Mister Henry & Zelamir

The Village II:
The Annual Pony Boy Race

Chapters 14-15

Chapter 14

He glanced down at the top of Nicky's fair head, feeling the gentle tug of the boy's lips as he sucked the lumps of congealed filth from his pubic hair. Everything about the world seemed to him at that moment to be right. He was satisfied and happy. The slut kneeling between his knees, face buried in his crutch, was no doubt finding fulfilment and release in his service. How well things were organised in the Vale, Mark reflected, just by allowing nature to take its course, the strong to dominate the weak, the weak to serve the strong. That was the natural order of things and it worked.

But he must not forget that with the privileges that with strength came duties, above all the obligation to instruct the weak in their duties of obedience and submission. He reached out and stroked the boy's blond hair.

"You see Nicky," he said gently, "it is much better this way. Trying to be what you are not will never work or bring you happiness. Happiness for you and your like lies in service and you must be grateful to me for showing you the way."

Nicky did not pause in his work but took refuge in an indistinct murmur that could be taken as expressive of acquiescence and gratitude. It was enough for Mark. He did not expect the brat to really understand what he was saying. Charity boys it was well known were of limited intelligence, feeling rather than thinking, but some part of it might lodge in Nicky's head and in time be absorbed.

Mark settled back in his chair gently toying with Nicky's ears as the lad licked and sucked his genitals clean. Eventually the boy withdrew his face from his crutch and hunkering back on his haunches looked nervously up into Mark's face.

"That'll pass," Mark announced after a quick check.

Relief flooded the boy's bruised and bloodied face. Nicky made a move to wipe away the shit and other filth that smeared about his lips and nose with the back of his hand but Mark knocked it impatiently away. He wanted the boy, when he took him back to his mother, to bear clear evidence of his shame so that there could be no argument as to what his future should be.

He did not explain this to Nicky. You did not explain things to pauper brats. You just told them what to do and hit them if they were disobedient or slow.

Mark took his time dressing. There was no hurry. From the sounds coming from the marquee the party was going well and Nicky would only benefit from being given time to appreciate the depth of his humiliation and for the terror to build up inside him. Judging from the occasional sob that came from the brat he seemed to have a realistic view of what his future held.

Once dressed, Mark walked slowly round the boy as he knelt naked and trembling at his feet. He made, Mark reflected, a pleasingly abject spectacle.

He didn't bother to speak to the boy. Just kicked him sharply in the bottom before turning away and walking into the marquee, confident the slut would follow.

Nobody at first noticed his entrance and he had time to look around. Stefan's flogging had clearly long since ceased. He was back on the floor, bravely trying to smile, while being fussed over by his father. By the rope from which Stefan had been hung while he was being whipped, Jack Wardle, obviously in high good humour, was busy kneading oil into the skin of a naked serving boy. Mark noticed that, though Jack was cheerful, the brat's face was twisted in a comical expression of distress. He assumed that Jack had decided to follow Oblonsky's suggestion of having a charity brat oiled and flogged. It was typical of the generous good-hearted host that he was that he should take up the hint so quickly and choose to provide his guests with such a novel and entertaining spectacle.

If Jack was a jovial host his sister-in-law was a conscientious hostess. She kept a discrete eye but eagle-eye on all around her; not least the serving boys. Anne Wardle stood in the midst of the crowd, chatting animatedly all the time checking that the brats kept the guests glasses filled and carried round the trays heaped with smoked salmon sandwiches, prawn vol-au-vonts and a myriad other delicacies. It was her boast that despite the brats being half starved and, as everybody knew born thieves, very little of the food went astray. It showed what could be achieved through vigilance and strict discipline. Even the hungriest and stupidest, and they were all very stupid, of charity brat would hesitate before stealing food if it knew the chances were that if it did it would find itself being sent to Mrs Thomas to have its lips sown up.

Quite soon Mark caught Anne's eye. She half smiled and then frowned in anger as she spotted Nicky standing behind him.

"Mark," she said furiously, "I am used to Jack bringing filth like that grubby little brute into the place but I had expected better from you."

The recognition lightened her face.

"Good God it's Nicky," she exclaimed.

"Yes I am afraid it is," Mark replied regretfully. "I am afraid the boy has been masquerading as something he is not."

"Nicky," Mary Roberts screamed obviously, as any right feeling mother would be, enraged at her son's dishonest and presumptuous behaviour. "You have deceived me and your step-father and abused the hospitality of Mister Wardle. Making out you're a normal boy when you are nothing more than a stinking piece of carrion."

As she spoke she snatched a heavy plate loaded with sandwiches from the hands of a serving brat. Brushing past Mark she advanced on her cowering son. Magnificent in her rage, she was one of those women that anger suited Mark reflected, she lifted the platter as high as she could in the air and slammed it down on Nicky's head. The plate shattered, sandwiches and fragments of china showered the floor. Nicky staggered and dropped to his knees.

Brian Roberts as enraged as his wife by his stepson's abominable behaviour drove the heel of his Oxford Brogues into Nicky's shoulders knocking the boy flat. Beside himself with wholly justifiable anger he began stamping down at the brat's prone body.

"Darling," Mary Roberts said urgently, "do be careful. If you break something maybe that nice Mister Adams might not want him. Don't forget he offered us four hundred pounds for the little brute so that he can pass him on to Mister Ellis. Nobody else would be fool enough to give us a quarter of that for such a miserable lump of misshapen brat flesh."

"Blast and damnation," Brian Roberts roared and then continued more quietly, "you're quite right of course but it goes against the grain to let the little turd off so lightly." He lashed out with the toe of his shoe catching the boy in the ribs.

"I'm sure Mister Adams will see he gets well flogged for his insolence dear," Anne said comfortingly. "He's not the sort of man to tolerate any nonsense from a lump of pig's shit like our Nicky and neither is Mister Ellis."

"Dad," Adam said, "do we have to sell Nicky. Couldn't we keep him for ourselves?"

"What throw away four hundred pounds?" Brian exclaimed in amazement.

"Really Adam," Mary Roberts interrupted her husband, "talk sense. Just think what we can do with four hundred pounds."

"Your parents are quite right," Jack Wardle said gently moved by the boy's stricken face. "Four hundred is a very good price for a brat like that and really can't be rejected. I tell you though what Adam, I've already promised Stefan and William the choice of a couple of sluts after lunch tomorrow. I'll get Misses Thomas to look out a dozen small sluts suitable for you boys to use and get them cleaned up and the three of you can take your pick of them."

"And there's no reason," Mark chipped in kindly, "why you couldn't give Nicky a fucking now if you fancy it. You wouldn't damage him any more than I have already done."

"Why yes excellent idea," Jack Wardle exclaimed enthusiastically.

Mark suspected that Jack would approve of the suggestion for, if put into effect, it would both provide further entertainment for his guests and at the same time give pleasure to young Adam. The conventions governing life in the Vale were based on a rather old fashioned respect for the proprieties leavened with a certain robust recognition of the realities. This meant that while it would be regarded as quite unacceptable for a man to enjoy a charity brat's bottom or mouth in public when ladies were present no such inhibition applied to free boys. He supposed that the distinction was based on a recognition that with maturity came a degree of self control denied to the young. While on the aesthetic level the spectacle of a lithe young free boy fucking a brat had a charm and indeed beauty lacking when the active participant was a middle-aged man.

A murmur of approval rose from the crowd and one or two people began to clap and cheer. The applause swelled to a crescendo as the crowd, its enthusiasm fuelled by generous draughts of champagne, stamped and whistled and hooted.

Grinning Jack bent down and grabbed Nicky by the hair. He dragged him to his feet and flung him across a nearby table. The boy lay face down in a jumble of plates and food his legs hanging over the edge of the table. For so powerful a man Jack was a quick mover and before the brat had time to move Jack was on him again and grasping him by the upper arm and thigh heaved him up so he was lying full length on the table.

