8

He jumped from the bed, staring out of the window, but could see nothing in the darkness. No sign of anyone or of what could have made the crashing sound. With his nose pressed against the glass, he tried to see whether Cornelius had fallen, or something, but, no matter where he looked, he could only see deep shadows and vague edges of things. He had no option, but to investigate in person.

Dashing downstairs, Audrey still not stirring upon his bed, he dragged his Wellington boots onto his feet, then took them off again and put them on the correct feet. Heading towards the door, he paused. He had no idea what awaited him out there in the dark. Passing memories of Beauregard Trimble mentioning rampaging city folk made him reconsider his actions.

With a shake of the head, he threw away those fears. Beauregard had only passed on gossip. There were no 'city folk' that would come to Little Plimpton in the middle of the night to cause mischief, let alone the sounds of havoc. Or as close to havoc as they had ever had in the village. He felt foolish even considering the idea. Still, his hand fell upon the walking stick he used when taking walks on Summer days, gripping it like a sword, before opening his back door and edging outside.

He still could see very little as he walked, hunch-backed towards the wall that partitioned his garden from his neighbour's. He didn't see any movements at all and began to wonder if he had imagined the noise after all. Making sure he followed the paths through his carefully arranged flower plots, he came to the dry stone wall and stopped.

Someone, or something, had knocked over a section of the wall, the stones tumbled into both gardens, but mostly into Cornelius'. As though someone had attempted to climb over from Humphrey's side. His head whipped around to his own garden, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Like a fool, he decided to investigate Cornelius' side of the gaping divide, stepping over the pile of fallen stones. He didn't want to believe it, didn't want to think that the old woman had followed through with her threat of escalation on his behalf, but a cold gnawing and knotting in his stomach began to discomfort him as he neared the area where he knew Cornelius' carrots sat, steadily growing.

It looked as though someone had used a motorised rotavator. The ground had become tilled and turned, soil lifted and separated and, there, among the soil, he saw the remains of the carrots. Dashed. Broken. Crushed. Utterly destroyed and ruined. Humphrey felt his hand rise to his mouth in horror.

She had done it. She had really done it! He didn't know how, but Ursula had taken it upon herself to ruin Cornelius' entire crop. A crop that, with a quick glance, Humphrey knew would have taken that first prize at the Harvest Festival with little competition. Even at this early stage of growth, the carrots, had they remained whole and undisturbed, would have looked magnificent.

Feeling numb, Humphrey moved through the devastation of the carrot crop, his boots squelching as they fell upon poor, maimed carrots. He heard muffled cracks as he stood upon those that still had some body to them. With his walking stick, he pushed some of the carrots around, trying to imagine how Ursula had performed this dastardly deed, but he could not imagine.

In a crouch, he picked up one, ruined carrot, holding what remained by the leaf and stem, the pale remains of the taproot swinging before his eyes. He could do nothing but feel a great sympathy for Cornelius. Even after the beheading of Humphrey's begonias, he still felt a deep sorrow and regret for his neighbour. He didn't deserve this.

"What have you done?" A light blazed out across the garden, resting upon Humphrey as he crouched. "What have you done?"

Humphrey jumped to his feet at the yell from Cornelius. Almost a scream. He tossed the damaged carrot he held behind him and tried to look as innocent as his true innocence could allow. He realised he had made a mistake, entering Cornelius' garden. Something he would regret for a very long time.

"This isn't what it looks like, Cornelius! I promise!" He stepped forward to plead his case and cringed as his boots crushed more carrots, the squelches and cracks reverberating in the night air. "I heard a noise. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright."

Cornelius said nothing. In pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers, he moved forward as though in a trance, eyes roving across his ruined carrot crop. The powerful torch passed across each of the rows, bringing the destruction into sharp focus. The carrots laying in the ravaged soil like soldiers on a terrible, orange, green and brown battlefield.

In a daze, Cornelius fell to his knees, reaching out towards his carrots, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, lips trembling. As his fingers neared a carrot, crushed and slashed, they hesitated, drawing back. Then Cornelius threw back his head, a haunting, mournful howl escaping his lips, turning into an extended 'No!' that Humphrey felt was a little much for a bunch of carrots.

