Hottentot Venus." It made Miss Levesque sound like a savage when she was just as much of a lady as her pale, blonde companion.
"She's an angel."
The Methodist meeting took place in the church yard since the weather was beautiful that day: sunny and golden with a pleasantly crisp breeze. Technically, Saint Agnes Church was not allowed to let the Methodists have their meetings on the premise because they were seen as dangerous subversives but Reverend Bruner said that anyone who wished to worship God was welcome in his church.
A/N Methodism started as a movement within the Anglican Church during the 18th century and was popular with working class people and was seen as dangerous and subversive by the elites.
Grover and Juniper Underwood invited their friends among the connection over for dinner after the meeting. Several tables were lined up along the length of their farmhouse from the front door to the back door. Every chair in the house was placed along the table. The best beeswax candles were used to illuminate the dining room.
Juniper had spent all week cooking the meal. There was fresh baked bread with butter and damson jam.
Boiled mutton from the sheep that Grover had bought from Mr. Pan and roasted pigeons were served as the main course.
"I didn't poach them," Grover insisted, referring to the pigeons, "They flew onto my property and I shot them to protect my wheat and barley crops."
Dessert consisted of apple fritters and pickled crab apples.
Grover asked that his guests give a round of applause to Widow Pomona, who had provided the apples, a notion that was heartily taken up by the rest of the party, who were high spirited after a drinking generous amounts of cider and sloe gin.
"A song, a song!" they shouted at Juniper, who was known for having a sweet singing voice.
"I have no voice," she insisted.
"Sing, Sing, Sing," they chanted until Juniper relented and stood up at her end of the table. The applause died down and she began to sing:
"Come all you fair, and tender girls, that flourish in your prime. Beware, beware, keep your garden fair. Let no man steal your thyme."
Grover joined in and accompanied his wife on the flute.
"For when your time, it is past and gone, he'll care no more for you. And every place where your time was waste, will all spread o'er with rue, will all spread o'er with rue."
Mr. Pan strummed the notes of the song on his mandolin.
"The gardener's son was standing by. Three flowers he gave to me. The pink, the blue, and the violet true. And the red, red rosy tree, and the red, red rosy tree."
Widow Pomona's low, husky voice harmonized with Juniper's high, sweet voice.
"But I refused the red rose bush and gained the willow tree that all the world may plainly see how my love slighted me, how my love slighted me."
Juniper looked lovely in the flickering candlelight and her voice resonated like the cheerful chirping of a songbird. Every man in the room was smitten with her.
"Sweet voice and a good cook," Hephaestus whispered to his son, taking his pipe out of his mouth and blowing a ring of smoke, "I hope someday you'll bring home a girl like that."
Leo lit his own pipe and breathed in tobacco smoke.
"That depends on me finding a girl who'll say yes to me," he quipped, "I don't see why any young lady in her right mind would."