Unknown - Heartsease

Aunt Anne gave it to him without a word and held the rocking chair steady while he worked himself upright. He took one step, gasped, felt for the arm of the chair and sat down.

“Ye’ve broken my leg, between ye,” he said harshly. “Fetch your man, missus. I’ll need carrying.”

Aunt Anne walked quietly out into the farmyard, leaving Margaret and the old man together. She wasn’t afraid of him for the moment; the fire seemed to have dimmed in his eyes. She began to be sorry she’d hit him so hard until he looked sideways at her from under his

scurfy eyebrows and muttered, “No child was ever the worse for a bit o’ beating.”

Margaret slipped away to the foot of the stairs, where she waited until Uncle Peter came. As soon as he heard the heavy footsteps Mr. Gordon started moaning and groaning to himself. Margaret gritted her teeth and waited for another beating, but Uncle Peter paid no attention to her. Instead he stood in front of Mr. Gordon’s chair with his hands on his hips and gazed down at the crumpled figure.

“What the devil d’ye think you’re up to, Davey?” he said. “Laying into my kin without my leave?”

Mr. Gordon stopped groaning, gave a pitiful snivel and looked up at the big, angry man.

“I’m hurt, Pete,” he said. “Hurt bad. Get me home, so as I can lay up for a couple of days.”

“Let’s have a look at ye,” said Uncle Peter curtly. He knelt down and, pulling out his knife, ripped open the coarse leggings. There seemed to be no end of sackcloth before the blue and blotchy shank came into view. Margaret tiptoed forward and saw where there was a small red weal on the skin that stretched over the shinbone. Now she wished she’d hit him harder.

“I’ll fetch the barrow,” grunted Uncle Peter, “and I’ll wheel you up to the Stars. Two jars of cider and ye’ll be skipping about, Davey. But don’t you take it into your head to wallop my kin again, not without my say-so.”

He lashed the leggings untidily back into position and went out. There came the rumble of an iron-shod wheel on the flagstones outside; then he strode into the kitchen, lifted Mr. Gordon clean out of the chair and carried him to the door. As he turned himself sideways to ease his burden through the gap Mr. Gordon gave a wild cackle.

“Ah,” he cried, “what I couldn’t do if I was as strong as yourself, Peter lad.”

The words sounded forgiving, but the voice rang with mad threats. Uncle Peter didn’t say anything, but carried him out and dumped him in the barrow and wheeled him up into the lane.

That afternoon, when she went out to tend to Scrub’s needs and poor old Caesar’s, she found the stonecutter from the quarry leaning on a low place in the hedge. She called a greeting to him, but he didn’t say anything, only watched every move as she walked to and fro. She went back into the house when she’d finished and looked out of an upstairs window; he’d moved up onto the little knoll in the six-acre, from which it was possible to see almost every movement on the whole of the farm. He stayed there until it was too dark to see.

Darkness, in fact, came early, under low heavy clouds; but in the last moments of daylight she saw a few big snowflakes floating past the window. There was an inch of chill whiteness in the yard when she went out to the cowshed to tell Uncle Peter it was time for supper. He was milking the last cow, Daisy, his favorite, by the light of a lantern set on the floor by his stool; the beams were full of looming shadows, and she couldn’t see his face when he looked up.

“What the devil happened in the kitchen this morning, Marge?” he said. “Davey will have it you banged his leg a-purpose.”

She hesitated, taken by surprise, until it was too late to lie.

“He was worrying Aunt Anne,” she said. “I didn’t think she could stand it any more, and I thought I had to try and do something. It was the best thing I could do. Do you think I was wrong, Uncle Peter?”

“No,” he said slowly. “No. But Davey’s not so crazed as he acts. Just promise me one thing, Marge. You haven’t been mucking around with wicked machines, have you, Marge?”

“No, really, I haven’t. I promise.” She was surprised and frightened. If they didn’t get the witch away soon, they’d all be found out.

Uncle Peter turned slowly back to his milking, leaning his cheek against Daisy’s haunch as though he were listening for secrets inside her.

“All right,” he said at last. “I believe you. But I won’t spare nor hide nor hair of you if I find you’ve deceived me. That’s a promise.”

“Yes, Uncle Peter. But can’t we do something to help Aunt Anne? He doesn’t seem to let her alone.”

“I don’t know, Marge. Honest I don’t. Davey’s a weird one, but he wouldn’t come worriting down here if he didn’t feel something was wrong. I don’t know what it is. Mebbe he’s right about Tim.”

“Oh, no!” cried Margaret. “Tim’s only a poor zany. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“You never know,” said her Uncle darkly. As he stood up and lifted the heavy bucket from under Daisy’s bag he said it again, almost to himself, as though he were talking about something else: “You never know.”

A glance and a warning jerk of the head were enough, so tense were the children, to call a council after they had all gone yawning up to bed. They sat in the dark in Lucy’s room, furthest away from where the adults slept, and talked in whispers. It was very dark outside, with snow still floating down steadily from the low cloud-base. Margaret told them everything that Mr. Gordon had said and done, and then what Uncle Peter had said in the milking shed. When she’d finished she heard Jonathan stirring, then saw his head and shoulders black against the faint grayness of the window.

“If we went now,” he said, “the snow would blot out the marks of the runners.”

“Now?” said both the girls together.

“Yes. And if we leave it for another night the snow will be so thick that everyone will be able to see the tracks going down to the barn, and we’d never be able to get the sledge across the valley anyway.”

“Oh dear,” whispered Margaret. Her shoulders began to ache for a mattress and her neck for a pillow.

“Tim must come too,” said Jonathan. “And you, Lucy — you’d go with him if he ran away, wouldn’t you? They’ll just think you overheard something that was being said and decided to take him away. You could stay if you really want to, Marge, but Scrub will pull much better if you’re there. Besides, you know the way.”

“I could tell you,” said Margaret sulkily. “You go up Edge Lane and then . . . then . . . no, it’s much too difficult. I’ll have to come.”

“Good,” said Jonathan. “I don’t think I could do it alone, honestly. Lucy, there’s a pair of Father’s boots drying in the pantry. We’ll take them for Tim.”

Lucy sighed in the dark. “I’ve never been a thief before,” she said.

“You aren’t now,” said Jonathan. “I’m giving them to you.”

Scrub didn’t seem at all surprised to be harnessed and led through the orchard to where Jonathan had dragged the log-sledge. While Lucy and Jonathan cajoled Tim into his new boots, and then, talking very slowly, persuaded him to carry the witch outside into the dangerous night, Margaret picked up Scrub’s hooves one by one and smeared them with lard from a little bowl which she had taken from the larder. That meant the snow wouldn’t ball inside his shoes.

All the time the soft, feathery flakes of snow floated down. When they brushed her cheek they felt like the down from the inside of a split pillow, but when they rested for more than a second on bare flesh and began to melt they turned themselves into nasty little patches of killing cold. Tim came cooing out into the darkness. The witch groaned sharply as he was laid on the sledge, made comfortable, and then wrapped by Jonathan in an old tractor tarpaulin.