Mark realised that Jack must have got some of the filth that had dribbled out of the brat's hole on his hand for he saw him look at his hand with an expression of disgust on his face before wiping it clean on the side of the boy's rump.

An expectant hush fell on the crowd.

Jack glanced around. His eyes fell on the serving boy whose naked body he had been busy oiling when Mark had returned to the marquee.

"You," he snapped, "get your tongue in this slut's hole and clean it out. And do it good you idle little turd, a free boy's cock is going in there so it's got to be clean for that."

Mark smiled to himself as, unbidden, Nicky spread his legs and raised his bottom opening himself for the other brat's questing tongue. With that simple gesture he knew that the brat must have banished any lingering doubts as to his essentially sluttish nature.

The serving boy, perhaps hoping to be let off his whipping if he performed his task well, trotted forward. A hope, that if he entertained it at all, Mark, from his long experience of the practices of the Vale, suspected would prove illusory. The brat quickly clambered onto the table and kneeling between Nicky's wide spread legs pushed his face down into the boy's open bottom, his tongue eagerly lapping at the filth there. Nicky kept his legs apart but whimpered as the boy's questing tongue touched the soreness in his hole.

"We'll have to get Mrs Thomas to check that out when you've finished with him Adam," Jack Wardle remarked, showing his normal exemplary concern for the physical wellbeing of any brats for which he even momentarily assumed responsibility. "Nothing that a bit of suturing won't put right and it's good the little brute is sore. He'll give you a more lively ride as a consequence. If he wasn't with the way his hole has been used he'd probably hardly feel your cock in his bum."

"Now get your head out of there whore," Jack ordered slapping the serving boy's oiled and glistening rump, "I want to check your work."

He pushed his finger into Nicky's hole ignoring the boy's squeal of pain. Withdrawing it he subjected it to a brief inspection before nodding approvingly.

"That'll do now get out of the way," he snapped cuffing the serving brat on the side of the head so hard that he sent him tumbling to the floor.

"Come on Adam," Brian Roberts fondly urged his son, "show us how to do it."

Adam blushing deeply stepped forward. As the crowd roared their appreciation and encouragement he slipped his shorts down over his hips. Mark could see that despite his embarrassment he was in a state of high sexual excitement, his fourteen year old cock swollen and jutting upwards.

Nicky lying on the table stirred and moved his legs so that his right foot was resting against his left knee. Mark realised that the slut was deliberately narrowing the entry to his body tensing the muscles of his bottom in readiness to receive his half-brother's swollen but not yet fully-grown cock. Matching his bottom to the size of the tool to be inserted was, he supposed, a further skill Nicky had learnt at Ovingdean. He wondered if it was instinctive or a deliberate attempt to see that Adam enjoyed and perhaps remembered enjoying his bottom.

It was quite possible it was the latter. The boy must know that he was destined to Mister Ellis's service. That it was most unlikely that he would ever see Adam again and that if by any chance he did the gulf between free boy and charity brat would divide them almost as effectively as physical separation. The only thing that could bridge that gulf was if Adam took a fancy to him out of all the other sluts available to a free boy in the Vale but he would be under Mister Ellis's protection and the man having paid four hundred pounds for him would be unlikely to let anyone else use him.

If it was the slut's hope that Adam would remember him. Mark thought he was fated to be disappointed. He remembered old Mister Wardle's, Jack's father, comment when as a young lad he had enthused about the performance of some slut he had just fucked. "One brat is very like another brat to fuck. You have to look at them to tell them apart." And thinking back he couldn't remember a thing about that particular brat or indeed perhaps more surprisingly the first one he ever enjoyed. He could remember the occasion well enough.

Jack and he were hardly eleven years old. Mister Wardle had sorted four or five of really young sluts out for him and Jack to make their selection, probably not much more than seven years old any of them, choosing them on purpose so that their small bottoms would be a tight fit round their own small cocks. He remembered old Mister Wardle, he was not so old then of course, watching, a benevolent smile on his kindly old face, as the house-keeper paraded the naked little sluts before them in the sitting room. He and Jack were almost as nervous as the sluts at first. It was worse of course for Jack. It wasn't a problem being watched by his father, a cheerful kindly man who had a natural affinity with free boys but his mother, sitting there her needles clicking steadily as she knitted, worrying quietly about getting the carpets messed was a different matter. Still once they had made their selections and the frightened little brats had been kicked and slapped into position, bent over the arms of two sturdy chairs, by the housekeeper and Jack's father, excitement had banished nervousness.

He could remember all that but he couldn't remember the name of the brat nor whether it was fair or dark haired or had had its head shaved. Perhaps come to think of it he was never told the child's name. There was no reason why he should have been. Charity boys after all were commonly addressed as "shit" or "turd" and such like. Still he felt he should be able to remember something about the appearance of the slut.

The roar of the crowd reached a new crescendo and Mark saw that Adam was climbing onto the table. Brian Roberts placing his left hand on the back of his son's bare rump. Spitting on the palm of his right hand he smeared saliva over the boy's stiff rod. Bending down he whispered a few words of inaudible advice or encouragement in Adam's ear before slapping him on the bottom and stepping back.

Adam needed no further encouragement. Supporting himself on one arm he positioned his cock at the entrance to Nicky's hole. His assault was sudden and violent. He lunged forward as hard as he could, driving his eager rod deep into his victim's guts. The slut's shrill scream of pain could be clearly heard over the cheers and laughter of the watching crowd.

Adam ploughed Nicky's bottom undeterred by his howls of pain. Three hard thrusts had his cock fully sheathed in the screaming slut's carcass. Adam's haunches rose and fell as he probed the brat's bottom. Despite the pain Nicky began to respond to the assault. Even as he squealed his distress Mark could see the muscles in the little whore's rump flex as his guts clenched tight about Adam's pounding cock. Nicky's agony though was not long drawn out for Adam, with all the impetuosity of hot youth, took his pleasure fast and hard. For a brief moment Adam, his head thrown back, mouth open, breath coming in short harsh gasps, lay rigid on top of the whimpering child his flanks quivering convulsively as he shot his load.

Then, with a triumphant grin on his face, he jumped to the ground and after landing a resounding smack on the brat's bottom turned away from him to receive the congratulations of the crowd of spectators. The message could not have been clearer. Nicky was just another slut. Adam had taken his pleasure and had no further use for him.

"Can someone," Anne Wardle's voice rose in outrage over the hubbub, "get rid of that revolting animal."

A clap of thunder shook the window and rain-drops plopped heavily against its glass panes. Mark stretched himself luxuriously in his bed and listened to the rumble and crash as the storm rolled over the Downs above the house.

Sunday morning, there was no hurry to get up, he could lie in a bit and try to remember the events of the previous evening. It had been a good party. There was no doubt about that but he to admit that the details, especially of what happened later on in the evening, were a little vague. He could remember Oblonsky flogging the serving boy. The brat suspended by his wrists, kicking and twisting under the lash, the light glistening on his oiled and burnished skin as the whip laid ridges of vivid cochineal across his milk chocolate flesh. Angela standing close beside him, holding hands and then turning to him, her eyes glittering with excitement, lifting her face to be kissed. The long hard embrace, her body pressed close against his, as the child's screams echoed in their ears.

But after that what? Simply fragmentary memories. The free boys nervously drawing lots. William grinning ruefully, stripped and bent across the seat of a chair. The boy's howl of pain as the whip cracked down across his bottom and the laughter that filled the marquee when he jumped up his hands clasped to his wounded rump. Jack's good humoured suggestion that he should try again because, perhaps, if he knew what was coming he would not be so shocked by the pain and would be able to stay down. The boy's reluctant acquiescence to this suggestion although the event showed that his doubts if the outcome would be any different were well founded.