After several, uncomfortable, seconds in which Humphrey wondered if he should walk, slowly and deliberately back to his own garden, Cornelius turned his gaze back towards him. Humphrey had never seen such hatred portrayed by a quivering, spittle-flecked, teeth-bared face. Now he definitely felt as though he should step away. Take several steps back. He felt thankful that Cornelius hadn't brought his air rifle out with him.

"You! You vandal! You thug! You damned defiler!" Cornelius made a shaky rise to his feet and glared at Humphrey. "You hooligan! Blackguard! You foul, despicable, evil destroyer!

"I say, now, steady on!" With every step Cornelius made forward, Humphrey made one backwards. "I'm telling you, I didn't do it."

Several more lights began to fall upon Humphrey as people began to appear, brought out of their homes and their sleeps by Cornelius' howling over-reaction. Humphrey felt like a prisoner awaiting a verdict as he began to hear the murmurs and whispers that passed among the gathering crowd. It seemed clear that, to those people, he certainly looked guilty. He glanced down at his carrot flesh covered boots and the end of his walking stick, that had a piece of carrot stuck to it.

"You have some guts. I'll give you that." Cornelius flashed his torch into Humphrey's face as he stalked him. "Coming to my door and telling me! Threatening me and my carrots. I was happy, you know? I'd made my point, retaliated in a moderate fashion. We could have called it quits at that. We'd both suffered. But this ...?"

The torchlight fanned across the scene of root vegetable slaughter. All the other torches followed suit, panning across the carrot beds, gasps of shock accompanying the movement of the light. Then all the lights converged back onto Humphrey. He'd taken the opportunity of the lights passing from him to toss his walking stick into his own garden, rub his boots on clean ground and step back over the fallen dry stone wall. It didn't make him look any more innocent.

He considered pleading with the assembled crowd, appealing to their rational natures. They knew him. He had lived in this village his entire life, as many of those watching had. He had spent time with almost all of them and he had felt certain they knew what kind of a man he was. The kind of man that would never, in his wildest nightmares, ever do such a thing as this.

He was nice! He was friendly! Yet, as he looked out around the gathered faces, shadowed by the light from their combined torches, he could see no-one willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and that made him angry. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt angry. It felt both quite good and quite sickening at the same time.

Mildly annoyed. That he had felt often. Peeved. Frustrated. Pushed to utter a 'tut' or an exasperated sigh. Yes. But anger? He hadn't felt that in years. Not since the phone company had insisted that he had called Australia for twelve hours, despite the fact that he had not phoned anybody outside of the village for a long time. That was anger.

This was also anger. Boiling, white-hot anger that no-one appeared to believe him. He felt his hands curl into fists. He wasn't even certain he remembered how to make fists, but, there they were. Fingers curled. Knuckles expressed. He scowled towards Cornelius and that caused his neighbour to stop his stalking, eyes widening at Humphrey's change in demeanour.

"I told you I didn't do it!" He hissed those words through tight-gritted teeth, his eyes bearing down upon his neighbour. "How dare you think I would! How dare any of you think I could! I'm a good person! I could never do this, but, no, you all think the worst of me, even after all these years. How could you?"

"No. No!" Cornelius shook himself, giving a little cough. He wasn't about to let Humphrey's anger derail his own. "This will not go unanswered! You kill one of my carrots, I kill ten of your flowers. You use a spade on my garden, I use a JCB on yours. This is not over! I will have my revenge!"

With one, final, sorrow-filled glance towards his dug-up plot of carrot remains, Cornelius sniffed and turned away, striding back towards his cottage. Though Humphrey noticed the glance over the wall towards Humphrey's flower beds. This was not about to end any time soon.

As Cornelius left the battleground, the rest of the villagers began to wander away, back to their own homes, to gossip among themselves, or to make some hot cocoa because they were up, now, so they might as well stay up. Though they'd regret it by mid-afternoon. That left Humphrey alone once again in the dark. Almost alone.

"Oh, Humphrey, old boy!" Audrey had joined him. Far too late to argue his side, to tell everyone that she had been with him the whole night. "What have you done?"

Humphrey's shoulders slumped. If even Audrey didn't believe him, especially as she had slept in the same room as him for the last few hours, how could he expect anyone to believe him.

He almost didn't believe himself, now.