Sentence The Threehundredandtwenyfourth
Sitting across the table from them, Thomas had to admit to himself that this was no dream and he could not be ambivalent about it; he did not know what it was that was happening, but, just as he had adapted almost ten years ago to the sudden change in his life after the attack on him near Huntlie Burn, so he had again forced himself to accept that what he was now seeing and hearing and experiencing was the equivalent and just as real – something had gone badly wrong and though he seemed to have been taken to the same place, it was not in his own Time and he had been told that this was the year Two Thousand and Sixteen of Our Lord and he looked at Umm as she sat quietly beside him and, although he had no idea how she had come to be transported like him, he was impressed by the lack of fear in her eyes: she seemed able to accept whatever was happening to her, even if she didn't understand it, there was a dignity prevalent over other emotions in her bearing and he could see, from her quick eyes, that she was much more intelligent than she had ever seemed in The Cavern, where the female members of the group were always subservient to the men; here, he sensed, she would not be so submissive – it was as though she felt at ease and in some strange way, at home; the man who called himself Inspector Brevity (whatever that meant) introduced two older women, Historians, he said, as Daphne Dumbiedykes and Maude Lyttleton – which family names
were familiar to him from both the Borderlands and Edinburgh – and it was Mistress Lyttleton who spoke to him in a halting version of his own tongue, for which she apologised, having no native speakers to converse with and only learning it as a written language; she asked if he would be able to interpret for his friend, who visibly bridled: “ah've nae need fer ithers tae speak fer moi,” she said, in a voice which shocked the others in the room, Thomas included, into a stunned silence, “Ah'm Patience Scott o' Abbotsford an' ma Faither is Sir Walter, ye'll likely kenn'im, Inspector, as he's Sheriff o' Selkirk!” – in the ensuing chaos, when the two Professors sat stunned and Inspector Brevity ran out to make calls to his subordinates, his place being taken by an exceedingly piquant
WPC (as she informed Thomas and Miss Scott) Isa Urquhart, Thomas had gawped at the woman he had only known as Umm and she laughingly apologise to him for never taking him into her confidence, she then continued with her statement: “Ah wiz in thon Cavern for aboot twal year, but efter aboot three weeks ah stopped keepin' coont o the days, an Ah learned quick that weemin wis meant tae ken their place if they didnae want tae be ill-used; Ah resolved tae keep ma heid doon and jist thank The Lord an Oor Lady each nicht when Ah went tae sleep and each Morn when Ah woke up; ither fowk cam an went, some tae Heaven or Hell nae doot, an some jist went – there yin day an no the next; so Ah jist prayed Ah micht awaken in ma ain bed at Abbotsford, but it ne'er happened;” which was when Mistress Dumbiedykes asked her about her accident, when it had been thought she had drowned in the River (Tweed, she called it, to Thomas's surprise, as it was simply The Lang River in his time) and Patience said she had no recollection of anything after the ferry-boat overturned and she was plunged into the icy waters, only to wake in The Cavern surrounded by strangers; she knew the Cavern was in the Eildon Hills and was familiar with the lie of the land around, but her early explorations showed no signs of the habitations she was familiar with, which was when she decided her only course would be to live safely and comply with the order of life in the Caves occupied by the strange people who dressed in animal skins and foraged for food; “Ah wiz only twal' year auld when Ah wiz hauf-droont,” she said and the import of her story had a strange affect on Thomas, it was like a valence effect, in the way that it brought home to him that he – and she and all the others – had had their lives displaced by some exterior force and he doubted that he would ever see the faces of his loved ones again and it so impelled him, who had been a passive member of the Cave Clan for so long, to bang the table with his fists, which startled all but the imperturbable WPC and he spoke in a commanding voice which could have keelhauled anyone within earshot: “we cannae hae ony internecine fechtin' ower this: there's men an wimmen wha's lives hae been turned upside doon an inside oot be whitte'er forces ur afoot aboot here an we need tae help them if it's at all in oor pooer tae dae sae,” and Umm, or Patience as we must now think of her, looked