Later – much later – noisy goodnights – the drive back through the narrow lanes – Nicky whimpering in the brat cage in the back of the Range Rover – laughter when they got back to the Manor to find Angela had got in the wrong car and Anne's good humoured insistence that she should stay the night.

His memory was so hazy and fragmentary it was remarkable that he felt so well. It just showed that you didn't get a hangover if you drank decent champagne. No headache no nausea – just a certain dryness in the mouth. Well that was easily remedied – the bed slut Tommy was lying beside him – the idle little turd could fetch him a cup of tea.

He reached out to shake the tyke awake. There seemed to be something wrong. It didn't feel like Tommy or any other brat. Too soft, too much flesh, he moved his hand down, there were no 3; He sat up quickly. Angela lay on her back beside him her dark hair tumbled on the pillow. His sudden movement threw the duvet back baring her breasts.

Memories, still partial, came flooding back, the unsteady climb up the stairs, opening the door to his room and seeing Tommy's delicious little body lying naked on the bed. The boy suddenly awake smiling up at him as he clumsily undressed, ripping his clothes off and shedding them haphazardly on the floor in is eagerness to penetrate slut's sweet rump. Then, just as he was about to fling himself on the bed and Tommy had rolled onto his face and invitingly pushed his sweet little rump up towards him, there was a knock at the door.

He paused, surprised. No charity brat, certainly no slut trained by Jack Wardle, would commit the social solecism of knocking on a door at least not more than once. That would imply that what it saw or heard mattered and it would be well flogged for such insolence. Then who the hell was it? Not surely Jack come up for a chat. Jack had drunk quite as much as he had done and had been slurring his words and repeating himself. He hoped to God it wasn't Jack.

As he was still hesitating the door was pushed open and Angela walked in.

"Just as well I got the right room," she said and Mark could see what she meant for she was quite naked.

The next moment she had caught hold of Tommy by his ear and yanking him from the bed sent him stumbling into a corner of the room with a well placed kick up his bottom.

"Ouch," she said, "I must remember to put shoes on before doing that again."

Then her mouth was on Mark's and her arms were around his neck drawing him down onto the bed. They coupled with fierce passion in a tangle of sweating straining limbs. Tommy's presence, a silent witness of his betters' passion, forgotten until, his appetite momentarily sated, Mark shouted at the slut to turn off the light.

Mark cupped one of the sleeping girl's breasts in his hand feeling her nipple hard against his palm. Angela's eyes blinked open. She smiled softly and reached up to him. This time their lovemaking was a slow and gentle indulgence of their shared passion until the final mutual orgasm that consumed their bodies in a shared ecstasy of lust.

Mark returned to reality to find Tommy standing wide eyed at the end of the bed. It didn't bother him that the slut had been watching. Charity brats simply did not matter and what they saw and heard did not matter either. It did concern him though that the boy had been idle. There was plenty for him to do apart from gaping at his betters; the curtains to draw back, bath to be run, tea to be prepared, the clothes he had thrown off the previous night to be picked up from the floor and put away. It was clear glancing round the room that he had done none of them.

"Tommy you idle little rat," he snapped, "get on with your work."

"Typical slut," Angela remarked, "They're all the same, lazy and stupid. Need to be thrashed regularly to keep them on their toes. Is the turd going to condescend to fetch us a cup of tea do you think darling or do we have to make it ourselves?"

Tommy scuttled off to return a few minutes later with a tray with tea things on it.

Mark and Angela lay side by side on the bed sipping tea while the thunder rumbled outside and the rain beat against the windows.

"He's not a bad looking slut," Angela remarked eyeing Tommy appraisingly as he busied himself gathering the scattered clothes from the floor, "what's he like to fuck?"

"Oh not too bad," Mark replied, "quite a hot little tart, knows what he's about and got plenty of enthusiasm."

Tommy flushed with pleasure at this compliment but did not interrupt his work.

Angela finished her cup of tea and swinging her legs from the bed began to wander round the room. Mark watched her long legged and naked as she idly examined the pictures on the wall. She was very nice to look at but they would have to do something about getting her back to her room to dress. Charity brats commonly ran around naked or as good as but it wouldn't do for her to do so. Perhaps Tommy could fetch something from her room or perhaps better, for the stupid brute was almost certain to make a mess of it she could borrow his dressing gown to get back there.

Angela paused before the fireplace to look at an oil painting of Acteon being torn apart by Diana's hounds. It was a piece commissioned by old Jasper Wardle at the end of the nineteenth century, Acteon being modelled on a favourite brat of his, the hounds being drawn from the Vale of Dingle Foxhounds. It was a striking picture although Jack had assured Mark that despite appearances no lasting damage had been done to the brat by the hounds, just a couple of deep bites on the thighs and arms which had healed quite quickly.

She turned her attention to the mantelpiece. It was Jack's thoughtful custom to place on it in each bedroom a variety of toys with which his guests might amuse themselves if time hung heavily on their hands. She picked up a boxed set of long stainless steel needles their eyes threaded with lengths of various coloured cottons. She turned them over in her hands looking speculatively at Tommy who had busied himself tidying the room but found time to steal increasingly nervous glances at Angela.

Shaking her head she replaced them on the shelf.

She stood a moment in thought and then with a slight smile picked up a large silver cigarette lighter. Tommy seeing what she was doing began to whimper quietly. She flicked the lighter on and off adjusting the flame as she did so until it was a tiny pinprick of heat burning brightly some four inches clear of the lighter nozzle.

Walking back to Mark she swept his legs from the bed and seated herself beside him.

"What's the filthy little whore's name," Angela asked still absently playing with the lighter.

"Tommy," Mark replied.

"Ah, Tommy sweet, come here my little pretty, we're going to play a little game with you."

"Take the slut, Mark darling, and hold him really tight for me."

Mark reached up and dragged the sobbing brat down onto his lap. The boy's tight little rump pressing into his crutch excited him. He bent forward and kissed the child on the side of his neck his nostrils full of the smell of well-scrubbed boy.

"Now Tommy do you know how 'this little piggy went to market' goes."

"Yes Miss," the miserable slut whimpered, "my Mummy used to play it with me before she discovered I was just a useless charity boy and Mister Wardle very kindly took me into his protection. Please Miss please don't hurt me. Please."

"Tommy," Angela protested in mock horror, "you are a wicked selfish little boy. Do you begrudge your kind loving Master's guests a little bit of fun? I'm sure Mister Wardle would be very angry if I old him you did."

"Please don't tell Mister Wardle Miss but Miss do you have to hurt me Miss? Please 3; 3; 3; 3;"

"Now Tommy," Angela said firmly interrupting the boy's desperate pleas, "enough of this nonsense. We will get on with our little game."

She extinguished the lighter and placed it on the mattress beside her. Taking hold of the big toe of Tommy's right foot she began to chant the familiar words of the old nursery rhyme.

"This little pig went to market.
This little pig stayed at home.
This little pig had roast beef.
This little pig had none.
This little pig went wee wee wwe,
All the way home."

As Angela chanted she moved her hold from toe to toe.

"Why," Angela laughed as she reached the end of the rhyme squeezing Tommy's little toe, "look at this sweet little piggy. I think perhaps it needs cooking. Rather than roast beef let's have roast pork shall we?"

Gripping the boy's foot with her left hand she picked up the lighter. One handed she flicked it on and adjusted the flame till it burnt four inches or so above it.

"Miss please Miss," Tommy screamed in terror. The child writhed and twisted in Mark's lap as he fought to escape.

Mark saw Angela bend forward as she brought the flame down towards the underside of the brat's foot. Mark watched her bring the flame ever closer to the boy. Tommy's struggles and pleas increased in desperation. Mark tightened his grip on the panic-stricken slut enjoying the sensation of its smooth little rump wriggling in his crutch.

Tommy's foot hid the flame from Mark's view and then the brat's body leapt in his grasp while his screams reached a new and shriller intensity.

