But next morning, while Margaret was ladling porridge into the bowls Lucy held for her, the girls’ eyes met. Lucy gave a tiny shake of the head, a tiny turndown of the corners of the mouth, before she moved away; so Margaret knew that the witch must be worse. It was a funny feeling, being part of a plot, sharing perilous secrets with somebody you never really thought of as a proper person, only a rather useless and lazy servant.
But it was exciting too, especially being able to speak a language they both understood but which Uncle Peter and Aunt Anne didn’t even see or hear being spoken.
After breakfast she helped Lucy clear and wash up and then make all the beds, a job she especially hated. Uncle Peter had hired a man to clear the undergrowth in Low Wood and tie all the salable sticks into bundles of bean poles and switches; this meant that he had to go and work alongside the man, partly from pride and partly to be certain he got every last groat of his money’s worth out of him. And that meant that poor Jo had to muck out the milking byre after the first milking and take the fourteen cows down to pasture, and then do all the farmyard jobs which Uncle Peter would usually have done. It was mid-morning before any of them was free. They couldn’t all slink down to the barn, and Margaret was the least likely to be missed.
The witch was very ill, she could see at once; flushed and tossing, his eyes shut and his breath very fast and shallow. The splint on his arm was still tight in its place, but she didn’t like to think about his ribs as he fidgeted his shoulders from side to side. Tim knelt at his good elbow, gazing into his face and bubbling very quietly; when the witch’s feverish thrashings threw the blankets aside Tim waited for the first faint beginning of a shiver and then drew them back over him as gently as snow falling on pasture. The moment the gray lips moved, Tim was holding a little beaker to them and carefully tipping a few drops into the dry cranny. There was nothing Margaret could do which Tim couldn’t do better, so she sat down with her back against the engine, taking care to arrange a piece of sack behind her so that the rusty iron shouldn’t leave its betraying orange streaks down her shoulders.
The witch fidgeted and muttered. Tim babied him, eased water into the tense mouth, bubbled and cooed. When Margaret had been watching for nearly half an hour in the dim light and was just deciding to leave, the witch sighed suddenly and deeply and the tenseness went out of his body. His head lay back on the straw, with his mouth open in a sloping O, like a chicken with the gapes. But this time Tim didn’t pour any water into it; instead he watched for several minutes, at first with intense concern but gradually relaxing. At last he turned to Margaret, bubbled briefly and shambled out. She was in charge now.
Nothing happened in the first twenty minutes of her watch. The witch slept unmoving. The harsh lines of action relaxed into weakness until she could see how young he really was. Twenty? Twenty-one? She wondered how many times this had all happened before — the soldier, hunted and wounded, hopeless, lying feverish on dirty straw in some secret place while the yellow lamp burned slowly away. Hundreds of times, after hundreds of battles. But this time . . .
Then the lamp burned blue for a second, recovered, reeked with black fumes and went out.
Margaret sat in the dark, not knowing what to do. She could go up to the house and refill the lamp, or just get a new one; but it would be a funny thing to be seen doing in mid-morning. And it would mean leaving him alone. And if she stumbled and made a noise in the dark she might wake him and sleep was better than medicine, Aunt Anne always said. She stayed where she was; it was quiet and warm and dark, and after the panics of yesterday and the busy-ness of the night she was as tired as a babe at dusk.
Voices woke her. Her legs were numb and creaking with the pain of long stillness, but she dursn’t move because one of the voices was Mr. Gordon’s.
“I smell summat,” he grumbled.
“Smell, Davey,” said Uncle Peter’s voice.
“Arrgh, not smelling with my nose —in my heart I smell it. There’s wickedness about, Peter.”
“Ah, ’tis nobbut those old engines in the big barn. There’s a whole herd of ’em in there, Davey, but they’re dead, dead.”
“Mebbe you’re right,” said Mr. Gordon after a pause. “Mebbe you’re not. That zany of yourn, Peter, what do you reckon to him?”
“Tim?” said Uncle Peter. Margaret could hear the lilt of surprise in his voice. “He’s not in his right wits, but he’s as strong as an ox.”
“Mebbe, mebbe,” said Mr. Gordon. “He’ll bear watching, Peter. They’re proper cunning, witches are. I wouldn’t put it past ’em.”
“Making out to be a zany, you mean,” said Uncle Peter, still surprised. “But Tim’s been with us these four years, and I've seen no sign of it. And why, Davey, I told you about the milk, didn’t I — how much Maisie gave after we stoned t’other witch up in the stocks? But if Tim was one . . .”
“Your Missus don’t reckon ’twas more than a change of pasture as made the cattle give so well,” said Mr. Gordon sharply.
“Don’t you listen to what Anne says,” said Uncle Peter with a growl. Mr. Gordon began to cluck. Very slowly, with a rustling like a cow browsing through long grass, they moved away up the orchard. It was minutes before she dared to shift a leg and endure the agonies of pins and needles. Just as the witch was stirring again there came the sound of someone moving quietly through the main barn; the door of the hut rasped as the rusty hinges moved.
“Why are you in the dark?” said Jonathan’s voice, very low.
“The lamp went out,” whispered Margaret.
“There’s another one,” he said. “You should have lit it from the old one before it went out. I’ll run up to the house and fetch a new light.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Be careful, Jo — Mr. Gordon’s been nosing round outside.”
“Yes, I saw him. They’ve gone up to the pub, the Seven Stars. I won’t be long.”
The witch looked no better when the light came, despite his little sleep. Margaret tried to dribble a sip of water between his parted lips as she’d seen Tim doing, but made a mess of the job and spilled half of it down the stubble on his chin. Then she told Jonathan what she’d heard.
“We’ll shift Otto as soon as we can, down to those tugs of yours in Gloucester Docks,” said Jonathan. “No one goes there, and it’s halfway home for him. If only
we can last out till the snow comes we can take him down on the logging sledge.”
“That’ll be at least a month.”
“I know. Will you tell Lucy or shall I? About Tim?” “Tim?”
“What you told me Mr. Gordon said. They like the feel of killing now, that lot — smashing up rooks won’t keep them happy for long. They want a real person, human, but somebody who doesn’t matter to anyone.” “Except Lucy,” said Margaret.
“They wouldn’t think she counted. And even if Otto wasn’t here, if he was really dead, they’d come and search and find Tim’s treasures and stone him for that.” “Jo, oughtn’t you to come and see the tugs?”
“Father’ll want me on the farm too much.”
“Couldn’t you sprain an arm or something — something that didn’t stop you riding?”
“I suppose so. I ought to have a look at that canal too. I want to know how it gets out into the sea.”
“Well, we’ve got a month,” said Margaret. “We’ll just have to be careful. I’ll go and tell Lucy. Do you think Tim understands about being secret?”
“Sure of it — he’s more like a wild animal than a person in some ways. I’ve noticed he never comes straight down here nowadays.”
“How wrong in his mind do you think he really is,
Jo?”
“What do you mean?”
“If he were in a country with proper doctors, like there used to be when we were small, do you think they could make him all right?”