North Yorkshire Folk Tales Read Online Free PDF Page B

when they were off duty, they tried to locate the sound of the drum again, wandering about the ancient town, pressing their ears to walls or the ground. Folk stared at them, but they did not care. Every so often, they would hear a rat-tat-tat, always in a different place, as though the boy were wandering round and round. Now it was right next to the castle, now near the town gate or beneath the Buck Inn. Fred sneaked back down to the cellars and shouted himself hoarse down the narrow hole into which the poor lad had disappeared, but there was no response.
    The soldiers tried the next day and the next. The drumming, when they caught the sound of it, seemed still to continue as strongly as before. It was as though Georgie needed no rest. Day after day, they pursued the sound, quite prepared to try digging him out if only he would stop, but he never ceased to beat or to move forward. Georgie the drummer boy was never seen again by anyone in Richmond, nor by his distraught family in Swaledale.
    As the years went by, local folk would hear the sound of the drum from time to time and would put their fingers in their ears as their blood ran cold; surely, the poor little lad must have died of hunger and thirst long ago? It is said that even now on still winter evenings, when the shops are shut and all the visitors and their cars have gone home, you may hear, deep beneath you feet, the sound of a lonely drum playing the Advance: rat-tat-tat ta -tat rat-tat-tat, as Georgie continues his solitary march …
L AME H AVERAH
Knaresborough
    Long before the Paralympic games, disabled people had to develop great physical skill and stamina just to survive. With only simple aids, such as crutches, they had to find work, or beg, or starve. There were few alternatives, for life was very hard. It is not surprising, therefore, that when Lame Haverah of Knaresborough met John of Gaunt by chance he grasped his opportunity with both hands.

    John was Duke of Lancaster, and among his many other possessions, owned the Forest of Knaresborough. One windy autumn day when he was hunting there with his men, he came across Lame Haverah hopping along on his crutches. Almost automatically, the duke stopped to give alms to the poor man, but to his surprise Haverah seized his outstretched hand and, kneeling on the ground, begged him for a boon. The huntsmen moved to drive off this upstart, but Duke John stopped them.
    ‘What is it you want? If it is in my power I will grant it,’ he said, thinking that it would be some small thing – food, perhaps – suitable to what he imagined were the needs of a poor cripple. He was taken aback when the young man said, ‘Grant me some land, my lord!’
    The duke’s men shook their heads and murmured at this effrontery, but the sheer nerve of the man amused the great lord.
    ‘What is your name?’
    ‘Haverah, if it please you, my lord.’
    ‘Very well, Haverah,’ said Lord John. ‘Listen to what I vow! I, John of Gaunt, Do give and grant, To thee Haverah, As much of my ground, As thou canst hop around, In a long summer’s day! Next St Bartholomew’s Day I will return and we shall see how well you can hop!’ Lord John said, whilst thinking to himself that ‘He’ll at least get enough for a little house and vegetable plot, and we’ll all have a good laugh at his antics as well!’
    Haverah thanked him effusively with tears in his eyes and hopped away to plan how to make the most of his good fortune.
    There were no gyms or personal trainers in those days (at least not for anyone lower than the rank of knight), but in the months that followed Haverah tried as hard as he could to prepare himself for the ordeal. His wooden crutches were just a stick of wood and a rough crosspiece to fit under his shoulder. The crutches gave him blisters on his hands and in his armpits. Haverah scoured the forest for two branches that forked comfortably at the end and wadded them well with sheep’s wool gathered from the hedges and made