Mark could see Angela's face as she applied the flame to the child's bare flesh. Her expression was calm, almost relaxed, only the faint smile on her lips and the glitter in her eyes gave any indication that she shared his intense excitement.

After a few seconds Angela sat back. Replacing the lighter on the bed she slapped the screaming boy as hard as she could on the side of the face.

"Stop that noise this instant," she snapped.

"Yes indeed," Mark chimed in chiding the brat, "the noise you're making you selfish little brute will wake the house. Have some consideration for others and stop making a fuss about nothing."

"Well," Angela continued when the slut's screams had at last abated to a low desperate sobbing, "we'd better get on with things and choose another little pig to roast."

"Oh Miss please Miss don't hurt me any more 3; 3; Mister Legg Sir please please 3; 3;"

"Don't you want to play with us any more my sweet?" Angela asked softly.

"Not like that Miss. Please not like that."

"I suppose time is getting on and I am quite peckish. Perhaps we'd better be getting down to breakfast. What do you think Mark."

"Thank you Miss 3; 3; 3; Please Mister Legg Sir please aren't you hungry too Mister Legg?" the brat asked hopefully choking back its tears.

"I certainly could do with something to eat. Playing with you Tommy seems to have given me quite an appetite," Mark said nuzzling at the side of the boy's neck."

"Thank you Mister Legg. Thank you Miss 3; 3;"

"But," Angela, who had busied herself examining Tommy's foot as Mark was speaking, said, "I can see the inside that little toe of yours hasn't been cooked. I don't think it would be right to leave the job half done. Hold the slut tight Mark."

Tommy, who had thought he was about to escape further abuse, his hopes suddenly dashed began once more to sob wildly.

Pulling Tommy's toes apart with her left hand Angela once more picked up the cigarette lighter. This time Mark could see the flame lick along the inside of the boy's little toe and linger on the tender flesh that separated it from its next door neighbour. As Tommy screamed and struggled in his lap he saw the brat's skin redden and then bubble as the blisters formed.

Suddenly Mark found his lap deluged with warm liquid. With an exclamation of disgust he tipped Tommy onto the bed.

"The disgusting little animal has peed itself," he exclaimed.

Angela glanced over at him, her face breaking into a happy smile as her eyes took in his penis standing rigid and erect excited by the pressure of the brat's wriggling bottom. Leaning forward she kissed him on the lips and throwing her arms about his neck drew him down beside her on the bed. There, on the urine soaked sheets, with Tommy rolled into a ball of naked boy misery nursing his burnt foot sobbing beside them, they coupled for a second time that morning.

Sated Mark lay on the damp sheets waiting for his strength to return.

"I think darling," he said rousing himself and brushing Angela's forehead with his lips, "that we'd best have a shower and get dressed if we are not to be late for breakfast."

Clambering to his feet he saw with a feeling of rising irritation that Tommy was still lying on the bed feeling sorry for himself. The brat seemed to think that he was in some sort of holiday camp, he reflected. It was really too bad, Jack took the little brute into his house, trained him, fed him, housed him, generally looked after him and the ungrateful turd took the first opportunity that came along to shirk his work. No doubt his burnt foot hurt but that didn't mean he couldn't work. Furious Mark took the strap from its hook beside the fireplace and lashed down at the brat's naked body.

Tommy alerted by the hiss of the falling strap tried to get out of its way. He was not fast enough. The leather strap caught him square across the centre of his bottom. With a squeal of pain he clapped both hands to his burning rump and jumped off the bed forgetting in his terror his burnt foot. He remembered it though as soon as it touched the floor. Giving out a further howl he began to hop round the room, still holding his bottom with both hands, his face twisted in a grimace of pain, all the time emitting small piercing cries of distress.

Mark, his ill humour banished by this comical sight, choked back his laughter just long enough to tell the boy to stop the nonsense and get on with stripping the soiled sheets from the bed.

After they had showered together Mark and Angela returned to the bedroom to find Tommy hobbling painfully round the room pulling the soiled bed clothes from the bed and bundling them.

Mark picked found the indelible marking pencil on the mantle-piece and wetting its point with his tongue called Tommy to him. He made the boy turn round. He noticed with satisfaction that the strap had raised a livid welt across the centre of the curve of the boy's rump. Bending down he wrote on the child's flank "6+" before sending him back to work with a resounding slap on the bum.

"What's that in aid of?" Angela asked.

"It's a signal to Mrs. Thomas, Jack's excellent housekeeper, that she is to give Tommy at least six cuts of the cane at a time convenient to herself. I expect though, conscientious lady that she is, she'll give him the round dozen and that would really not be much more that he deserves, making so much noise and then lazing about on the bed."

Chapter 15

Mark found Jack Wardle sitting at the dining table, watched by four hungry eyed serving boys, eating from a plate heaped with bacon, scrambled eggs and all the other components of a traditional English breakfast.

"Had a good sleep?" Jack asked grinning knowingly as Mark seated himself.

"Very good thanks," Mark replied poker faced.

"Seemed you were having some fun this morning judging by the noise. I think they probably heard the screams in town."

"Sorry about that Jack. Angela was roasting that pretty little sluts toes with the cigarette lighter."

"Oh that's what was happening," Jack said laughing heartily, "ingenious girl that one and a nice looker and has a natural way with our pauper dirt, not afraid to treat them tough. I'd stick close to that one Mark. Make it permanent if you can."

"Well I rather hope to and I think things are looking hopeful."

"Best thing is to come straight out with it like I did to Anne last night."

"It didn't seem to me she reacted too well to your doing so."

"She played up a bit to start with," Jack admitted with cheerful insouciance. "How could I embarrass her before all her friends and so on but after you and Angela went up to bed I returned to the subject and she saw sense soon enough then. Said something on the lines that she had to give me full points for persistence and she supposed she had to agree or she would never have any peace."

"Well congratulations Jack."

"Only condition she made was that I had to get that brat Daniel out of the house. She said she couldn't forgive the little brute masquerading as a free boy and taking advantage of us all. It wouldn't be so bad if the little tyke was not her own son but he is and she can't guarantee that she can stop herself doing some permanent injury to him his behaviour makes her so angry. Maybe I'll just pass him on to Mister Patel to use in one of his factories but he's quite a pretty slut so that would be a bit of a waste at this stage; when he's older and lost his looks perhaps, but not now."

"He was certainly a hot little whore," Mark remarked remembering Daniel's enthusiastic response to his initial penetration.

"Well I'll have to see what I can arrange. Ah here's Angela."

"Angela," Mark said, "you have to congratulate Jack he's fixed things up with Anne."

"And now you and Mark should do the same my dear," Jack interposed beaming.

"Well I haven't been asked," Angela replied lightly placing her hand on Mark's shoulder.

"Good, excellent," Jack beamed, "I'm glad we've settled that. Now I must just sort a few things out so if you will excuse me 3; I am sorry to hurry you but if you want to come to church you will need to be ready in the hall in about half an hour."

Angela and Mark stood at the open front door looking out at the drive and the lawn beyond. The sun was shining again but the sudden storm had freshened the air and banished, for the moment at least, the oppressive heat of the last few days. Two traps each drawn by a pair of sturdy pony boys were drawn up in the porte-cochere their bridles held by a couple of pretty young charity boys. The traps were quite unlike the light single seated racing carts that had been used in the Corvo Cup. These were much larger two seated vehicles that would comfortably take a couple of full-grown adults. The pony boys too were altogether heavier built animals than Merlin and Lucifer though just as sleek and well cared for in appearance.

It occurred to Mark that in many ways the best treated pauper brats were those selected to be pony boys in prosperous households. Admittedly the long hours of schooling in the exercise ring on the lunge reign, were hard as was the work itself, straining at the traces between the shafts of a trap urged on by the whip. However a well-matched pair of healthy young pony boys was a potent status symbol and therefore highly prized and carefully cherished. The old saying, "between the shafts a brat is worth nothing – in the stables one hundred guineas", summed the situation up.

