SWITCH IV

Whipping Tom: Terror of the Milkmaid's Bum

 

Ardie Stallard

 

© Copyright Ardie Stallard, 2022, 2025

 

Chapter One: Barbara

 

Epping Forest, Essex, Monday 10 November 1712

 

A young Special Constable rode up from Hackney to St. Andrews and then over the ridge this evening, to take supper with us and spend the night so he could talk to Will. Being a town dweller, he probably did himself proud even to find us out here in the woods unless he asked directions once or twice in the village, but Will's nothing if not clever about our table at mealtimes: he was calling out, "Light, sir!" to the visitor even before the boy could shout "Hello, the house!" and rein up his horse, much less dismount and state his business. He didn't say how many times he'd had to stop and refresh his directions, and Will never let on how chagrined he was to learn what our guest for the night wanted.

The last time anyone sought out Will for aid or counsel of this sort was thirty-one years ago at the advice of Sir Aubrey de Vere, late Earl of Oxford, God rest his soul, for many years the Lord Warden of Epping Forest and Lord Lieutenant of the whole of Essex as well. Lord Aubrey gave Will his first forester's job in Epping and bestowed a reputation on him as a particular, and peculiar, kind of forest lawman a good nine years before that; a status Will wishes, or says he wishes anyway, that he could shake off at least partially. The 1681 attacks took place within the courtyards of the City of London itself, I guess nigh twenty miles or more from here as the crow flies. Will claimed he wanted to keep to home back then because I was great with child (our Roger, God bless and keep him and his), yet I suspect he turned down the city thief-takers' requests for help mainly because he's a woodsman, pure and simple, and feared of walking the streets of a big town even in broad daylight, let alone after dark. When we have marketing and trading to do we go to St. Andrews or, just as often, one of the other little nearby hamlets here in the forest. But truth told, Will's never really been comfortable in their narrow, muddy streets either. He won't admit to being cowed by the notion of town dwelling or visiting, but it's nothing to be ashamed of. He grew up in another Kingswood, New Forest several miles south of London and not far from Ellingham where my own father was born and raised, and there he learned his trade as Forest Under Keeper from the best: his father, older brothers, and the Lords Warden, their Lieutenants, and the Master Keepers that were over them. With His Grace of Oxford's patronage in Epping he was able to work his way up through the jobs of Reeve, Woodward, and Regarder, and likely the only reason he's not a Master Keeper himself by now is that we're not of the gentry class. And the fact that the old Earl is gone now.

More than that, in their youth Will and his brothers often served as guides, watchers, and beaters for the New Forest deer hunts of His Majesty Charles II, and laying eyes on a King so closely, and more than once, is a boast I doubt very many men of Will's station even in London could make, let alone Hackney. That is, if indeed one wishes to boast of such. According to Will, the King, his courtiers, and the courtesans they brought along with them on their outings made a fair imitation of Sodom and Gomorrah when all of them weren't actually riding to the chase. Chasing deer, anyway. Will tells me the King's courtiers were even more engaged in chasing their whores and mistresses, to say nothing of any attractive forest girls they might lay eyes on, than doing any actual hunting.

So perhaps it's a good thing for us that, although King Charles rode to the chase occasionally at Waltham and Hainault, neither of them far from here, no monarch to my knowledge has hunted in this part of our own Kingswood since the days before Old Noll. Nowadays it's mostly the Lord Mayor of London and his retinue and friends, their biggest hunt being on the Monday after Easter, and Will's always put to some trouble to get our part of the forest back into proper order after they leave. Nobles and gentry are still the only persons allowed to run hunting dogs in a Royal Forest and even then only during active hunts, but the brutes-canine and human-always leave a mess to be sorted. Thank God near all of the Londoners prefer the two hunting lodges nearer Chingford to this out-of-the-way one. They say the smaller of the two's called Pimp Hall. I wonder why.

The biggest part of Will's work these days is enforcement of the Forest Laws: keeping an accurate deer count, trying to prevent or at least discourage poaching, keeping up with who does and doesn't have Rights of Common like pasture, mast, and estover, attending and testifying when needed in Forest Court with its horrendous little four-pence fines, and notifying his superiors, the Master Keepers of Epping Forest, about any persons outlaw or gangs of highwaymen hiding in or passing through the woods. Not that there'd be that many, either outlaw or robber, that'd keep a hideout this close either to London or the little forest villages, but that last responsibility by itself makes me suspect that this new young Constable, not to mention those that came to see my husband back in '81, might be just as scared of the idea of life in a Kingswood as Will is by city streets and courtyards.

