A Traveller in Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

love ’em, all of ’em.”
    â€œIt will be my turn to go down with the milk tomorrow,” I reminded Uncle Barnabas.
    â€œThen you’d better be off to bed. The grandfather says it’s your bedtime.” He glanced up at the tall clock in the corner.
    We hunted in the candle cupboard for our favourite candlesticks, for already I had chosen a pewter one with a beaded edge, and Alison had a china one with green leaves bordering it. There was an iron candle-stick for Jess, very ancient, I was sure, and a collection of many kinds, so that each could be satisfied.
    â€œYou’ll maybe like hot baths to-night,” said Aunt Tissie. “Ian will help me carry up the water.”
    She filled the pails with hot water and we helped to carry them to the flat, oval hip-baths which stood in each room.
    When we had finished, we sat in bed, and Aunt Tissie emptied them and carried the water away.
    â€œThat’s enough for to-night. Go to sleep my dears and don’t dream.” She kissed us, and tucked us up, and blew out the candles.
    I lay in bed wide awake long after she had gone, breathing in the rapturous odours of sweet mossy water and lavender and whitewash, and as I lay there I thought I saw a shadow move across the room, slipping lightly with swaying, billowing skirts to the opposite wall.
    â€œAlison,” I whispered. “Alison. Who lived here once, Alison?” but the quiet breathing from the curtained bed told me that Alison was fast asleep.
    Then I too shut my eyes, and I never waked till the clattering of milk cans and the mooing of the cows under the window brought the lovely feeling of another day, with a ride to the station as a glorious beginning.
    It was the following day that my adventure began, but first I must describe Thackers. It was a stone-built farm, with gables and doorways in unexpected places, with barns and cowhouses across the green grassplat and old ivy-covered buildings where fowls roosted and calves sheltered. Only a few yards away was Thackers church, with its twelfth-century tower which rose from the group of trees and haystacks so close to the farm buildings, the stables and barns, that it seemed to be part of the homestead. Round the high walls of the tower were sculptured shields, fifteen of them, with the arms of an old family emblazoned upon them, but so defaced by wind and weather that I could scarcely make out the devices from where I stood in the garden below. Pigeons flew about its slit windows and rested on the flat roof of the church; swallows nested in the eaves and there was a constant cawing of rooks from the encircling elms which dipped their boughs over Thackers farm. The stackyard adjoined the churchyard, the orchard was by the church, and fields went nearly to the doorway. We were warned to keep the wicket-gate shut lest calves should wander in the ancient building. My uncle had the keys of the church, for he was verger and caretaker, and Aunt Tissie dusted the pews ready for the parson who came once a month from a neighbouring parish.
    Inside the house, beyond the kitchen, were the parlour and dining-room, stuffy rooms which Aunt Tissie kept neat and polished. She showed them to us with pride, but we had no desire to sit in the speckless splendour, among woolwork pictures of Abraham and Isaac, and silver cups commemorating Uncle Barnabas’s success at the county shows. The kitchen was good enough for us, Ian told Aunt Tissie, and I could see she was pleased.
    â€œThat’s well, my boy,” she nodded. “ ’Tis a good homely room as our family has lived in for generations.”
    Just off the kitchen, down a stone passage was the dairy, where the cheese-press and the wooden churn for butter-making were kept. It was a great, cold room, with sanded benches all round the white walls, and yellow bowls set on them. Around every flagstone of the speckless floor was a little rim of yellow sandstone. I watched Mrs. Appleyard, the