‘Not the fields. I saw them from the ramparts earlier and they’re a forest of reeds, bound to be marshy. De Cassilis needs to think about some drainage if he’s going to put stock on to -’
‘Et tu? Not drainage, for God’s sake, please.’
Alec laughed good-naturedly and did not pursue the topic. We looked up and down the fence for a gate into the woodland, and as we found it and clambered over – the latch being as stout as it was complicated – we began to hear distant shouts and squeals from amongst the trees ahead.
‘Speaking of unspeakable brats,’ I said, ‘if these are the children from the next-door cottage to Mrs Dudgeon, prepare yourself. They are what enthusiasts call unspoiled and everyone else calls holy terrors.’
Sure enough, it was them. Their number had swollen to five by the addition of another two brothers smaller than little Lila, definitely brothers too with their screeching red hair. This made, I calculated, a dizzying total of eight including the work-worn eldest sister we had encountered in the doorway with her two infant charges. Today the children were swarming on and around the remains of a long-dead beech tree, clearly a favoured venue for play since the earth surrounding it was bare and trodden hard and the stump itself was embellished with enough nails and pegs to allow even the smallest child to hoist himself up into its hollowed top. Here some old tin sheeting made a shelter which was currently being stoutly defended by one of the older children, waving a leafy branch in the faces of his siblings as they mounted attack.
‘Lila, Lila, headless horsies!’ shouted one of the boys and, with Lila’s willing compliance, he scooped her up on to his shoulders, she wound her chubby legs under his arms, he clamped his hands hard over her knees, and together they charged the tree-stump again. Another pair – large brother with small brother atop – followed suit and with the little ones grabbing like lobsters whenever the big ones lunged in close, the brother in possession of the stump soon dropped his branch and, shrieking, seemed in danger of being pulled apart.
‘Hey, hey, hey!’ shouted Alec as we approached them. ‘Steady on there.’
‘The best of luck to you, darling,’ I muttered under my breath.
The two tinies had let go of their prey, who was now flexing his shoulders and scowling, but they kept their seats on their brothers’ shoulders so that when we drew near Alec and I were looking them straight in the face. Lila at eye-level was not a pretty sight, lavishly filthy and quite clearly not having troubled herself with a handkerchief all the day long. The boys were no more appetizing, but somehow the dust and stains on their knitted jerseys and darned flannel shorts seemed less revolting than the evidence of breakfast, lunch and hours of play on Lila’s faded gingham and wretched little ribbon. Still, when one looked closely, if one could bear to, it was clear that all the dirt was today’s dirt and that the hair underneath the leaves and bits of twig was shiny, the cheeks underneath the dust rosy and smooth. I had seen much worse, and even if they had only been cleaned specially for the Fair it was nice to meet them once they had been and not before.
‘We’re jist playin’, mister,’ said the oldest boy. ‘And it’s my shot in the castle, Tommy.’ Tommy, shamed into fair play by the presence of grown-ups, scrambled out with medium-good grace: a tongue stuck out but no shoving.
‘That’s right, take turns like good brothers and sisters,’ I found myself saying sanctimoniously. Their answering expressions, although rude, were no more than I deserved and so to raise my stock a little – why does one always suck up so shamelessly to strange children? – I said:
‘So, castles today, eh? No ghosts and ghouls?’
‘The ghostie’s away down a hole cos Lila peed herself in the castle,’ was the startling response.
‘Naw-naw,’ said Lila, kicking out at her accuser and causing the brother who bore her on his shoulders to stagger around in an attempt to hold his balance.
‘Aye-aye,’ came back the chorus from all the boys. Lila, face thunderous under her flaming hair, struggled down to the ground and set off across the woods, bawling.
‘Lila pees her kni-ckers!’ sang brother Tommy to her retreating back and then at Alec’s cluck of disapprovaclass="underline" ‘She does, mister.’
‘That’s Lila’s business and no one else’s,’ said Alec, sounding pompous and quite ridiculous (I was smirking almost as much as the boys).
‘Aye well, it got rid of the ghostie,’ one of them said, philosophically.
‘Hadn’t you better go after her?’ I suggested as Lila’s howls began to fade. ‘She might get lost.’
‘She might get ate!’ cried a small brother. ‘She might get stole away and never brung back.’
‘Aye, or the demon might get her.’
‘Oh yes, the demon,’ I said. ‘You never did catch him then?’
‘And make her drink blood and then she’ll come back in the night when we’re all in our beds and – Waarghhh!’
At this, the small brother who had started the train of thought in the first place obviously reached the limits of his courage and began to snivel. In between, we could hear the classic soaring moans of a ghost – unmistakably Lila even without the odd hiccough left over from her recent tears – and the brothers one by one cocked their ears and fell silent.
‘Tommeee! Donaaald! Randaaaall!’ whooped the ghost.
‘She’s doon by the burn,’ they whispered. ‘Let’s fling her in.’ And with that, Alec and I quite forgotten, they were off.
Listening to their shouts and laughter and with an ear cocked, in my case at least, for any sudden splashes, we made our way back to the gate.
‘Cherubs all,’ I said.
‘Whatever happened to ring-a-roses?’ said Alec.
‘Ah yes. Well, along with the demon drink and the godless fertility rituals, this charming little Burgh does rather go in for bumps in the night, you’ll find.’
‘Perhaps I will take de Cassilis with me around the pubs then,’ said Alec, ‘to hold my hand.’
‘At least if I’m sitting with the widow, the presence of an actual corpse as large as – Well, decency will forbid them their ghost stories for once. I might even be able to get some proper helpful gossip.’
‘I must say, though,’ Alec went on, ‘I do approve of the practical note in their metaphysics: ghosts driven out by the simple application of a little girl with an unreliable bladder. And to think of all the chanting and potions that go into exorcism elsewhere!’
‘I’m not so sure,’ I said. ‘They are perverse in their tales, woods full of the ghosts of soldiers even though the real soldiers all fell in the fields of France and yet not a peep about the ghosts of two young men who really did die here – and died horribly – and could easily be imagined to linger. And then the arrangement of their ontology – do I mean ontology? – seems a little random too. Why should ghosts live in holes guarded by demons and why should the Burry Man live in a swamp full of dead babies in his off-duty months?’
‘Why come to that should these unfortunate infants be in the swamp?’
‘Well, there there’s an answer, but let’s not pursue it or I shall have nightmares. Those red-headed angels certainly are fearless though, aren’t they? I doubt that at Lila’s age I would have taken off alone into a haunted wood whatever my mortification.’
‘Well, they do say it’s the living one need take care about,’ said Alec, echoing Inspector Cruickshank, ‘not the dead.’
Chapter Six
Buttercup was aghast at the notion of being dragged back to the Dudgeons’ cottage that day after tea. Mrs Murdoch had done us proud – a pot of stew under a lard crust, a fruit pie and two bottles of cordial – but her mistress stuck out her bottom lip and shook her head.
‘He’s there, Dandy,’ she said, shuddering. ‘I simply couldn’t.’