To hear our visitor tell it, though, things be worse now than they were in '72 and even in '81. This officer, Leonard Rutledge by name, claims they've already had thirty-seven attacks in and around Hackney in only a month, three of them just last week on Guy Fawkes Night, and he says he was uneasy about leaving his duties even for so brief a time as to come see Will and beg counsel. Monday night and Tuesday morning away from Hackney seemed to him to be his least risky option. He brought along a few pages of The London Times, that new periodical they call The Spectator, and some other city journals to show us that the wild old tales about Whipping Tom being either a ghost or a daemon or ten feet tall and bulletproof are already running rampant again in Hackney and beyond. Will and I may be country bumpkins, but we know better, not only from common sense but hard experience. We heard most of the same yarns forty year ago right around here and it sounds like the Hackney people have simply borrowed them secondhand from us, just like the Londoners did in '81. Waltham and Epping Forest folk, villagers and woodsmen alike and especially over around Hangman's Hill and the little pond we used to call Clearpool, always have been ready to believe and spread ghost stories and tales of witchcraft. And so, although Will disliked his supper being interrupted with all young Leonard's talk of this new spree of violence, he tried his best to get the business over with quickly by the same suggestion he made to the London men thirty-one year ago: have as many younger constables and thief-takers as possible disguise themselves as women, put them out on patrol every night, and try to draw out this new Tom by that means. Back then that ruse worked. The haberdasher and his apprentice doing all the thrashing, I forget their names, were caught and punished by law, although not before making some poor woman lose a child and then her own life.

What bothered me most this evening, though, and I'm sure Will too, was Master Rutledge's insistence on broaching the subject while our Margaret was right behind him, waiting table on him. Thank God he remained at least somewhat vague about Whipping Tom's specific misdeeds, but regardless, Meg became completely smitten with him as quick as I've ever seen her taken with any boy. And she's so giddy and giggly that, in her eighteen years, she's been fond of more than one, on occasion even more than one at the same time! I could see the very stars grow in her eyes. We've never told her about either the Whipping Tom case in our neck of the woods or in London, and I hoped she'd never learn about them otherwise. The story's rather a cause of shame around here locally, after all, and there be few willing to recall it, let alone discuss it.

But Meg being our youngest and the only one left at home we've always spoiled her, especially Will, and she's become accustomed to getting her way. As soon as she laid eyes on our guest with his green eyes, little mustache and goatee, long curly brown hair clubbed at the back, and his bright city clothing and shoon, she literally begged me to stay by the fireplace and mind the cooking while she brought the dishes and pots to the men's table, waited on her father and Master Rutledge, and tried to catch his eye. She's not ordinarily that work-brickle unless a boy she likes is nearby, and she was so distracted by Master Rutledge I was glad she didn't burn herself lugging the food to the table. But for all Will's cleverness his manners are still that of the forest, neither adequate for nor consistent with anybody's idea of etiquette, and he didn't bother to introduce either Margaret or me to Leonard. Turned out that the boy got the notion that I was merely Will's cook and Meg, the housemaid. We don't keep servants here, never have, and we dress almost as plainly and somberly as Puritans although we're anything but. I suppose it was an easy error to make. The Earl of Oxford and his ancestors had estates at Hackney before Sir Aubrey died nine year ago and I imagine that almost every merchant and freeholder down that way have lackeys of their own.

Common modesty forbade us rebuking a house guest openly, but once first-table dishes were cleared away and Meg and I sat down to take our own meal Will suggested to Leonard that they untie his mare from the hitching post nigh the front door and take her to the barn and curry and feed her, and he gave me a look that told me he intended to set the matter aright. Will's sixty, I'm fifty-eight and we've been wed forty year this past June. In that time, especially through the trials and troubles of raising four boys and two girls to maturity, not counting the little ones down in the St. Andrews parish churchyard whom Will and I hope to meet again in Heaven one day, we've learned a lot about speaking to each other only using our eyes. So it wasn't entirely unexpected that young Master Rutledge returned with Will while Meg and I were finishing up our repast, scarlet with embarrassment and stammering abject explanations and apologies to Margaret and me both. Will rolled his eyes at me and I gave him a slight shake of the head in return. I can't say I truly trust any city man, to say nothing of a member of the gentry, but there was no use making the boy any more uncomfortable than he was already. For her part, Meg was delighted to grant him the pardon he begged for, her cheeks almost as flushed as his and complemented by a sweet smile. Margaret inherited her flaming red hair from me and she's prettier than I ever was, to boot; trouble is, she's well aware of it, a lot more than's good either for her or her father and me.

