part 3


Gimphor finished tamping his pipe and paused to set the leaf to light, drawing lightly on the stem until the bowl glowed cherry red.
“Three days later the yard marshaled out again, and two weeks after that we humped back in, it went on loike this for three quarters of the season, in and out below Keel's stickling eye and bobbing hand, through the full winter, planting, tending, and right on into Harvest time next.”
A slow smile crept over Gimphor's face, “Then one day four men wearing the Guild bosses livery trotted in ahorse, rode in the gate while us vanners was slogging out. Caused a good bit of confusion it did, but Old Man Keel payed them no mind, he just kept on tallying loads going out, by our numbers, you know.”
“Yes”, slurred Tab, a good swig of Castellar swirling about his mouth, “on your carter's cap.”
“Vanner's, carter's gots a brim” said Gimphor tapping his head, totally unaware that his cap, which he had worn for most of his life, now sat squarely under the foot of a burly Thanelander, soaked in warm piddle. “Caps, hmmm, well in a short bit, them liveried men are yelling up at Keel, he's ignoring the lot of them, hand just a bobbin above his naahhhhggggin” Gimphor blew out a large smoke ring and giggled, as did Tab.
“Them four start jostling their horses about, horses which didn't like the press of carter's nags around them one bit, and they git all skittish and set to rearing up. This sent vanners and carters slogging every which way, in and out the gate”.

“That's when I, and most others, new something weren't roight, you never went back in Keel's gate once he tallied you out, not 'til after you had delivered your load and humped another back.... Now there was vanners and carters either scrambling to git away from the horses, or staring up at Keel, his hand high over his head, bobbing away as always.....”

“Odd, most odd” intoned Tab, his hand fluttering above his head mimicking how he imagined Keel looked on his perch, no matter the weather.

“Dead odd” intoned Gimphor, mimicking Tab, mimicking Keel. “And that whats he was, dead, dead as you can git after most of a year perched out in Fentor weather, from the first snowfall to the next years harvest.”
“You say not” exclaimed Tab, his hand quickly dropping to the table to lift his glass, fully aware of the fact that mimicking the dead be number three of the unlucky nine sins. “Dead, all that time!”
“Yup” replied Gimphor, suddenly realizing that his hand still bobbed above him, so he batted at a ribbon of smoke quickly and then reached for his Castellar. “ Seems them liveried riders came half way cross Ansium, from the boss hisself, cause Keel's tally sheets stopped being delivered, last one they got was from the inbound hump before the snow storm I telled you of, or did I.”
“Hmm,” mused Tab for a moment, “I do believe you did.”
“Roight, then” said Gimphor as he tried to regain the thread of his tale, “oh yes. Any way, one of those horsemen sent a carter climbing up the ladder to Keel, to have a looksie, you know, but he didn't pick a very smart one, twere 'ol Onecup. So this carter clambers up and has a look about, pokes Keel a bit, and then another look, so the horsemen yells up “Well, is he dead?”
“Who” old Bertie Onecup yells back.
“KEEL” the horsemen bellows up.
“OVER DEAD” Bertie bellows down, and then he piddled off of the perch onto the horsemen below....

Tab guffawed loudly, fine Castellar spraying the table, Moikel poked his head in the leaf room door, shook it and disappeared.
“Ahhh, Gimphor, you've had me boot this whole time, haven't you now”
“What you mean, Tab,” Gimphor replied, positive he had not taken Tab's boot, ever.
“KEEL OVER DEAD, that's grand, and then he piddled on the liveried men and their horses, grand I say. As a keep, I've heard a tale or two, but never one loike that, I had no idea it was a boot pull 'til the very end.”
“What's a boot pull? You've got me fuddled, Tab”
“Why it's a joke, a tall tale designed to draw the listener in, to make them think it is true, until the very end, and then you “pull the boot”, or yank their leg, I think it is called in the outland, Gimphor, where perhaps all are bootless.”
“It ain't no tall tale, Tab, it's true, any carter out there”, Gimphor waved his hand at the door, taking great pains that it did not bob in the least bit, “ will tell you the same, it's as true as them stumbling corpses I seen today, I swear it!”
The smile slipped from Tab's face and he set his pipe and glass to the table. “Yes, those, Gimphor,” Tab looked deep into Gimphor's eyes.. “I believe you Gimphor, I do, that you saw corpses walk, and Keel was dead, all that time...”
“Tamp your pipe afresh, my friend, and refill your glass, and I will tell you a tell , it will have no ending loike yours, I assure you, its the Tell of the Mid-Tending Hop ....

At the hop....at the hop...


Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah
Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop!

Well, you can rock it you can roll it
You can slop and you can stroll it at the hop

DANNY AND THE JUNIORS

More to come, as old Horsehair wants a tell of dancing skeletons, bahhing like sopped sheep interrupting a festival.....and so we shall search one out in the dusty annals of West Fentor.

SeerBlue