T. White - The Sword in the Stone

“Goodness,” said Kay, “I never knew there were any cottages so close. I say, let’s go back.”

“I just want to look at this place,” said the Wart. “It’s probably a wizard’s.”

The cottage had a brass plate screwed on the garden gate. It said:

MADAME MIM, B.A. (Dom-Daniel)

PIANOFORTE

NEEDLEWORK

NECROMANCY

No Hawkers,

Circulars or Income Tax

Beware of the Dragon

The cottage had lace curtains. These stirred ever so slightly, for behind them there was a lady peeping. The gore-crow was standing on the chimney.

“Come on,” said Kay. “Oh, do come on. I tell you, she’ll never give it back.”

At this point the door of the cottage opened suddenly and the witch was revealed standing in the passage. She was a strikingly beautiful woman of about thirty, with coal-black hair so rich that it had the blue-black of the maggot-pies in it, sky bright eyes and a general soft air of butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth. She was sly.

“How do you do, my dears,” said Madame Mim. “And what can I do for you today?”

The boys took off their leather caps, and Wart said, “Please, there is a crow sitting on your chimney and I think it has stolen one of my arrows.”

“Precisely,” said Madame Mim. “I have the arrow within.”

“Could I have it back, please?”

“Inevitably ,” said Madame Mim. “The young gentleman shall have his arrow on the very instant, in four ticks and ere the bat squeaks thrice.”

“Thank you very much,” said the Wart.

“Step forward,” said Madame Mim. “Honour the threshold. Accept the humble hospitality in the spirit in which it is given.”

“I really do not think we can stay,” said the Wart politely. “I really think we must go. We shall be expected back at home.”

“Sweet expectation,” replied Madame Mim in devout tones.

“Yet you would have thought,” she added, “that the young gentleman could have found time to honour a poor cottager, out of politeness. Few can believe how we ignoble tenants of the lower classes value a visit from the landlord’s sons.”

“We would like to come in,” said the Wart, “very much. But you see we shall be late already.”

The lady now began to give a sort of simpering whine. “The fare is lowly,” she said. “no doubt it is not what you would be accustomed to eating, and so naturally such highly-born ones would not care to partake.”

Kay’s strongly-developed feeling for good form gave way at this. He was an aristocratic boy always, and condescended to his inferiors so that they could admire him. Even at the risk of visiting a witch, he was not going to have it said that he had refused to eat a tenant’s food because it was too humble.

“Come on, Wart,” he said. “We needn’t be back before vespers.”

Madame Mim swept them a low curtsey as they crossed the threshold. Then she took them each by the scruff of the neck, lifted them right off the ground with her strong gypsy arms, and shot out of the back door with them almost before they had got in at the front. The Wart caught a hurried glimpse of her parlour and kitchen. The lace curtains, the aspidistra, the lithograph called the Virgin’s Choise, the printed text of the Lord’s Prayer written backwards and hung upside down, the sea-shell, the needle-case in the shape of a heart with A Present from Camelot written on it, the broomsticks, the cauldrons, and the bottles of dandelion wine. Then they were kicking and struggling in the back yard.

“We thought that the growing sportsmen would care to examine our rabbits,” said Madame Mim.

There was indeed a row of large rabbit hutches in front of them, but they were empty of rabbits. In one hutch there was a poor ragged old eagle owl, evidently quite miserable and neglected: in another a small boy unknown to them, a wittol who could only roll his eyes and burble when the witch came near. In a third there was a moulting black cock. A fourth had a mangy goat in it, also black, and two more stood empty.

“Grizzle Greediguts,” cried the witch.

“Here, Mother,” answered the carrion crow.

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