"And don't come back. My God, you stink!"

"My dear lady, I must apologise for my colleague's colourful odour, but I would not go so far as to use such a derogatory term," said Sydney as the landlady forcibly ejected them.

"Your perfume, madam, intoxicates me," burbled a very drunken Roland from beneath his time-worn overcoat.
"Sydney, I think I'm in love",

The two 'gentlemen of the road', Rolo and Syd, had spent the evening in the Horse and Groom public house. They had spent the evening being being hosted by a local 'gentleman', Sammy, a distant acquaintance of Sydney's. Rolo, true to form, had made full use of all facilities.

"Madam," slurred Rolo. "May I have your telephone number?"

"No you bleedin' well can't. And you," to Sydney, "don't bring that thing anywhere near me again." With that, the dim pool of light in which they stood snapped to darkness as she slammed the pub door shut.

"D'yer know, Syd. I fink she fancies me," murmured Rolo. Did yer see the way she looked at me when she poured me drinks?"

"Sydney, please, dear boy. We must maintain standards. And I am not sufficiently inebriated not to know when they are beginning to slip."

"Eh?"

"And," continued Sydney, "Mrs Farnsworth had a point about your smell. It's that coat. You really should do something about it."

"Mrs who?"

"Mrs J Farnsworth, the landlady. Her name was above the bar."

"Oh, Mrs Farmsworthy I love you," sang Rolo as he slid undignified down the rough hewn stone wall of the pub. His full-throated snore suddenly broke the silence.

"Well," muttered Sydney after several attempts to raise the heap that was Rolo to his feet.
"I noticed an old shed just along the lane as we came up here. It looks like at least we could have a night under cover. Come on, my boy - Rolo get up."

Together, the ungainly couple staggered and wobbled, start-stop, into the even darker darkness of the lane.

Sydney and Rolo had finally bedded down in the ramshackle shed whose walls had been totally permeated by the multitude of weeds, bushes and trees, the branches of the latter forming a better roof than the remnants of the age-rusted corrugated iron.
Sydney had chosen the corner furthest from Rolo in an attempt to reduce the effects of the sounds, and smells, radiating from his colleague.

"Psst, Sydney. There's somebody else in 'ere. Come on Sydney, wake up."

"Just go to sleep. You must be tired, with all that gut-rot inside you. What's the time?" Muttered Sydney as he rolled over and buried himself deeper into his corner.

"'Ow do I know wot the time is. I ain't got no watch. Anyway it's gone sunset, I know that, cos it's still dark. An' I can 'ear 'em scratching about up there," whispered Rolo.
"An, there's more than one," he added. "They're signalling to each other. Can't you 'ear 'em?"

Grudgingly, Sydney uncurled himself and raised himself on one elbow and, with both eyes still closed, gave the impression of listening earnestly. "All I can hear is you carping-on about noise, that's all. If we do have interlopers, they will be after your coat."

"They ain't 'avin' me coat," hissed Rolo. "There it is. Did you 'ear that?"

"That, dear boy, was an owl hooting. A tawny owl, in fact" he added knowledgeably.
"Now please do go to sleep, it's just nature. We are in the countryside. And," he added, "the scratching about, is probably bats flying overhead."

"Well, I don't like nature, it gets everywhere. 'Ow the 'ell can anybody sleep wiv that row going on. There's me tryin' to have nice dreams about Mrs Farmsworvy and I'm getting kept awake by nature: bats 'n owls an' fings. Shouldn't be allowed. An' it's not 'elpin' me 'eadache."

"You know, this situation reminds me somewhat of when I was farming in the upper highlands of Scotland," mused Sydney. "Ah, a wonderful time, a wonderful country. Yes, such a lovely country to labour in.
My preference, of course, was the livestock. Oh, yes. Many's the night I've spent in the open-air assisting a birthing."

"You a farmer? No way. Well, I got livestock over 'ere. It's eatin, me alive." Rolo's plaintive utterings we're answered by silence from Sydney's corner.

"Yaaa! Help, Syd. I'm being nibbled alive!" screamed Rolo into the darkness about a half an hour later.

"Calm down, Rolo," said Sydney waking with a start. "Where are you? And, how many times do I have to tell you; my name is Sydney."
The darkness told Sydney that it was still night. As his eyes slowly became accustomed, two animated lumps appeared in the far corner, Rolo's corner - one of which, defined by the wails, was definitely Rolo. T he identity of the other was quickly identified by a plaintive series of bleats, to be a similarly, terrified sheep.

"It's only a sheep, Rolo," his eyes focussing on the pair - Rolo gripping tightly to the poor animal's mud encrusted fleece, the sheep just as determinedly trying to escape.

"Well, bleedin' 'elp me then. Don't just lie there. Get this monster orf me."

"Now don't panic, Rolo."

"Don't panic?," screamed Rolo from within his entanglement with the now highly distressed sheep. "I ain't no farmer, an' I definitely ain't sticking me arm up no sheep's …!"

"Now, Rolo, let's have a bit of decorum, please."

"Come on Syd, get this bleedin' animal orf me. Cor, what a stink! Smells like onions!"

"It's Sydney, and I don't hear the sheep complaining," said Sydney whimsically. "That's all those pickled onions and gherkins that you wolfed down in the pub."

"Very funny, now are you gonna 'elp me?"

Can I suggest that you stand up carefully and try to extricate yourself from the beast."

"Extricate? Wot the 'ells that when it's at 'ome?" Before Sydney could answer, as Rolo shuffled into an upright position, the sheep seized its chance and galloped, Rolo in tow, through the brambles and out of the shed.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! 'Elp me Syd," wailed Rolo as the pair, the sheep with Rolo in tow, bolted across the field. "This monster won't let go!"

"Well, first, old boy, my name is Sydney and second, I'd love to get involved, but unfortunately sheep are not within my skill set. Maybe if you hold on, it will eventually tire and untangle itself."

"Hold on? Sydney, you are #*##@!"

[THE END]

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