The Emerald Swan by Jane Feather

corner, blowing horns, drumming on copper kettles.
    “Hell and the devil! We don’t want to get into the middle of that!” Gareth pulled the nag sharply to the side of the lane until they were pressed up against the hedgerow.
    “What? What is it?” The banging and shrieking was now coming from just around the corner on the heels of the group of music makers, prancing and bellowing as they approached the crossroads.
    “The ride to rough music, if I’m not mistaken,” Gareth said with a grim smile.
    Miranda stared openmouthed as a procession emerged from the corner. An old man wearing only a pair of ragged drawers and a stained leather jerkin led the way on a donkey. On his head he wore a pair of paper horns and he blew on a tin whistle. Behind him pranced an old crone, kicking up her heels in a parody of a dance as she drummed with a wooden clog on a copper kettle slung around her neck. Behind her, brandishing a horsewhip and waving a scarlet petticoat, rode a man on a packhorse. He was blowing on a ram’s horn, great bellows that sounded as pained as a gelded bull’s.
    Behind them came an ass with two riders tied back to back. A woman rode facing front, her large moon-round face scarlet, her eyes curiously blank. Behind herfacing the animal’s rump was a small man, very pale, his eyes frightened. The woman carried a wooden ladle with which she was beating the man around the head over her shoulders as he desperately plied the spindle and distaff he carried.
    A group of men and women armed with clubs and staves marched beside the ass, encouraging the riders to keep at their appointed tasks with yells and insults and threatening gestures of their sticks.
    The entire countryside seemed to be following in the wake of this strange procession, all making some kind of noise with whatever household object or musical instrument they’d managed to grab when they’d answered the call to the ride to rough music.
    “What does it mean?” Miranda asked again, when the tail end of the procession had turned onto the road ahead of them.
    Gareth’s smile was still grim. “It’s a country practice, otherwise known as a skimmington. When a man allows his wife the mastery, his neighbors are inclined to take exception. A man who is henpecked sets a bad example in the countryside and his neighbors have their own way of expressing their disapproval. As you just saw.”
    “But perhaps that man and his wife manage best if she holds the household reins,” Miranda pointed out with a frown. “Perhaps she has the stronger character and is better at running things than he is.”
    “Such heresy, Miranda!” Gareth declared in mock horror. “You know your Scripture? The man is God’s representative around his own hearth. You’ll receive a rough hearing in this country if you hold to any other ideas.”
    “But perhaps he’s a bad provider,” she persisted.
    “Perhaps he drinks and she has to take charge for the children’s sake. Not that he looked as if he drank overmuch,” she added consideringly. “He was very pale and I’ve noticed that most drunkards are red and have swollen noses.”
    “A woman’s lot is to pay due obeisance to her lord and master and put up with whatever hand he deals her,” Gareth said solemnly. “It’s the law of the land, dear girl, just as much as it’s the law of the church.”
    Miranda wasn’t entirely sure whether he was serious or not. “You said your brother-in-law is henpecked. Would you have him and your sister take the ride to rough music?”
    Gareth chuckled. “Many’s the time I’ve wished Miles had a strong arm and wasn’t afraid to use it. And there are many times when I’d dearly love to see my sister pay the price for a shrew’s tongue.”
    “Truly?”
    Gareth shook his head. “No, not truly. There’s something utterly disgusting about a skimmington. But I
would
truly wish to see my brother-in-law stand up for himself once in a while.”
    The procession was far enough