"But where," Angela's voice interrupted his thoughts, "are all the other brats?"

It was a reasonable question. Apart from the pony boys and their two young attendants there was not a brat insight. The teams of tanned bare limbed boys who tended the gravel drive on their knees or who endlessly trimmed the grass of the lawn with nail scissors were no where to be seen.

"Oh they will have been sent to church," Mark replied, "Jack is very good about that. He insists that all his brats, other than those directly employed in serving him or his guests, go to church."

"They haven't got the day off?"

"Good heavens no," Mark laughed at such ridiculous an idea. "Indeed they will work two hours later tonight to make up the time they spend in church."

"Ah good you're here already," Jack said hurrying into the hall from the back of the house. "We'll be off directly now. Anne says she can't come. She's too tied up with all the people we are having for lunch. But I'm just waiting for Mrs Thomas to produce Nicky. I need to get him registered and branded this morning as Mister Adams is taking delivery of him today."

"Mister Wardle, I am so sorry to have kept you waiting," said Mrs Thomas pushing open the green baize door at the rear of the hall that divided the front of the house from the servants' quarters. "The charity scum are all just the same. No thought for others and no self discipline. The stupid slut made such a fuss. It just needed a touch of the hot iron to cauterize the wound but the way he screamed and wriggled and threw himself about you would think I was thrusting the iron right up into him."

As she spoke she hurried forward dragging Nicky along behind her, with sharp tugs on a short length of chain attached to the iron collar clamped round his neck.

"I've done the best I can with the slut Sir," she said apologetically coming to a stop in front of Jack Wardle, "but he took a real hammering last night not that he would be anything to talk about anyway – miserable little git."

Indeed Nicky was a pathetic figure as he stood shaking with fear, behind Mrs. Thomas. Livid bruises disfigured his face and naked body where Mark had thumped and slapped him. The heavy manacles securing his wrists behind his back, which didn't look as if they had been moved since the previous evening, had chafed and cut his skin and blood dribbled down the back of his hands. His head and shoulders were down. He looked defeated and spiritless as he waited eyes fixed on the floor for whatever the future held for him. It was clear that he had given up all hope and was resigned to his servitude.

"I'm afraid I was a bit rough with the brute," Mark said. "The way he had deliberately deceived and taken advantage of us all, particularly you Jack, worming himself into your house in the pretence he was a free boy and not part of the charity scum made me very angry."

"Why Good Lord Sir," Mrs. Thomas protested, "I wasn't criticizing you. A bit of rough treatment was what the little turd needed and you only need to look at him to see that was exactly what he got and its done him the world of good."

As they were speaking Jack was subjecting the boy to a cursory examination, running his hands over his naked body assessing the extent of any damage as the boy stood shivering but otherwise still.

"It's all superficial," he remarked, "nothing to permanently detract from the brutes value. And talking of value," Jack bent to prod the muscles in Nicky's firm young thighs, "do you know Mrs Thomas that Mister Adams of Ovingdean Reformatory has offered four hundred pounds for the slut. What do you think of that?"

"Four hundred pounds for that," exclaimed Mrs. Thomas, "the man must be mad. Why there are plenty of loving parents in the Vale who would be keen to let their brats go to a house where they would be toughened up and strictly disciplined for four pounds."

"It does seem a bit steep certainly," Jack admitted stepping round the boy and jerking the manacles securing his wrists upwards so he could examine his bottom. Nicky sobbed as the steel cuffs bit into his already badly chafed wrists.

"Perhaps," Jack continued disregarding the boy's cry of distress, "he's a particularly good fuck. Mark you had him last night. What was he like?"

"All right but nothing special, no better than Tommy or your Daniel. Once I was fairly in him his guts began to work on my cock but that's no more than happens with any other slut."

"I'm glad you found Daniel adequate. At least there's something the little sod can do," Jack remarked before turning his attention back to Nicky's bottom.

"You do seem to have got bigger or something Mark," Jack continued in an amused tone of voice. "You didn't use to tear brats so much but first Daniel and now this tart. You've become a real bum ripper."

"What do you expect with Daniel?" Mark protested indignantly. "It was the first time for him and you told me you wanted him to feel it. Nicky was a bit different but I wanted to get the job done and back to your party. I didn't see why I should waste time being gentle with the whore."

"Quite right too," Jack said heartily. "Brats should be regularly beaten hard and fucked hard. It stops them from getting above themselves. Anyway Mrs Thomas has done her usual excellent job in patching the whore up. Once the scar tissue comes away he'll be as good as new."

Nicky squealed and jumped as Jack probed his hole.

"And he'll forget how sore he is down there as soon as the branding iron scorches him," Jack commented with a laugh as he straightened. "The brand will be there," Jack rested his finger on the left side of Nicky's bottom just below the hip.

"Now we'd best be off or we will be late. Move slut."

"Do you know," Jack continued as he led way out of the house with Nicky trotting along behind him like a dog on a leash, "what a slut said to me the other day when I asked him which hurt the most being branded, cut or fucked for the first time?"

"No what?" Angela asked.

"Please Sir, all of them Sir."

Jack's imitation of a panic stricken charity brat's terrified whine was so realistic and at the same time so comic that Angela and Mark burst out laughing.

They were still laughing when they reached the two traps drawn up in the porte-cochere. Jack snapped the loose end of the chain attached to Nicky's collar to the rear of the lead trap and swung himself up into the driver's seat. He flicked the serving boy holding the pony boys' bridle across the front of his bare thighs with the whip. The brat squeaked and jumped clear as Jack whipped the pony boys into a rapid trot with a couple of flicks from the lash across their naked shoulders.

Mark helped Angela into the second trap and then taking the reigns himself set off in hot pursuit of Jack. He was he knew quite good at handling pony boys, not quite perhaps as good as Jack who lived all year round in the Vale, but still good enough to be glad of an opportunity to show off his skill to his fiancée. Urging the pony boys on with frequent cracks of his whip he soon had them up to a sharp canter.

The air was still cool after the recent rain. Drops of water on leaves and grass glittered in the bright sunshine so that it seemed the trees and meadows were covered in silver gilt. The pounding feet of the pony boys threw up showers of sparkling water as they ran from the puddles on the drive, covering the brats' bare shins and thighs with a glistening sheen of moisture. The two steel rimmed wheels threw spray high in the air, creating miniature rainbows, as they raced clattering and bumping over the wet ground.

They were gaining on Jack. Angela holding tight to the side of the trap to steady herself from its constant jolting smiled happily up at Mark.

"We're catching up," she cried, "use the whip Mark. Give the brats more whip."

Thus encouraged Mark plied the lash vigorously, cruelly nipping the brats' tanned shoulders and flanks, scoring their deeply tanned skin with angry red welts. Jack sensed their approach. Turning his head he saw them and laughing stood up in his trap, shaking the reigns, whooping and cracking his whip across his brats' bare shoulders as they strained in the shafts.

They came to the base of the long gentle slope at the top of which stood the ancient church whose bells had summoned the free people of the village of Dingley Dell and surrounding hamlets to Sunday worship for centuries and whose chimes had reminded generations of charity boys that the dispensation under which they laboured was sanctioned both by the laws of God and man. Jack's brats lent into their traces as they exerted all their strength to maintain their lead. For a moment it seemed to Mark that he might catch up and indeed pass the other trap. Then his team too began the ascent of the long hill and Jack began to pull away again.

Swearing in a way quite inappropriate to the Sabbath, Mark lashed at the shoulders of the two brats as they laboured to drag the trap up the hill. He knew in his heart that they could never now hope to catch Jack up. It was clear that the two teams of brats were equally matched and therefore Jack's trap with its single passenger had a decisive advantage over his own with two. Nevertheless he wanted to put a good show on for Angela and so he cut at the brats' naked backs with abandon.