at him with a new feeling of respect: here was the man of whom her father had written a wonderful poem and he had been in her vicinity for many years without her ever guessing that he was Thomas The Rhymer! my, what stories she would be able to tell her sisters and brothers if she ever met them again – and her dear Papa, of course: “fer ma pairt, ah've had enuff oafs treatin us wimmen disgracefully, abusin us wi sic vituperation as a fair maiden shouldnae ever hear, accusin us o natterin when oor cookin and cleanin an tendin wee bairns, an aw they ever dae is laze aboot the cavern spittin in the fire an discussin wha they're gonnie beat up next – the fowk fae up the valley, or thon yins doon the valley, an they jist flap their gums and never dae owt, ah'v seen whaur ye collect the food fae,” and she looked Thomas in the eye, and turned back to Isa, “he cries hissel 'The Hunter' like
he wis a big brave yin but he's nobbut a galoot, thinkin oo believe aw his stooshie – there's a big auld cairn up toap, wi a muckle stane that swings back an thon's whaur they get the food – av nae ken wha pits it there, it's probly when oor aw sleepin tight in the nicht-nooks – oh!” and she stopped suddenly, conscious of all eyes on her and Thomas, blushing to his roots at his role as provider being exposed for a sham and the others wondering who on Earth could be stocking up the cold-store for the Cavern Folk, “am sorry, am a richt gab an av had nae opportunity for mair years than ah cood coont; at first ah marked aff days an weeks like yon 7-barred gates oor Governess, Miss Proudie taught us, but efter several months ah gied up an jist lost track, an if ye think am yatterin on an on, well am makkin up fer lost time sae pray, ladies, forgive a lassie whae wiz a lost soul in a wilderness o wild aminals fer a noffy lang time an missed oot on her eddycashun, but ah Insist, if ye please, send word tae ma faither at yince, that am alive an well and wantin tae come hame FORTHWITH!” and Teri, watching through the two way mirror and hearing every word as it was relayed through the speakers, was fair impressed at how the young woman, who would no doubt scrub up nicely and prove to be hardly any
older than when she was lost, had managed to pack so much information into her speech, and was almost moved to applaud her and cry, “Bravo!”
Sitting across the table from them, Thomas had to admit to himself that this was no dream and he could not be ambivalent about it; he did not know what it was that was happening, but, just as he had adapted almost ten years ago to the sudden change in his life after the attack on him near Huntlie Burn, so he had again forced himself to accept that what he was now seeing and hearing and experiencing was the equivalent and just as real – something had gone badly wrong and though he seemed to have been taken to the same place, it was not in his own Time and he had been told that this was the year Two Thousand and Sixteen of Our Lord and he looked at Umm as she sat quietly beside him and, although he had no idea how she had come to be transported like him, he was impressed by the lack of fear in her eyes: she seemed able to accept whatever was happening to her, even if she didn't understand it, there was a dignity prevalent over other emotions in her bearing and he could see, from her quick eyes, that she was much more intelligent than she had ever seemed in The Cavern, where the female members of the group were always subservient to the men; here, he sensed, she would not be so submissive – it was as though she felt at ease and in some strange way, at home; the man who called himself Inspector Brevity (whatever that meant) introduced two older women, Historians, he said, as Daphne Dumbiedykes and Maude Lyttleton – which family names were familiar to him from both the Borderlands and Edinburgh – and it was Mistress Lyttleton who spoke to him in a halting version of his own tongue, for which she apologised, having no native speakers to converse with and only learning it as a written language; she asked if he would be able to interpret for his friend, who visibly bridled: “ah've nae need fer ithers tae speak fer moi,” she said, in a voice which shocked the others in the room, Thomas included, into a stunned silence, “Ah'm Patience Scott o' Abbotsford an' ma Faither is Sir Walter, ye'll likely kenn'im, Inspector, as he's Sheriff o' Selkirk!” – in the ensuing chaos, when the two Professors sat stunned and Inspector Brevity ran out to make calls to his subordinates, his place being taken by an exceedingly piquant WPC (as she informed Thomas and Miss Scott) Isa Urquhart, Thomas had gawped at the woman he had only known as Umm and