Meg had tried to broach the subject with me as we ate, but I put her off with the warning that her father and our guest would be back inside the house too soon for me to explain everything to her. But when Will and Master Rutledge pulled chairs up to the fire and began to nurse tankards of October-brewed ale, Meg and I started to redd up the table and dishes and pots and she began to pepper me with questions once again. Oh, well. Now that the cat was out of the bag I couldn't put the girl off forever. So I might as well start talking. Whispering back, anyway.

"Meg, will you please keep your voice down? Your father and I had good reason not to tell you about Whipping Tom!"

"But Mum, I don't understand! Who was this Whipping Tom? A highwayman? Where did he hide, and where did he stage his thievery? Did Papa catch him in the act right here in the forest? He must be really old by now. How'd he 'scape the noose? Or did he? Is that why Le-err, Mr. Rutledge has come to see me? Err, to see him, I mean?"

"Highwayman!" I scoffed. "Pshaw! No, child, if anything he was a low wayman, if there be such a thing! This is the third base rogue that's been called Whipping Tom in my memory, and your father only had to do directly with the catching of the first of them. But that did happen, in fact, right here in Epping Forest, at-not far from our home, in fact. It's something your father's never been proud of, though, and I think it shames him a little every time somebody reminds him of it."

"But why should it shame him? My father, the famous thief-taker! How'd Whipping Tom 'scape the gallows? Wait'll I talk to the girls next time we go to St. Andrews-"

"Oh, do set your feet back down on the ground again, Meg! It's-it's a long story, and not the prettiest or the easiest one to tell. But I can say this much. Every Whipping Tom so far has earned the name because that's exactly what he, or they, did. To poor defenseless women he, or they, caught out walking alone." I shook my head, embarrassed even to say that much.

"He-whipped them? On their backs, you mean? Or on their legs?"

I shifted a bit uneasily, searching for the best words in the best order. Giving voice to such thoughts always makes me a bit dauncy in the stomach. "Err, yes, Meg, their backs. The fleshy parts of their backs," I finally answered uncomfortably.

"The fleshy parts of their backs?" tittered Margaret. "What fleshy parts? You mean their tobies? That he spanked them? On their-their-their tobies?" Here she blushed red once more, flounced nervously and giggled again a little louder than she should have, prompting Will to turn his head and give her a suspicious glance.

"Shh! Yes, on their tobies, and mayhap you'd better look out for the welfare of your own toby, girl!" I hissed back, although I couldn't fool her with a threat she could be almost sure was idle. Scold and lecture her Will has, on many occasions till she's cried, but then my big, strong, tough, fearless husband starts sobbing along with her and hugs her till she hushes. I admit I've been almost as easygoing with her, myself. She's never known strictness, but-we're simply not able to stand the thought, either of us, of striking one of our children as punishment. We've had good reason for not doing so, too. But despite that lack, if lack it be, they've all turned out well, far away though most of them are now and for all that we've never yet seen a single one of our grandchildren. Young Will, Young Hob, Roger, and John, all married to French Huguenot girls now and living upriver from Charles Town, America along with Kate, our other daughter and her husband James Foster, write to us (along with the sweetened tobacco for Will's chewing and the Indian corn and other garden seed and little presents for me they send yearly to Maldon Port down at the Blackwater Estuary, through their factor) that that's the way some of the tribes of so-called savages in the New World train up their young: with words and penalties instead of cuffs and slaps. To them a blow to the body is an insult that no one should have to take, not even a child. Still, I'll wager that few of their sons and daughters are as petted as our Meg is.

But our darling youngest offspring was on a roll, if you'll excuse the dice-tossing gambler's expression and, already het up by the presence of a man she'd just then set her cap for, she wasn't to be denied her spell of snickering. Now she started smirking and pointing at her father as he held the Times and Spectator scraps as far away from his face as he could in the dim light of the fireplace, claiming farsightedness for his inability to make out the small print, and asking our guest to read them to him. "Same old trick he always pulls when he wants to hide that he can't read!" Meg laughed. Quietly at least, but it set my temper ablaze.

"Margaret Sperrock!" I growled, unfortunately loudly enough to prompt another suspicious backward glance from Will. I simply couldn't help myself, though. "You will not disrespect your father so! He can read a little! He can write his name! He just gets the letters mixed up! But don't you forget, my fair and tender young lady, that what he lacks in book-learning he makes up for as a woodsman! It's been the skills of living in the forest and hunting that your father gave your brothers that's kept them and their families alive and safe in that far-flung Carolina New World wilderness!"