Jack realising that his lead was safe allowed his brats to slacken their pace and in the end Mark pulled up his team only some thirty seconds behind his friend. Jumping from the trap he tied the reigns of his panting brats' to the hitch rail beside the lych-gate leaving them to stand there, sweating and trembling, as he turned to help Angela from the trap.

As Angela climbed down from the trap she looked about herself with keen interest. Indeed to those unused to the ways of the Vale the scene outside the church was a remarkable one. Row upon row of kneeling tribute boys were ranked on either side of the path leading from the lych-gate to the church door. Every charity brat in the parish, other than those directly involved in serving their protectors was required to be there. Farm boys, caked with mud and filth, who toiled all day in the open fields, serving boys scented and spotlessly clean, four of the five sluts from the Lamb and Flag, the fifth was servicing a customer, all these and many others were there. So many brats were there that their ranks overflowed the churchyard and spread out over the village green.

Seeing the wonder in Angela's eyes Mark wished that she could have seen it as he had when he had visited Jack last Christmas. Then a fall of snow had covered the ground with a white blanket which contrasted dramatically with the dark chocolate brown bodies of the naked pauper brats as they knelt patiently on the freezing ground. The snow had fallen again while he was in church and when he came out again the brats' bare heads and bare shoulders were flecked with white but still they knelt the only indication of their distress a low quiet sobbing that rose like a gentle susurration from the rows of shivering boys.

As the Rector remarked when he came to the door of the church, muffled in overcoat and scarf, for, courteous and considerate man as he was, he insisted despite the bitter cold on shaking hands with every member of his departing congregation, glancing at the ranks of naked boys, their patient endurance of the freezing cold was a testimonial to the exemplary strictness of those whom a beneficent providence had set over them.

Now though, in high summer, the brats had only to kneel for an hour or two in the heat of the sun before returning to their labours. Nevertheless the brats in their carefully marshalled lines were even now a striking sight. Along the path to the church family groups strolled, adults in their smart Sunday clothes chatting together, girls demurely following in their best summer frocks, free boys some wearing brief shorts many though quite naked grinning and laughing and fooling around in the way of boys. All seemed oblivious to the rows of kneeling charity boys who, as their betters passed, prostrated themselves in a carefully choreographed ritual of submission and humiliation. This had a curious effect as though a series of irregular waves passed over the crowd of brats, the summit being the bowed heads of those kneeling the trough the up raised rumps of those with their faces pressed to the ground.

Jack unhitched Nicky from the back of his trap and with a sharp jerk on his neck chain began to lead him towards the church. Mark with Angela leaning on his arm fell in beside his old friend.

"What's this?" Angela exclaimed.

They had reached the steps at the base of the old stone cross. There, as on most Sundays about a dozen brats guarded by two smartly turned out auxiliary police cadets were kneeling, their heads and wrists clamped in a long pillory fashioned out of stout wooden beams.

The bottom of the pillory was fashioned from a single roughly hewn tree trunk and rested directly on the ground so the brats were obliged to kneel with their rumps higher than their heads, a position that had the dual advantage of being uncomfortable to maintain and amusing to observe. The upper portion of the pillory consisted of a series of heavy blocks each secured at one end to the bottom beam by a massive iron hinge. A series of matching notches had been cut into the beams, two shallow ones in each instance flanking a deeper central one. Once a slut was in place with his neck in one of the deeper central notches cut in the base of the pillory and his wrists in the shallower ones on either side the hinged beam would be brought down clamping him in place. The upper beam would then be secured by slipping over its free end a broad brass band fastened to either side of the pillory's base.

"These," said Jack easily, "are brats caught thieving from the pig swill bins in the village. They will have their lips sown up by our good Rector's wife after the service to ensure they do not offend in a similar way again and as a warning to others."

"There are nine I see this time," said Mark who had been taking a quiet count.

"That's about average," Mark said, "give or take a couple either way. It's surprising how the brats keep on thieving food though they know what will happen to them if they get caught and generally they do get caught. Just shows how stupid and lacking in self discipline the charity scum are."

As he was speaking Mister Henry appeared dragging the pauper brat David along by his ear.

"Get this little turd in there," Mister Henry ordered the two police cadets twisting David's ear so hard that the brat doubled over squealing in pain.

Mister Henry placed a well-aimed kick up the slut's bottom sending him stumbling forwards. Grinning, the two police cadets grabbed David and set about securing his wrists and neck in the pillory.

"Borrowed the turd back from young William Smythe to give me something to amuse myself with over night," Mister Henry said, "and soon as soon as I took my eyes the thieving little swine was at the cat food. Found him on his knees in the kitchen wolfing down Paws from the cat's plate. Ungrateful brute after all the trouble and care I have taken to make something of the worthless lump of dog's shit. I don't know how many canes I've broken on the brat trying to beat some sense into its worthless carcass and it goes and does something like that."

"I'd have sent him back to his Mummy and Daddy to deal with but I telephoned William Smythe and he begged me not to. He blamed himself for being too soft on the slut. Only using the metal tipped strap a few times and letting him stuff his belly with swill twice a day. He begged me to give him a second chance and promised he wouldn't be so foolishly over-indulgent next time round."

"That's typical of William." Jack Walton interposed. Springing to his favourites defence, "a really conscientious boy who ties hard to uphold the values and virtues of the Vale. If all our free boys were as stalwart and honest as him we would need to have no fear for the future."

"Exactly my opinion," Mister Henry replied, "I've seen his father, as a responsible loving parent should from time to time, thrash the boy till his bottom was as bloody as any charity brat's and him not utter a sound during the whole time, but the mere thought that he had disgraced himself by failing to discipline a brat adequately moved him almost to tears."

"That's what makes me so angry," he continued his voice shaking with well justified rage. That a selfish disloyal rat who thinks only of its stomach can cause such distress to a fine upstanding boy like William."

In a fresh paroxysm of anger Mister Henry lashed out with his foot catching David, who was now firmly confined in the pillory, a crashing blow on the side of the head with the highly polished cap of one of his heavy Oxford brogues. It was an indication of Mister Henry's natural courtesy and innate consideration for others that despite the extreme provocation to which he had been subjected by the brat he refrained from kicking the delinquent brute full in the face. To have done so would have risked splitting the slut's lips. This in itself was a matter of no importance but it would have made the good rector's wife's task of sowing the boy's mouth up even more messy and difficult than it would otherwise have been. In such small details of behaviour can be found the marks of a true gentleman.

"Do you want us to work him over a bit for you Sir?" the youngest of the Auxiliary Police Cadets asked eagerly drawing his baton. A fresh faced youth of seventeen he had just completed his basic training and was keen to show off his newly learnt skills.

"Of course I do," Mister Henry snapped clearly surprised the lad thought it was necessary to ask.

Immediately the two youths sprang into action. The kneeling brat his neck and wrists trapped in the pillory that kept his head just inches above the ground provided an easy and tempting target. The batons rose and fell as the two police cadets methodically beat the boy.

Mark had of course seen police cadets busy about their work before. Even the most casual and occasional visitor to the vale could hardly have failed to do so. You could hardly walk down Muggleton High Street and not see some charity brat being knocked about by a pair of cadets. It was there task to keep the brats in line and they undertook it enthusiastically. A foot placed on the pavement, a glance up into a passer-by's eyes, a clenched hand, a perceived scowl or sulky expression, any of these and a hundred other faults could trigger a beating for some unwary pauper boy. But often as he had seen this he still wondered at the skill and judgement which the cadets brought to their task. Each blow of the batons was nicely calculated to cause the maximum pain possible without doing any permanent damage. The sharp raps that inflicted on David's head and hands, trapped and held still by the pillory, by the youngest of the cadets contrasting with the full blooded blows delivered with his companions weight and strength on the brat's bum and thighs. The younger cadet turned his attention to David's arms delivering short sharp blows to the brat's forearms while his colleague continued to concentrate on the sobbing boy's bottom and legs.

