Ann Pilling - The Witch of Lagg

For my father and Julie, with love,

and with profound thanks to Professor Richard Tilleard-Cole

COVER

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION DEDICATION DEDICATION CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO AFTERWORD KEEP READING COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER For my father and Julie, with love, and with profound thanks to Professor Richard Tilleard-Cole

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

AFTERWORD

KEEP READING

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

“My back’s killing me,” Colin grumbled, trying to get the rickety wheelbarrow back on to the path again, “and this barrow’s falling to pieces. Can’t Mr Grierson get you a new one? How can he expect you to manage with a thing like this?”

Duncan Ross shrugged, and his brown freckled face darkened slightly. It always did when anyone mentioned Hugo Grierson of Lagg Castle. He was a great landowner, one of the wealthiest men in this part of Scotland, and one of the meanest, according to Duncan’s father Angus, who worked for him.

“Och, A’ve tel’t ye already,” the boy said, “he’s awfu’ tight wi’ money. He’d like fine to have us awa’ from here. Have ye no’ seen our hoos?”

They certainly had. Ramshaws was a crumbling stone hut high in the trees above Carlin’s Crag, the great white rock face that gashed this dark green woodland like a huge hunk of bone. The Ross’s cottage had walls that ran with damp, no electricity, and rotting window frames.

Colin wanted to climb the Crag but it was highly dangerous, and all fenced off with barbed wire. The views from up there must be fabulous, with the dark green pine forests spreading down to the sea, and a glimpse across to the English Lake District on a clear day. Lagg Castle, where he was staying for the summer with his sister Prill and their cousin Oliver, was just inland from the coast, overlooking the Solway Firth. They were only fifty miles across the English border, here in the Scottish Lowlands, but it felt like another world.

Today they were too deep in the woods for any kind of view, helping Duncan to dismantle a huge pile of stones in the garden of an empty cottage called Lochashiel. The stones were needed to repair a wall that had collapsed in one of Hugo Grierson’s fields, and the three children had been sent out to give Duncan a hand. The stones were so heavy, and the children had had to make so many journeys with them, that the ancient barrow really did look as if it was ready to fall apart.

“It’s pretty here,” Prill said, looking across the tangled garden at the small white-washed cottage. “Why doesn’t he let you live in this? You’d only need to tidy up a bit, and give it a lick of paint – and it’s much nearer the road. You wouldn’t have that awful long track to climb, if you lived here.”

“Aye,” muttered Duncan, looking even gloomier. “That’s true. But he wants to make money out of the place. Ma faither was born in this hoos, and it’s ours, by rights, but Grierson says he’s keepin’ it for holiday folk.”

“But there’s nobody in it,” Oliver pointed out. “The furniture’s all covered with dust sheets. I’ve looked.”

“You would ,” Colin said irritably. “Why don’t you give us a hand with this lot, instead of snooping about, peeping through windows? Some holiday this is going to be. Honestly, I’ve had just about enough!” He sat down grumpily in the middle of the mossy forest path, abandoning the wheelbarrow and its load.

“Let’s have something to eat,” Prill suggested, trying to be tactful. She knew Colin was spoiling for a fight with Oliver. “There are some buns in this bag, and a bottle of lemonade.”

“Home-made,” Oliver said proudly.

Colin would have preferred Coke to the sour, gritty concoction provided by Oliver’s mother, his Great Aunt Phyllis, but she said fizzy drinks rotted your teeth and kept you awake at night. Everything was going to be home-made for the next few weeks because she was in charge of all the cooking.

Lochashiel was on the lower fringes of a vast plantation, which belonged to Hugo Grierson. David Blakeman, Colin and Prill’s father, had come up to Scotland to paint the master of Lagg. He was an art teacher at a big comprehensive school but he sometimes got commissions for portraits. Not enough to give up teaching, though, which was what he really wanted to do.

His wife had stayed behind to look after Grandma Blakeman. She’d just recovered from very bad influenza and the doctor said she shouldn’t really be left. She’d actually caught it from Mrs Blakeman, and neither of them were feeling too fit. “It’s a case of one old crock looking after another,” their mother had laughed, pale-faced but cheerful, waving them off a few days before. Dad had been keen to do this Scottish portrait but when his wife fell ill, and Mr Grierson phoned to say his housekeeper had just given in her notice and left, he thought the whole plan would have to be scrapped. The children couldn’t run round the place unsupervised, the man had made that quite clear. Then Great Aunt Phyllis came to the rescue.

She was Grandma’s younger sister and Oliver was her adopted son. They lived with miserable Uncle Stanley in a London flat at the top of 9, Thames Terrace, a forlorn-looking house near the river where she looked after six elderly people and where Oliver had to creep round in soft shoes, and whisper all the time, in case he annoyed the old folk.

They’d all gone away for the summer, while repairs were being done to the house, but Uncle Stanley had refused to budge. He didn’t trust those workmen, they might steal his books, or interfere with his collections.

Aunt Phyllis was all for getting Oliver out of London, away to the country, and when Dad told her that the holiday was off because Hugo Grierson had just lost his housekeeper she immediately offered to help Mum could stay behind with Grandma, and get her strength up again, and she would cope with the family, Oliver, his two older cousins, and their little sister Alison who was just walking. The toddler had her moments but she was no match for her Aunt Phyllis. After years of handling difficult old people, and years before that as a hospital matron, she reckoned she could manage Alison blindfold, with one hand tied behind her back.

Rather to Dad’s surprise, Mr Grierson had agreed instantly, over the phone. His main concern was to have peace and quiet for the painting sessions, and not to be disturbed by a troop of noisy children. Aunt Phyllis sounded ideal.