For some reason that got through to her, and she fell silent and busied herself with the redding-up for a moment or two. She had to have the last word, though:

"Uh, Mama? It's now North and South Carolina in America, and Young Will and Young Hob and Roger and John and Kate and Jemmy all live in the south part, along them Cooper and Ashley Rivers that they tell us come together to make the Atlantic Ocean, don't they?"

"So it is. I'd forgotten. Well, I stand corrected," I retorted. "But still, at most there's only a river or two that separates any of them, though an ocean separates all of them from us, God help us. Now, my pretty chatterbox, is there anything else you need to learn me?"

If she picked up on the sarcasm, she didn't let it show. And soon enough her shoulders started shaking again and she couldn't stop another giggle-or, unfortunately, another whispered comment: "So, then, Mama, are you telling me that Papa was the hero of Epping Wood for saving the St. Andrews women's and girls' arses from Whipping Tom?"

Now I remained calm, though I knew I had to shut her up at least for the rest of the evening while Master Rutledge continued his fireside chatting with Will. "Margaret," I murmured softly as I lay hold of her upper left arm, "since you seem to be so curious about girls' tobies being whipped, mayhap you and I need to go over to the barn for me to demonstrate the sensation to you. I may be an old woman now, but I wager I can still swing a strap of saddle tack hard enough. I know that your father can, too. And you've been asking for it this livelong evening." I made as if to walk her right to the front door.

She was ready to laugh again until she saw the expression on my face and felt my grip on her arm. Thank God again, the bluff worked this time. She paled. "Mum!" she now begged, "you wouldn't! Please!"

She was right. I wouldn't. But I didn't want her to know that. I set my face in stone, squeezed her arm a little harder, pushed her forward a couple more steps, and waited.

Margaret finally sighed. "Please don't, Mum. Forgive me, and I vow I'll be a good girl. I beg your pardon. I'm not curious enough about this to want a sore bum from you. At least I don't think I want a sore bum from you!" She clapped hands to her own rump then and ventured a hopeful smile at me, and it was so infectious I couldn't help smiling in return.

"If you really want to know, girl, I promise I'll tell you the story-well, most of the story. Just not in front of that young man by the fireplace! Or your father!" I answered, but now I had to cut my reply short. Will had gotten up and approached, and quite before I knew what was happening he'd secretively laid his big spade of a right hand on my own backside! With a flex of his palm and a circular rub! I gasped and looked back at him, partway in annoyance, partway in fear-and partway in appreciation. Such gestures have ever been communication between us, as much as or more than our eyes and facial expressions. Sixty and grizzled, my Will can still be lively. My face grew hot, and I suspect I blushed as bright a red as Meg had in front of our gallant young guest.

"Will!" I tried to whisper without moving my lips. At the same time, though, I couldn't resist wiggling my bum discreetly backward a little, into his caress. "Our company! Have you drunk too much ale?"

"Master Rutledge'll be taking our good bed off the kitchen, I'll take the cot close to the tack room, and you and Margaret can sleep together upstairs in the loft, sweetheart," he said loudly enough for everyone in the house to hear. Meg sighed, putting together two and two about her father's thoughts. Up until a month or so ago, we kept a hired-boy, Raph Dodson from down in St. Andrews, in a little room up over the stables and stalls in the barn. Paid him well and treated him right for a hired hand, too. But just after Will and Raph had finished rounding up and penning our hogs from the forest, preparatory to selling them to the butchers in the villages roundabout, he caught Margaret in our barn with Raph. I was there myself seeing to the cow and although they hadn't spied me I knew for certain that they hadn't done anything besides share a brief kiss. I was just ready to tell them they'd better behave when Will stormed in, took one look, and gave that poor boy a kick in the arse that left him a-hopping and limping rather than running all the way back to the village. Of course Meg cried and then Will started crying along with her, like usual, but that time he was adamant. No fooling with the boys for his pride and joy. Not yet, anyway.

Even so, Will now caught her truculent look and smiled at her indulgently. "You can go over and keep company with Master Rutledge for a moment or two if you wish, Nutmeg, while your mother and I have a little talk," he said.

"Papa! No pet names in front of company!" she remonstrated with a worried look toward the fireplace.