David's sobs rose to shrill screams as his youngest tormentor delivered two sharp cracks to his elbows.

"Let's move on," Mister Henry said raising his voice to be heard over the howls of the brat, "one can hardly hear oneself think for the noise the stupid little turd is making."

"That's better," he continued more quietly as they moved up the path towards the church. "I do wonder where William is though. He said he would be at church today with the rest of his family and I want to remind him to take the stitches out of that slut of mine's lips after forty-eight hours. I don't want the same thing happening as with that farm boy of Ralph Simpson's."

"I'm sure they'll all be along in a minute. The whole family is very regular in its attendance at church, an example to us all and stalwarts of our community," Jack said jerking sharply on the leash attached to Nicky's collar bringing the boy stumbling along behind him. But what happened with Ralph's brat. I've heard nothing about it."

"Oh," Mister Henry replied laughing, "I looked into the George Wednesday night and it was the talk of the place. Apparently the week before last Ralph happened across one of his farm sluts huddled behind a hedge gnawing on a swede. Well after he'd whipped the thieving little tyke he marked him down for having his lips sown up the next Sunday and thought no more about it. Sunday came and the brat's mouth was sown up and he was given another beating and then sent back to work. Tuesday evening he should have got his mouth unstitched, forty eight hours being about what a brat can stand without food and water, but you know Ralph's farm is a big one and I doubt if Ralph himself knows off hand how many brats he has working it and he forgot all about it. The brat having its mouth sown up couldn't speak and no doubt if he did try to tell anyone he just got his headed clouted and told to get on with his work. Wednesday morning he was set to picking stones with five other sluts in the fifty acre field. Before long he fell flat on his face. He got up pretty sharp when the foreman swore at him for an idle turd and gave him a taste of the strap. But he was down again soon after and this time no amount of shouting or kicking or whipping could rouse the slut. Even when the overseer put the hot iron on him he didn't get up. Just moaned and jerked about a bit on the ground. He was just going to give the lazy brute a further touch with the iron. When one of the Simpson girl's, who had come out from the farm when the overseer to watch the fun, remarked it was funny the slut wasn't screaming or anything. Then of course they remembered the slut's mouth was stitched up."

"What happened then?" Mark asked laughing.

"Oh well they unstitched the brats mouth and gave it some warm milk to drink and half an hour later it was back at work. Needed some encouraging with the whip mind you to keep it going."

"Just shows how healthy and tough the little beasts. We can really feel proud of the way we care for them, hardening them up," Jack remarked.

"Yes indeed, Ralph had brought the brat with him to the pub to show us. You know where his farm is, a good six miles [10km] outside Muggleton. He rode in with the brat having to run behind him with his wrists tied to his stirrup leathers. By the state of its knees it'd gone down a few times but it made it and od course it had to run the full six miles [10km] back at the end of the evening."

Laughing heartily at the comical incident just recounted the three friends walked on together.

They were so close to the church that Mark felt the heat of the coals smouldering in the brazier on the flagstones just outside the porch. Sticking out of the brazier were three iron rods, the handles of branding irons being heated in the glowing coals. Secured by his neck to an iron ring set in the flagstones a small naked brat cowered against the church wall. He seemed to be trying to get as far away from the brazier as the short length of chain joining the ring to the collar round his neck allowed.

"Damn," Jack explained coming to a sudden halt.

Glancing back Mark could see Nicky straining back against his leash his eyes rolling in terror.

"Come on blast you," Jack yelled jerking hard on Nicky's leash. Then seeing the Smythe family coming up the path towards the church he called, "William give this slut a cut or two to get it moving."

"Sure thing Uncle Jack," William shouted cheerfully and wielding a short leather strap he was carrying in his hand he slashed twice in quick succession at Nicky's bare rump.

With a howl of pain the boy started forward. Jack giving him no opportunity to balk again led him past the brazier and kicking away his feet from under him brought him tumbling to his knees. Stooping quickly Jack fastened the free end of Nicky's leash to the ring in the flagstones and stood back. Nicky shuffled away on his knees to cower whimpering quietly with the other brat.

"Lucky I had Dad's steel tipped strap with me," William, who was quite naked and sported Mark noticed a full erection, remarked, "I'd just borrowed it to give David a couple of cuts as we passed the pillory and hadn't given it back."

"Very lucky indeed," Jack agreed gravely, "and lucky too William that you enjoy disciplining the brats and generally keeping them in order so much."

William glanced down at his erection and grinned.

"I'm afraid I always do get hard when I thrash a brat," he said.

"No need to apologise William," Jack replied, "I do the same and so I am sure does Mister Henry and my old friend Mark. It is just as well we do as otherwise the essential task of keeping the charity scum down would be simply a boring chore rather than an exciting and entertaining challenge."

"I certainly didn't find beating David boring," William said with a laugh, "the steel tip cut slices across the sluts bum and you should have heard him howl. It was great fun."

"Only two brats to be branded?" Mark said the question mark implicit in his tone of voice.

"Yes, its not one of the really popular days like Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday when there could be easily fifty or more," Jack replied. "Indeed being the day after the races there are a good deal less than than usual. Most Sundays we get a dozen or so."

"It's there they put the brand isn't it Uncle Jack?" William asked, with all the eagerness of an intelligent young boy with an enquiring mind, bending down to press the tip of his index finger into the side of Nicky's bare rump as the brat cowered away from him.

"Yes on the left hand side just below the hip. You've got the place exactly right."

"I wish I could do it. I wish I was allowed to brand just one brat. I'm sure I could do it." William gaze wandered travelled wistfully from the two naked brats huddled on the flagstones at his feet to the brazier with the branding irons thrust into its glowing coals and back again.

"I'm sure you would William," Jack said fondly. "We'll ask the Rector if he'll let you have a go. Look he's coming now."

And indeed just at that moment the Rector hurried up to them dressed in a black cassock that hung down to his feet, rubbing his hands together and smiling benignly.

"Good morning, good morning, good morning, glad to see you all. And how are you young William? I'm pleased to see your parents have taken notice of the sermons I preached on the foolishness of being over indulgent to our young free boys. Both you and your brother Richard, our champion jockey, being brought to church naked. Quite right, quite right you must be toughened up and disciplined so that you in your turn can undertake the task of disciplining and ruling those placed by Divine Providence in our care."

"I am sure Rector we can rely on William and Richard as well, to play their part to the full in that. Indeed at this very moment William was saying how much he wished he could have a chance to try his hand at branding a brat or two. You wouldn't consider letting him a go today would you?"

"Well I don't know Jack. Branding a boy is not as easy as it looks. You know it's one thing to imagine it quite another to actually be faced with doing the job with the brat whimpering and screaming even before the glowing iron touches his flesh. Many people find they have great difficulty when it comes to the point in pressing the red hot brand against the side of some howling slut's tender little bottom and holding it firmly in place while it writhes and sobs and the smell of burnt flesh fills the air."

"I'm sure I could do it Sir," William repeated, "please give me a chance Sir"

"Oh all right then," the Rector said laughing at the boy's eagerness. "You can do these two after the service I'll ask the Vicars Warden who usually has to do it be ready to give you a helping hand if you need it."

"Thank Sir. Thanks a lot. I'll manage OK Sir. I'm sure I will. Do you think they'll shit themselves. They usually do don't they Uncle Jack."

"They certainly do William," Jack replied smiling.

"Gosh don't take too long on the service will you Sir," William said to the Rector before hurrying into the church after his parents and younger brother. The three men followed him laughing at the lad's youthful enthusiasm.

