Daughters of the Witching Hill Read Online Free PDF

to see so little of Kit and my grandson, though I confess I didn't miss Elsie much. Why my Kit had to marry such a wet, jumpy thing was beyond my understanding. But he was a dutiful son, sending me what money he could spare. For the rest, Liza and I were left to our own devices. Two masterless women living in a tower.
    Liza found what work she could whilst I wandered my lonely way begging. More often than not, I'd be walking along Pendle Water or up over Stang Top Moor when I'd see him out of the corner of my eye. Then my Tibb would take his place at my side. I'd be covered in the dust of the road, swatting at midges and flies, and he'd be fresh and clean as the first morning of spring.
    "Go down yonder track," he said one morning. "You'll come across a lamb that's sore lame. Poor thing is bound to die anyway. Wring its neck and hide it in your bundle. None will be the wiser. You and our Liza can have meat this night. Later you can bury the bones in your garden."
    "Hold your wicked tongue," I told him. "I might be a beggar but I'm no thief."
    He grinned. "That's a sharp temper you have, my Bess."
    In truth, I'd grown impatient with his mischief. "If you think you're so clever, why can't you cure my Liza of her squint?"
    He sobered and bowed his head. "What God has done, only God can undo."
    "What's the use of you, then, if you're only good for tempting me into getting hanged as a sheep thief?"
    "I can reveal the things that lie hidden," he was quick to tell me. "What have you lost? I'll tell you where it's gone."
    "Kit's father," I said, tart as anything. "Always wondered where he wandered off to."
    Long before Tibb first appeared to me, I confess I was once desperate enough to seek out a tinker woman who claimed she could tell fortunes. Paid her a penny to tell me where my lost love had gone. Took my money, that charlatan had, and told me a pretty tale of my lost Jake being pressed against his will into the Queen's Navy. He had died at sea, so she said, pining for me till his last breath.
    Tibb was more forthright. "My Bess, sometimes you're too soft for your own good. He was a rogue, your Jake. Had a girl like you in every town and village on his way. Your Kit has a score of half-brothers and -sisters scattered across two counties. If you'd any sense, you'd have scorned his impudence."
    "Does he still live?" I asked.
    "Aye, he lives. In Halifax. In his son's house, off Doghouse Fold." Tibb's accuracy in such matters fair took the breath out of me. "Don't ask me to spirit you away to visit him, for you'll not like what you see. Your Jake's a helpless, toothless old wretch by now. His greedy children—"
    I scowled.
    "His greedy
lawful
children," he corrected himself, "have taken his house, his possessions, and his money, banishing him to a bed in the garret. His wits, his health, his memory, all are gone, Bess. Though he lives, he's a mere shade. His stingy daughter-in-law dishes out one meagre bowl of gruel to him in a day and leaves him to lie in his own piss."
    "Enough!" I cried. Such a lot was too cruel for any man, even the one who had used and betrayed me. That night I would pray for Jake.
    Tibb wandered over to a birch copse where bluebells grew in a cloudy swath. "I'd never abandon you to such a fate." He sat himself down in the soft grass, then stretched out his arm, beckoning me to rest a spell beside him.
    "So you're more faithful than other men?"
    "You're a fine one to talk of being faithful," he said. "Letting your husband wear the cuckold's horns. But to answer your question, my Bess: Yes, I am true. You may count on me."
    "At least you're useful in that sense."
    This made him laugh. "At last, my Bess, we are of one mind."
    "If you know so much, tell me this. Where may Liza and I go to find work tomorrow and more in payment than stale bread?"
    He smiled, showing off his fine white teeth. "Anthony Holden's, down at Bull Hole Farm. You'll have meat in your belly without risking your neck to steal a sickly