I continue to write into the night, shivering in my chair, straining my eyes against the glow of low candles, though what good these thoughts will do now I cannot know. Not much. For the things we buried in my youth have inevitably been unearthed. I am shameless enough to say I had hoped I’d be long dead and in hell before anyone discovered what we left slumbering in the dark heart of England, things we had not the wit nor strength to kill.
They are waking now, I see the signs everywhere. The red dawns. The missing villagers. The blooming unease. Everywhere I look the chains of order are slipping. Taxes unpaid. Lawmen assaulted. No one trusts the courts, the Parliament, or the King. They barely trust their neighbours.
Yes, it is happening again. I might be able to help, with what I know, but that would mean subjecting myself to all that horror again. Can I, in this old age? Will I?
Paddy Dobson
22nd February 2023