"Whatever you say, Magpie," he shot back, definitely loud enough for Master Rutledge to hear. Although I took guilty pleasure at seeing Meg put to the same sort of embarrassment that she'd just then given me, I admit that sometimes Will does tease both her, and me, a bit rough.

"Ooo! Papa!" she stormed at him prettily with an angry flounce and a stamp of her dainty right foot, but she didn't need to be ordered to her duty twice. She scampered over to the chair Will had occupied with the most engaging smile she could come up with for her new heart interest. He was only too glad to return the favor, too, even if he had heard her called Nutmeg and Magpie.

"I don't suppose a few words or smiles'll hurt her, so long as we can keep an eye on the boy," Will observed softly to me as he squeezed my bum a little harder and I flinched. We were turned so the young people couldn't see what my husband was doing, but I was still afraid we both might forget and let down our guard too much.

"I'd fain bed down with you tonight, my bonny Barb'ry Allen, were it possible," he murmured-just before he started whistling the tune softly.

"I may be Barbara, but I'm no Barbara Allen! What a thing to whistle! Serenade me with that song the courtiers used to tease King Charles with, will you?" I retorted. "Stop that! How strong was that ale? What's the matter with you, Will? Are you drunk, or have you gone all agog over the actions of the new Whipping Tom?" Now I ducked my head with a chagrined smile I couldn't help.

"I overheard a bit of your talk with Meg," he returned. "I know she's curious. She always is, about everything. How much shall we tell her? Or should I ask how much you've told her already?"

"I honestly don't know how much to tell. So far I've said the least I could," I admitted. "Our Meg's grown up faster than we ever thought she would-or than we wanted her to. Let me think about it, Will. I vow I'll say only what's edifying."

"Good Lord, how much that young on' reminds me of another girl I met forty year back!" Will chuckled. Now he gave me a little slap to the rear along with his squeeze and rub, loud enough to worry me that the young people would hear it.

"Will!" I hissed, "you-you-you blackguard! You-libertine! You forget yourself, husband!"

He arched an eyebrow at me and grinned. "I thought I saw a bit of dust back there! You wouldn't complain were it not for Meg and our guest, would you? Ah, my cruel Barb'ry Allen, and me poor Sweet William a-perishing for your love just like in the song! Nay," he insisted quietly, "I'm neither libertine nor blackguard, and sometimes I think I recall things all too well! Such as that pretty girl of forty year ago, who's as lovely to me now as she ever was! Why else do you think I stay so worried about our Meg?" Now he lightly slapped my toby again, I think simply to irk me further. It would be just like him, too much ale or no, and it certainly did the trick. For all his trouble with reading and writing Will can wax poetic when he gets aroused, but he can also be a pain in the arse in the most literal sense. But without further ado, trouble, or scandal, we all managed to bed down for the night, and up in the loft Margaret snuggled in beside me-as I should have expected, with even more questions about Whipping Tom.

"Mum?"

"What, Poppet?"

"When Whipping Tom was in the forest here forty year ago, that would have been near the time you and Papa wed, wouldn't it?"

"Aye," I answered, hoping that'd be the last of it.

"How many women did Whipping Tom spank ere Papa brought him to justice?"

"Too many! Now, Meg, I'm tired, and tomorrow's a big day-"

"Mum?"

"I swan, child, you're as full of questions as you were when you were a little bony-kneed girl ten year ago! How now?"

"Uh... well... Mum?"

"Oh, do spit it out, darling, and then let us get some sleep! You know your father'll be up with the rooster in the morning, and he'll need his breakfast! He deserves a couple or three decently-fried eggs and rashers of bacon ere starting his walk, and so does young Rutledge afore he heads back to Hackney!"

"Very well," she sighed. "Last question for the night, then, and please don't be angry with me. Mum, did Whipping Tom happen to catch you once and spank you, too? Or maybe more than once? Is that how you and Papa met?"

I know in reason my eyes nigh popped out of my head then. "No! Whipping Tom most certainly did not lay a hand... err, he most certainly did not spank me! Now go to sleep!" I retorted with a petulant kiss to her forehead as if, after that query, I myself could relax enough to slumber in any peace. And so I lay beside Meg as she tossed and turned and flounced and jounced for a few moments and finally dozed off, my own eyes wide open and gazing at the joists in the roof and my mind full of the memories all flooding back.

No, Margaret, my precious girl, Whipping Tom did not spank me. "Almost" doesn't count, after all. But how can I ever tell you that Whipping Tom was the only reason your father and I even met, to begin with? Or that Will... he... oh, Lord, what Pandora's box might this third Whipping Tom still open?