she laughingly apologise to him for never taking him into her confidence, she then continued with her statement: “Ah wiz in thon Cavern for aboot twal year, but efter aboot three weeks ah stopped keepin' coont o the days, an Ah learned quick that weemin wis meant tae ken their place if they didnae want tae be ill-used; Ah resolved tae keep ma heid doon and jist thank The Lord an Oor Lady each nicht when Ah went tae sleep and each Morn when Ah woke up; ither fowk cam an went, some tae Heaven or Hell nae doot, an some jist went – there yin day an no the next; so Ah jist prayed Ah micht awaken in ma ain bed at Abbotsford, but it ne'er happened;” which was when Mistress Dumbiedykes asked her about her accident, when it had been thought she had drowned in the River (Tweed, she called it, to Thomas's surprise, as it was simply The Lang River in his time) and Patience said she had no recollection of anything after the ferry-boat overturned and she was plunged into the icy waters, only to wake in The Cavern surrounded by strangers; she knew the Cavern was in the Eildon Hills and was familiar with the lie of the land around, but her early explorations showed no signs of the habitations she was familiar with, which was when she decided her only course would be to live safely and comply with the order of life in the Caves occupied by the strange people who dressed in animal skins and foraged for food; “Ah wiz only twal' year auld when Ah wiz hauf-droont,” she said and the import of her story had a strange affect on Thomas, it was like a valence effect, in the way that it brought home to him that he – and she and all the others – had had their lives displaced by some exterior force and he doubted that he would ever see the faces of his loved ones again and it so impelled him, who had been a passive member of the Cave Clan for so long, to bang the table with his fists, which startled all but the imperturbable WPC and he spoke in a commanding voice which could have keelhauled anyone within earshot: “we cannae hae ony internecine fechtin' ower this: there's men an wimmen wha's lives hae been turned upside doon an inside oot be whitte'er forces ur afoot aboot here an we need tae help them if it's at all in oor pooer tae dae sae,” and Umm, or Patience as we must now think of her, looked at him with a new feeling of respect: here was the man of whom her father had written a wonderful poem and he had been in her vicinity for many years without her ever guessing that he was Thomas The Rhymer! my, what stories she would be able to tell her sisters and brothers if she ever met them again – and her dear Papa, of course: “fer ma pairt, ah've had enuff oafs treatin us wimmen disgracefully, abusin us wi sic vituperation as a fair maiden shouldnae ever hear, accusin us o natterin when oor cookin and cleanin an tendin wee bairns, an aw they ever dae is laze aboot the cavern spittin in the fire an discussin wha they're gonnie beat up next – the fowk fae up the valley, or thon yins doon the valley, an they jist flap their gums and never dae owt, ah'v seen whaur ye collect the food fae,” and she looked Thomas in the eye, and turned back to Isa, “he cries hissel 'The Hunter' like he wis a big brave yin but he's nobbut a galoot, thinkin oo believe aw his stooshie – there's a big auld cairn up toap, wi a muckle stane that swings back an thon's whaur they get the food – av nae ken wha pits it there, it's probly when oor aw sleepin tight in the nicht-nooks – oh!” and she stopped suddenly, conscious of all eyes on her and Thomas, blushing to his roots at his role as provider being exposed for a sham and the others wondering who on Earth could be stocking up the cold-store for the Cavern Folk, “am sorry, am a richt gab an av had nae opportunity for mair years than ah cood coont; at first ah marked aff days an weeks like yon 7-barred gates oor Governess, Miss Proudie taught us, but efter several months ah gied up an jist lost track, an if ye think am yatterin on an on, well am makkin up fer lost time sae pray, ladies, forgive a lassie whae wiz a lost soul in a wilderness o wild aminals fer a noffy lang time an missed oot on her eddycashun, but ah Insist, if ye please, send word tae ma faither at yince, that am alive an well and wantin tae come hame FORTHWITH!” and Teri, watching through the two way mirror and hearing every word as it was relayed through the speakers, was fair impressed at how the young woman, who would no doubt scrub up nicely and prove to be hardly any older than when she was lost, had managed to pack so much information into her speech, and was almost moved to applaud her and cry, “Bravo!”
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