“Bit of luck,” he whispered. “I thought I’d have to sneak in to light mine. Put it down — I’ve got a bit of dry straw. Shield the light as you go down the path, Marge.”
He knelt in the moonlight and flipped the little doors open; deft and sure he lit his straw and moved the quick flame into the other lantern in time to light the wick before the straw was all burned. Margaret carried her lantern round the corner of the house where the pile of bedding lay, picked the blankets up and hid its light among them.
The witch was moaning on his straw. His face in the yellow lantern light was an ugly mess of raw flesh, his lips fat with bruising, his eyes too puffy to open. Margaret tucked her blankets round him, put the food where he could reach it, opened the bottle and tried to push its neck between his lips. With a jerky movement the man’s hand came up and grabbed at the bottle, tilting it up until the yellow stuff was pouring out of the corners of the hurt mouth. He swallowed four times and then let his hand fall so that Margaret had to snatch at the bottle to prevent it from spilling all over him.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
She started to sponge the cordial from his jaw with a corner of her skirt, but stopped in a welter of panic — someone was moving out in the barn. She knelt, quite still, then realized that the lantern was more betraying than any movement — rats scuttle, but they don’t send out a steady gold glow. As she was moving to blow it out she heard the man in the barn make a different noise, a faint bubbling, Tim.
The big zany shambled through the door, carrying more straw and an indescribable mixture of old rags. He walked towards the wounded witch as if he was going to dump his load on him, then stopped. He stared at the blankets, then at the lantern, then at Margaret. Then he cooed and added a quiet little cluck of satisfaction before he took his bundle over to another corner of the hut and began to spread it about. Margaret realized that he’d brought his own bedding to keep the wounded witch warm, and now he intended to spend the night there to look after him. She decided to leave the lantern; Lucy was such a lazy slut that she’d never notice there was one missing when she cleaned and filled them in the morning.
As she stood up she looked for the first time at the other thing in the hut, the hulking old engine, bolted down into the concrete floor, streaked orange and black with dribbles of rust and the ooze of oil. She fitted her lantern into a nook where a lot of pipes masked it from three sides, in case there were cracks in the outside wall where the light could shine through and betray them. Then she left.
Uncle Peter was in his chair, and Aunt Anne and Lucy were putting supper out on the table, home bread and boiled mutton and turnips. The steamy richness filled the kitchen.
“Where you been, Marge?” he said.
“I’d forgotten to see if there was enough water for the ponies.”
“Good lass, but I can’t have you traipsing about the farm at all hours of darkness. You must learn to do things while it’s still daylight. But never mind this time. Where’s that son of mine, though?”
Feet clattered on the stairs and Jonathan rushed into the room, flushed and bright-eyed.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, “but I was looking out of my window and a great big fire started up suddenly in the lane. It doesn’t look like an ordinary fire. One minute there wasn’t anything, then it was like sunrise. What do you think’s happening?”
Uncle Peter jumped to his feet, picked his cloak off the settle and his cudgel from behind the door, and strode growling out. Aunt Anne stood with the ladle in one hand, the other clutching the back of a chair, her face as gray as porridge. Then she sighed, shrugged, and began to spoon meat and gravy and turnips into bowls. Lucy took the big cleaving knife and hacked off clumsy chunks of bread, which she handed round. Aunt Anne mumbled a quick grace and they sat down.
At once Jonathan was talking about a bird he’d seen that afternoon, which he thought might be a harrier. He held a piece of mutton on the point of his knife and waved it over the table to show how. the bird had spiraled up out of the valley; then he popped the meat into his neat little mouth (which looked too small to take it) and settled down to chewing. Nobody else said anything. Margaret knew that she ought to be hungry after all that misery and riding and excitement, but the excitement was still buzzing in her, making her blood run too fast through her veins to allow it to settle down to anything so stolid and everyday as eating and digesting. She dipped a morsel of bread into gravy and watched the brown juice soak up through its cells; she ate that slowly, and then picked up the smallest piece of meat on her plate with the point of her knife and managed to swallow that too. Lucy had gobbled, and was already giving herself a second helping. Aunt Anne ate almost nothing.
After twenty minutes Uncle Peter flung through the door, his cheeks crimson above his beard. He tossed his cudgel into the corner.
“Gone!” he cried.
“Gone?” said Aunt Anne, shrilly.
“Gone to his master the Devil!” shouted Uncle Peter. “I tell you. the stones were burning!”
“What does that mean?” said Jonathan in an interested voice.
“They were burning,” said Uncle Peter solemnly. “Not much, by the time I came there, but I could see where they’d been blackened with big flames. And they weren’t honest Christian flames, neither — the whole lane reeked of the Devil — the stink of wickedness — you know it when you smell it. And the little flames that were left, they were yellow but blue at the edges, not like mortal fire.”
“Were the stocks all burnt too?” said Margaret. Uncle Peter was too excited to notice how strained her voice came out, but Jonathan glanced sharply towards her.
“Burntest of all,” said Uncle Peter. “Roaring and stinking still.”
“Oh dear,” said Aunt Anne. “I don’t know what to think. We’ve kept your supper warm for you, Pete.” “We’ll know tomorrow,” said Uncle Peter, “when I’ve done milking Maisie. I reckon the witch has gone home to his master, and she’ll be carrying a full bag.”
He sat down and plunged into the business of eating, tearing off great hunks of bread and sloshing them round his platter before stuffing them into the red hole in the middle of his ginger beard, where the yellow teeth chomped and the throat golloped the lumps down. Margaret, who did not like to watch this process, looked away and her eye fell on Lucy. Lucy was a house servant, so she did not speak unless she was spoken to, though she sat at the same table with them all. (Where else was there for her to sit, if she wasn’t to share a shed with her poor mad brother?) Now her black eyes sparkled above her plump red cheeks as she drank the excitement, looking from face to face; but the moment she saw Margaret watching her she dropped her glance demurely to the table. She was a funny secret person, Margaret thought, just as much a foreigner as the witch, really. Four years back she’d led Tim into the village — she’d been twelve then, she said, and Tim must have been about fifteen, but nobody knew for certain — and asked for shelter. They’d stayed ever since, but Margaret knew her no better than the day she came.
The moment Uncle Peter had speared his last chunk of mutton and thrust it into his mouth, Lucy was on her feet to take his plate and bring him the big round of cheese. He was swilling at his mug of rough cider when the door was racked with knocking. Aunt Anne started nervously to her feet and Uncle Peter shouted “Come in!” It was Mr. Gordon, the sexton, his broad hat pulled down to hide most of his knobbly face, his shoulders hunched with rheumatism, but his blackthorn stick held forward in triumph like an emperor’s staff.