“What’s happening?” whispered Margaret.
He beckoned, then pointed to the floor; he must be showing her which board creaked, so she stepped over it and crouched by his side. He said nothing, but the steady clack of Mr. Gordon’s rocking chair came up the stairs, mixed with his wheezing and clucking.
“He’s waiting for her to break,” whispered Jonathan at last. “I don’t know what to do. He’s willing her to it.”
“Can’t you go in and interrupt them?”
“No, I daren’t — she’s protecting me. She knows, somehow, though I’ve never told her. And he seems to know she knows.”
“Oh.” Margaret felt despairing. It was so unlike Jonathan not to have a plan. Well, at least she could try.
“Find some of Uncle Peter’s old clothes,” she whispered, “ones he never uses. Take them down to the witch. Lucy’s washing him. I’ll do something to stop Mr. Gordon.”
“Thank you,” said Jonathan and slipped off down the passage towards Aunt Anne’s room. Margaret, her gullet hard with fright, crept back into Jonathan’s room, out along the shed roof and down the ivy. It would have to be a lie — a good big one.
When she threw open the kitchen door Mr. Gordon was still rocking and clucking, and now Aunt Anne was leaning forwards in her chair like a mouse which has caught the eye of an adder. Neither of them looked round when the door banged against the dresser, though she’d pushed it so hard that the blue cups rattled on their saucers.
“Oh, Aunt Anne, Aunt Anne,” she croaked (and her terror was real), “a ginger cat just spoke to me. He said ‘Good morning.’ ”
The rocker stopped its clack. Aunt Anne eased herself back in her chair, gazed at the palm of her left hand, and then turned her head.
“What did you say, darling?” she said dully.
“I went down the lane to see if any of the crab apples had fallen at the back of Mrs. Gryde’s, so that we could make some conserve, but before I got there a big ginger
cat came out of the hedge from the six-acre and looked at me and said ‘Good morning.’ ”
Mr. Gordon jumped out of the chair, sending his blackthorn stick clattering across the floor. Margaret ran to pick it up for him, but as she knelt his bony hand clawed into her shoulder, so that she dropped the stick again and almost shouted with surprise and hurt. He pulled her close to him; she could see the individual hairs that sprouted from the big wart on the side of his nose. His bloodshot old eyes glittered.
“Mrs. Gryde’s cat, that’d be?” he said fiercely.
“No,” croaked Margaret. “Hers is quite a little one. This was big, the biggest I’ve seen, and lame in one leg. It went away up towards the New Wood. Shall I show you?”
Mr. Gordon clucked once or twice, thinking. “Ah,” he said at last. “That’s where we found the witch. Mebbe he didn’t go back to his master after all. Mebbe he turned hisself into a cat — and he’d be lame all right, after the stoning we give him. You bring me along and show me what you seen, lass.”
He let go of her shoulder, but gripped it again the instant she’d turned. Aunt Anne had to scrabble for his stick. Then Margaret led him hobbling out into the road, hoping there were no witnesses about; but Mother Fatchet was driving her black pig up the slope towards them. Mr. Gordon stopped her, and the two old people at once began an excited cackling discussion about what might have happened, during which Margaret’s invented cat seemed to grow bigger and bigger until she was afraid they wouldn’t believe her when she showed
them the rabbit run she’d decided on for it to have appeared through — a gravelly place where even the heaviest cat’s paw-marks couldn’t be expected to show up. But when she showed them the hole they didn’t seem to mind that it was small. Mr. Gordon made her tell her lie all over again while he stared hotly up to where the young beeches of New Wood stood russet in the silvery sunlight. Then, at last, he let go of her shoulder and began hobbling up towards the center of the village to roust his cronies out of the pub for another witchhunt. Mother Fatchet tied her pig to the farm gate and scuttled up the lane so that she should miss none of the blood-soaked fun.
Aunt Anne was at her stove, stirring uselessly at the big gruel pot which simmered there night and day. Margaret slid into the larder, opened one of the little bottles of cordial, poured half of it into a mug and placed that on the stove by Aunt Anne’s left hand. Her aunt stopped stirring, picked up the mug and sniffed at it, looked sideways at Margaret, hesitated, then shut her eyes and took three hefty swallows. When she put the mug down she gave a long sigh and reached out to draw Margaret close against her side, as though she was afraid to say thank you out loud, as though even the crannies and shelves of her own kitchen might be full of spies waiting for the betraying word.
It would be dangerous to go back to the barn, Margaret thought — they wouldn’t find anything up at the New Wood and then they’d come to look for her to hear her story again. When Aunt Anne let go of her she chose a couple of bruised apples from the larder and ran out to the paddock to talk to Scrub. He was sulking, jealous after three days’ neglect, and wouldn’t come when she whistled. But Caesar, Jonathan’s unloved and melancholy gray, came boredly over and Margaret gave him one of the apples and started to fondle his ears. This was too much for Scrub and he cantered over with a clownish look in his eye as though he’d only just realized she was there. She accepted his pretense and gave him his apple too.
All at once she heard harsh voices shouting on the other side of the road, up in the six-acre; she climbed up onto the second bar of the gate and teetered there trying to crane over the tall hedge. When that wasn’t any good she slid across onto Scrub’s back and coaxed him along towards the gap further down the field — difficult sitting sideways without saddle or reins, because she had no control at all. But Scrub was in a mood to show how clever he could be, and did what she wanted.
There were eight or nine men standing in a circle just below the New Wood. Three old women in black watched them from twenty yards away. The men all had sticks or cudgels and were taking it in turn to beat something that lay on the grass in the middle of the circle; they shouted at each blow, egging each other on. She could recognize Mr. Gordon by his stoop, and Mr. Syon the smith by his apron, and the two black-bearded brothers from Clapper’s Farm. While she was wondering sickly what they’d caught, one of the men struck so hard that he snapped his cudgel; he threw the pieces angrily on the ground and began to walk down across the six-acre towards her. As he came nearer she saw it
was one of the stonecutters from the quarry on the Beacon: nearer still, and his cheeks were burning with cider though it was still only the middle of the morning.
“Think your uncle would mind if you lent us a spade, lass?” he shouted.
“I’ll get one,” Margaret shouted back. She slid off Scrub’s back, climbed the fence and ran round to the farmyard. The stonecutter was already staggering in through the gate when she came out of the shed where the garden tools were kept. Aunt Anne had come to the kitchen door to watch.
“What did you find?” asked Margaret as she handed the big man the spade. Her fear and disgust must have sounded just like excitement to him.
“Ah,” he answered with gloating pleasure, “he were a clever one, but he weren’t so clever as he thought he were. He’d changed hisself into a rook, you see, so’s to be able to fly away from where Davey Gordon could smell him out, but he’d forgot as how his arm was broke. The cat you saw was lame, weren’t he, missy? So now he was a rook his wing was broke, and he couldn’t fly away after all.”
The man gave a bellowing, cider-smelling laugh.