It was matins and the Rector followed the old order laid down in the King Edward the Sixth Prayer book, the sonorous words echoing round the ancient and beautiful building. The church, as was usual in the Vale of Dingle, was well filled and the singing lead by the choir with the treble voices of the free boy choristers rising above all filled the chancel and knave with music.

The moment came for the Rector to give his sermon. He climbed into the pulpit his black cassock swirling about him as he moved. Looking up at him as he towered over his congregation Mark could see motes of dust dancing in faint beams of sunlight filtered through the stain glass windows.

"My lesson today is taken from Genesis Chapter 7 verses 18 and 19. "But with thee will I establish my Covenant; and thou shall come into the arc, thou and thy sons, and thy wife and thy sons wifes with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female."

"Now it may seem strange talking about Noah and his ark during a period of almost uninterrupted fine weather" (Mark had noticed before the Rector's tendency to import into his addresses a certain pawky humour from time to time) but it often strikes me that we have built here in the Vale a sort of arc not of wood like Noah's but of people and customs. Noah's arc was built to save Noah his family and the animals and birds from drowning in water. Ours is built to preserve our little society here in the Vale of Dingle from being overwhelmed by the forces of barbarism and lawlessness that swirl around outside the magic confines of the Vale. Forces that are becoming, judging from today's papers, ever more powerful and dangerous. Terrorism, rioting, strikes, rampant criminality all threaten us. It is well that our ancestors built well when they constructed our ark and it is well that we should be vigilant in defending it."

"But defence alone is not enough. We have to be careful to keep our arc in good repair just as Noah would have had to if the flood had lasted five centuries and not a mere forty days."

"There was an instance of this quite recently when I had to warn from this pulpit against what was then becoming the excessively indulgent attitude of certain parents to the rearing of their free sons. If we are to maintain our defences against the hordes of barbarians without it is necessary to bring up our free boys to be as hard and as tough, no harder and tougher, than those that threaten us. This will not be achieved by mollycoddling. The, then growing, tendency to allow free boys clothing was bad enough but when I discovered that certain parents had bought their sons UNDERPANTS to wear I felt I had to speak out."

"I am glad to see looking round the church today that my words did not fall on stony ground. There is not a boy here under fifteen years old that is other than naked. Even the choir-boys I happen to know are naked under their surplices. Well done, now all that remains is for parents to see that this improved behaviour continues into the snows and frosts of winter."

"But we must not only be alert to correct lapses from the standards of behaviour in the past. We must also ensure that we are not led to betray the principles of our predecessors by the glib arguments and plausible proposals of those posing as liberals or philanthropists. I do not know how often I have heard such people suggest that our arrangements are hard on the charity boys, that we ought to take some action to ameliorate their lot, perhaps to work them less hard or to clothe and feed them better or to beat them less often and less hard."

An unbelieving titter ran through the congregation at these last words. The rector raise his hand for silence.

"Yes I know it sounds, more it is funny but I assure you I have often heard such and similar suggestions. Indeed when you see the brats hungry and naked labouring in the heat of the sun in the summer and in the snow and the rain in the winter you might feel that they are hard done by. But appearances are deceptive. They in fact are the lucky ones. They are the true innocents. It is we, the free, that have the hardest task."

"God has made a covenant with us as the lesson I have just read said. He has given us dominion over them as well as over every other "creeping thing that creepeth on the earth." Their lot is an easy one. They only have to obey. We have the more difficult and harder tasks, to decide to command to enforce obedience."

"But nevertheless could not I am asked make things easier for them. Do they have to be worked so hard, beaten so often? Could they not be fed and clothed better? My unhesitating reply is that they could not. If anything they should be subjected to a harsher discipline."

"All they have to do is to obey and we have the more difficult task of exacting that obedience. We all know from bitter experience how stubborn, how lazy, how ungrateful and indeed insolent charity boys can be. Do you seriously think they would be better behaved under a milder kinder regime? Of course they would not. To fulfil God's purpose and will their spirits must be utterly crushed. Only in that way will they retain the innocence that comes from lack of choice that is the one great gift that God has granted them and only in that way will we be able to exercise the dominion that God has granted us over them and which it is our right and duty to impose."

"However we have not only to ensure our ark is kept in good repair and that its structure is not wrecked by ill-advised innovations. We must also see that it is adapted to meet changing needs and circumstances. Our community in the Vale does not exist in a vacuum – unfortunately. However stoutly we build the walls of our arc some water from outside will seep in and the bilges from time to time will need to be pumped out or some repairs made to the hull."

"Many changes have been made over the centuries to meet changing circumstances and we must be alert to make fresh changes as the need arises in the future."

"I have become aware increasingly over recent years of a change in the outside world that is having increasing repercussions here. I refer to the appearance of the female yob. When Hiram set up his charity all those hundreds of years ago the main threat to the social tranquillity and cohesion of the Vale came from gangs of able bodied idle youths and boys. Girls were docile quiet creatures engaged in housework and rearing babies and this remained the position for many hundreds of ears. It was only in the comparatively recent past that I have noticed the appearance here of a phenomena now all too familiar outside the vale – the rowdy, bawdy, assertive teen-age and indeed sub-teenage girl. Everything an ill behaved disruptive boy can achieve by way of spreading aggravation and chaos can now be done, indeed more than done by his female counterpart."

"It is time to act. It is time to take into our arc, as our lesson today told us we should, both males and females of the charity breed. I know certain parents have driven to despair by unruly and impudent daughters subjected them to a disciplinary regime similar to that imposed on charity boys. But to leave the treatment of this problem to individual families and parents is neither effective nor fair. It is ineffective because the taming of a delinquent brat be it male or female is too heavy a task for one family to perform quickly and efficiently. It is unfair because it imposes on one family a task whose performance, if successfully completed, benefits the whole of society. We must as a society take responsibility for dealing with this problem and the only effective way of dealing with it is to extend Hiram's charity to cover brats of both sexes."

"I have to admit that a short time ago I would have opposed the proposal on purely aesthetic grounds."

"I personally prefer the trim lines of a young boy's body with it's tight dimpled bottom to the generally softer and plumper form of a girl of the same age. Until recently the strength of my preference was such that I would have scouted any proposal to introduce charity girls. Yesterday though the Corvo Cup was run and the race was a revelation to me. The pair of perfectly matched naked pony-girls the sun glistening on their naked limbs, highly schooled healthy young animals, their strong young bodies harnessed to the shafts of the racing trap were a joy to look at. And then can anyone claim to have seen anything as thrilling as that final dash up the long slope to the finishing line. The two bitches matching the boys stride by stride as they as they vied in strength and swiftness of foot for the honour of their masters. Their young jockeys playing their parts in the drama, raking their bratd' bare shoulders with the lash to get them to give more than they ever knew or guessed that they possessed."

"I am now convinced that girls properly schooled and toughened up will make perfectly acceptable charity brats. I am further convinced that the Vale is in danger of being, rather already has been effected by the indiscipline that is now endemic among immature females outside its confines. The time therefore has come when we must take into our Arc as Noah took into his both 'the male and female kind". We must no longer shirk our duty to these unfortunates. We must take into our care charity girls as well as charity boys and extend to them the inestimable blessing of complete innocence that comes through unquestioning obedience and unremitting toil."

"There are certain practical problems that will need to be resolved but these are matters that should be settled by agreement among the trustees and there is no need for me to go into them now so I will now bring my remarks to a close."

"That," the Recror added smiling, "will no doubt will be a great relief to my young friend William Smythe who I happen to know is eager to brand his first brat. But I would say that when William presses the glowing iron against the brat's rump and its shrill screams are ringing in your ears do not pity the child but rather envy it for with his branding comes true freedom, the freedom from all responsibility and the promptings and the constant nagging of a tender conscience."

"Now in the name of the Father and the" 3; 3; 3; 3; and the Rector galloped through the remainder of the service.

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