"I'm not having this" he muttered. Then he saw them, near the top of the hill. Just as his wife had said, two of them. The older man with a map and the younger man with a camera and . . . . a clipboard! John Gratly paused. He would not confront them. He would wait at a distance until the police arrived. This would be done properly!

Still angry, John Gratly realized that this was not good for him, so he tried to calm himself by sitting down on the grass. He remembered that day last year when the local newspaper had arrived.

"Build a bypass through my farm" he muttered.

"How dare they" he thought.

"Change the route indeed!" "It had all been as good as settled." "The bypass had always been planned to go round the southern side of the town."

"Conservationists".

"Use a northern route, avoid some historic woodland!" "Historic Woodland!" "What about my meadow!"

"Not only me, everybody's against it" he thought.

"All but a motorway next to the village, noise, pollution, all of it."

"Historic woodland, what about historic meadow, right here at Oak Tree Farm."

"Four hundred acre meadow, own by us Gratlys for generations." "I'm not having it".

John Gratly was still seething when he saw P. C. Johnson walking towards him. He stood up as the constable got closer.

"I'm looking for Mr. Gratly" said P. C. Johnson quietly.

"I'm John Gratly."

"Your wife rang the station in a bit of a state . . . ."

"Iris, is she alright?" asked John Gratly, thinking back to the distress that his wife had been in when she had burst into the living room, where he had been doing his accounts, after having seen the two men through the kitchen window.

"Yes, yes, she's still a bit upset, but there's a policewoman looking after her." "A sit down and a cup of tea and she'll be alright." "Now, can you tell me what's going on?"

John Gratly had felt calmer whilst concerned about his wife, but now, getting back to the matter of the two men, he started to get enraged again.

"They're trespassing on my land, I want them arrested."

"Now you know they're on a public bridleway . . . ."

"It's on my land."

"It's the Queen's highway, you know that."

John Gratly knew that the officer was right and felt a little foolish.

"Now, you wait here and I'll go and see what they're about," said P. C. Johnson and walked towards the two men who were now looking towards him, clearly having seen the two of them and his uniform. John Gratly waited for a short while, then set off after the policeman. They were only a short distance from the two men when the policeman showed any sign of noticing that John Gratly had not stayed put but was now walking next to him. John Gratly saw the exasperated look on the policeman's face, but, as the policeman said nothing and walked on, so did he!

"Good morning sir" said the officer to the older man.

"Good morning" replied the two men.

"I hope you don't mind me asking, but would you be willing, purely on a voluntary basis, to tell me what you're doing here, due to the interest you've aroused."

"What's your name" interjected John Gratly.

"Gratly"

"Mr Gratly to you, don't you Gratly me, I asked you your name."

"Peter Gratly"

"That's my son, don't you be funny with me."

With an embarassed laugh,

"I don't know your son, I'm Peter Gratly, is your name Grat . . . . Are you Mr. Gratly too?" he asked excitedly.

John Gratly felt agitated and perplexed.

"You're saying you've got the same name as me, what are you doing here, where are you from?"

"Southbridge."

John Gratly bridled, his fears reawakened.

"Is that a construction company?"

"No, it's a village in Staffordshire."

"Are you a surveyor?"

"No, I'm a pharmacist."

"Pharmacist!" thought John Gratly. "No, surely not."

His memory, in a flash, went back to his youth when his grandfather had told him of how an uncle had not wanted to work the land but had wanted to go away to study to be a pharmacist, how he had gone and how the farm had passed to the second line of the Gratly family some twenty years later. Now here was a man, with the same surname and he a pharmacist. How many generations of pharmacist had come and gone he thought. And now one was here.

The man from Staffordshire continued,

"My great great grandfather was baptised in the church over there in 1819, so me and my son decided to travel down and have a look." "We got the map from the Ordnance Survey some months ago and worked out a walk on the public rights of way."

John Gratly was beginning to feel foolish, deeply anxious and mistrustful all at once. He spoke,

"Are you sure you've not come about the bypass?"

"What bypass . . . ?"

John Gratly did not dare ask the question that he dearly wanted to ask, just in case they hadn't come to claim the land; he didn't want to give them any ideas that they might not have. Anyway, that was then and this was now. Surely the courts wouldn't go back beyond living memory. He'd had his training as a pharmacist paid for and he hadn't been interested in working the land.

"No, we're pharmacists." "We've been pharmacists for generations."

John Gratly inwardly winced.

The pharmacist continued,

"My grandfather was taken into the pharmacy business by his uncle." "We're from the third line of the Gratly family." "Anyway, that uncle was from the first line but had not been interested in working the land so had given up his inheritance to be a pharmacist." "The farm went to the second line." "Are you by any chance from the second line of the Gratly family?"

John Gratly felt relieved but said nothing.

"Anyway, the uncle never married and he left the business to my grandfather."

John Gratly felt at peace with himself.

P. C. Johnson, who was visibly relieved that what could have degenerated into an assault, or worse, had turned out without incident, said

"We'll have to be getting back then" and motioned to John Gratly to go with him. Well, at least, it was on John Gratly's albeit misguided instructions that he had been called out, so it was all part of a day's work.

"It's all been a bit of a misunderstanding" said P. C. Johnson when they reached Mrs. Gratly and the policewoman, who, having seen them coming had gone out into the farmyard to meet them.

John Gratly felt a little sheepish.

"Don't worry dear, it's nothing, they're just ramblers," he said, reassuring her.

It was some hours later that she confided

"I feel so foolish, jumping to conclusions," as she served her husband a second piece of apricot pie.

"I dread to think what might have happened" she said.

"Well, nothing did happen, did it, you didn't even burn the pie."

Copyright 1997 and 1998 William Overington