“You there, Marge?” he whispered. “Good. Hold this. I won’t be long.”
He handed her a saw and scampered off down the path. Tim at once began to make his bubbling noise more loudly, because Jonathan was the only person he knew and trusted, apart from his own sister, Lucy.
Other people teased him and threw things at him, or were frightened of him and kept away; but inside his poor muddled brain he knew that Jonathan really thought of him as a person, and not as an animal who happened to be shaped like a man.
“It’s all right, Tim,” whispered Margaret, speaking as she might have done to Scrub, “he’s coming back. Be brave.” The whisper seemed to make Tim feel he was with someone who wouldn’t hurt him, so he settled down to wait and the bubbling quietened in his throat. Jonathan was away several minutes, and when he came back he walked slowly, bent sideways by the weight of the heavy thing he was carrying.
“What’s that?” said Margaret.
“Petrol, I think. It burns. I found a few tins hidden under the straw in the old barn where the machines are.”
“But you aren’t allowed to go there!” whispered Margaret fiercely.
“Tim can carry it,” said Jonathan. “And the sack. There won’t be anyone in the road now it’s really dark. I’ll manage the hurdle and you take the saw, Marge. Keep in the shadows. If someone does come, stand still until you’re sure they’ve seen you. If you have to run away, don’t drop the saw or they’ll know where it came from. Climb up the ivy on the other side of this wall and you can get back onto the roof. Off we go.”
Tim followed him like a dog at its master’s heels. The alley between the cottages was a black canyon, but beyond it the moon shone clear against the Rectory wall. Tim moved more quietly than the children be-
cause he didn’t have proper shoes, not even clogs; his feet were wrapped in straw which he tied into place with strips of old rag. The stocks had been set opposite the gate into Squire’s house, where the road was wider, so that there would be plenty of room for the villagers to gather round and throw things at whoever was in them — soft fruit and rotten eggs and clods of turf at ordinary bad people, stones at witches.
The pile was silent now, but Jonathan didn’t stop to listen to it. He started lifting the stones away, not dropping them but putting them down carefully so as not to make any noise. Tim watched, bubbling quietly, and then began to help. When Margaret lifted her first stone the witch groaned again.
There weren’t as many stones as there seemed. The pile looked big because Mr. Gordon, the fierce old sexton, had made the men pick the loose ones up when the stoning was over and heap them into a neat cairn. Before long Margaret tried to pull a bigger stone out but found it was soft and warm — a legging with a leg inside it. In a few minutes more they had cleared the legs up as far as the stocks.
“You two carry on with the top half,” said Jonathan, “while I cut through here.”
“But Jo,” whispered Margaret, “won’t they start hunting for him when they see it’s sawn through? They’ll know someone’s got him out.”
“That’s what the petrol’s for.”
He was already sawing, slowly but firmly, making as little noise as possible. Margaret and Tim labored on, lift, stoop, lift, stoop, lift, stoop. No single stone seemed to make the cairn any smaller, but soon they had cleared the body up to the waist. Tim had stopped his bubbling and was working with increasing urgency now that he could see enough of the witch’s body to know what it was; he cooed once or twice, a noise which Margaret hadn’t heard him make before. The witch had sheltered his head behind crooked arms, but these were now stuck to the mess of clotted blood and clothing and hair round his face; when Margaret tried to move an arm to get at a stone which had lodged in the bend of the elbow he groaned with a new, sharp note.
“He ought to be dead,” whispered Jonathan. “Perhaps he’s wearing some kind of armor under his clothes.” Tim knelt down beside the bloodied head and with slow tenderness, cooing like a distant pigeon in June, lifted the wincing tangle and cradled it against his dirty chest while Margaret picked out the last stone and eased the arms down into the man’s lap. Jonathan sawed with even strokes, as though he was in no hurry at all.
“Oak,” he whispered. “About three minutes more. Watch out up the lane, Marge, just in case.”
The last tough sliver gave beneath the sawteeth and he lifted the imprisoning timber from the man’s ankles. Then he fetched the hurdle and laid it beside the body. Tim, without being told, eased the wounded man on.
“We’ll each take a corner in front, Marge. Tim can carry the back.”
The weight was heavy but manageable. As soon as they were well clear of the rubble Jonathan lowered his corner to the ground so that Margaret and Tim had to do so too. Then he tipped the contents of the sack out to the night air, and all at once Margaret remembered the seaside, which she’d completely forgotten about for five years — a smooth sea, hot sun, sand crawling with people, and behind it all a road where just such a smell came from, because a lot of machines were waiting there for three ladies in white coats to — she remembered the right words — fill them up. She hadn’t thought of petrol, or the sea, or machines as things which took you to places, for ages — not since she was how old? The Changes were five years back, she and Jonathan were fourteen now, so not since she was nine. Now this smell, sharp, rather nasty, filling your nose like chopped onions, brought all the pictures back.
“We’ll let it soak while we get him down to the barn,” whispered Jonathan. “I’ll come back with a lantern to light it. People will run out if they see the flames now.”
“Why do you want to burn the stocks?” said Margaret as she picked up her corner of the hurdle.
“Burn the saw marks. Then people might think he got away by witchcraft.”
They didn’t talk again as they carried the witch through the alley, along the stretch of road at the bottom, down through the farm gate and yard and along the steep path behind the pigsties to the big asbestos barn where the wicked machines stood in their rusting rows. Jonathan seemed to know his way about and led them unstumbling through the blackness to a place where there was a little hut inside the barn. He pushed a door open, and another forgotten smell lifted out into the night, more oily than petroly this time.
“I think he’ll be safe here,” he said. “There’s a big engine without wheels in the middle; I don’t know what it was for but it drove a big fan and pushed air into those towers outside. Marge, you’ll have to climb up the ivy to my room and get some coverings to keep him warm. Straw, Tim. Straw. Straw. Good boy.”
Tim bubbled his understanding and slouched out. Jonathan was shuffling round in the blackness, making a sweeping noise. Margaret waited, jobless, to help shift the witch. Then the faint square of lighter blackness in the doorway was blocked and she could smell fresh straw — Tim must have robbed the stack by the pigsties.
“I’ve cleared a place here,” said Jonathan. “Hurry, Marge — we can move him.”
The ivy was harder to climb than Jonathan had implied, but she managed it on the third go. She whisked the blankets off his bed, threw them out of the window, and went slowly down the stairs. Aunt Anne was still sitting in tragic stillness by the ovens, but this time she looked up when Margaret came in.
“Pete should be back in ten minutes,” she said. “He’s talking to Mr. Gordon. You must be hungry after all that riding — there’s mutton and bread in the larder if you want something to keep you going.”
“Oh, yes, please,” said Margaret. “I’ve just remembered I didn’t check whether the ponies had enough water. I won’t be out long.”
She found what she wanted in the larder: two fresh rolls, apples, slices of mutton, and one of the little bottles of cordial which Aunt Anne had brewed last March. She took the bottle from the back of the shelf and hoped it wouldn’t be missed. As she was going out through the porch she had another thought and picked up one of the half-dozen lanterns which were always there. Aunt Anne didn’t even move her eyes when she crossed the kitchen and lit the wick with a spill from the fire. Jonathan met her just outside the porch.