The Owl Service Read Online Free PDF Page A

it?”
    â€œLike a snapshot.”
    â€œThat’s a point,” said Roger. “I wonder if it’s possible. You’d need a heck of a focal depth, and the camera I’ve brought here only stops down to f.16. It’d be interesting, technically – You’re off shopping today, aren’t you?”
    â€œYes: back after tea, I expect. That’s the drag of this place. It’s a day’s job every week.”
    â€œI’ll need a different film and paper,” said Roger. “Can you buy it for me?”
    â€œSurely. But write it down, old lad.”
    Gwyn locked the billiard-room door, and instead of putting the key back on its hook in the kitchen he kept it in his pocket and went down the narrow path between the back of the house and the high retaining wall of the steep garden. He moved in a green light of ferns and damp moss, and the air smelt cool.
    When he reached the open lawn he sat on the edge of the fish tank and rinsed his hands. Grey lime dust drifted from his fingers like a cobweb over the water. He bit a torn nail smooth, and cleaned out the sand with a twig. Then he went to the stables.
    At first he thought that Huw must have finished with the coke, but when he came to the yard he saw Huw leaning on his shovel, and something about him made Gwyn stop.
    Huw stood with two fingers lodged in his waistcoat pocket, his head cocked sideways, and although his body seemed to strain he did not move. He was talking to himself, but Gwyn could not hear what he said, and he was dazzled by the glare of the sun when he tried to find what Huw was looking at. Then he saw. It was the whole sky.
    There were no clouds, and the sky was drained white towards the sun. The air throbbed, flashed like blue lightning, sometimes dark, sometimes pale, and the pulse of the throbbing grew, and now the shades followed one another so quickly that Gwyn could see no more than a trembling which became a play of light on the sheen of a wing, but when he looked about him he felt that the trees and the rocks had never held such depth, and the line of the mountain made his heart shake.
    â€œThere’s daft,” said Gwyn.
    He went up to Huw Halfbacon. Huw had not moved, and now Gwyn could hear what he was saying. It was almost a chant.
    â€œCome, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”
    â€œHuw.”
    â€œCome, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”
    â€œHuw?”
    â€œCome, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”
    Huw looked at Gwyn, and looked through him. “She’s coming,” he said. “She won’t be long now.”
    â€œMam says you’re to make a board to nail over the loft in the house,” said Gwyn. “If I measure up, can you let the job last till tomorrow?”
    Huw sighed, and began to shovel coke. “You want a board to nail up the loft, is that what you said?”
    â€œYes, but we need time to bring the plates down without Mam finding out.”
    â€œBe careful.”
    â€œDon’t you worry.”
    â€œI’ll do that for you,” said Huw.
    â€œWhy has Mam taken against you?”
    â€œYou’d better ask her. I’ve no quarrel.”
    â€œShe’s been away from the valley all these years. You’d think she’d have got over any old rows. But she hasn’t spoken to you, has she?”
    â€œPerhaps she is afraid in the English way,” said Huw. “But if they think I am weak in the head they should have seen my uncle. And grandfather they would lock in their brick walls.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œGrandfather?” said Huw. “He went mad, down through the wood by the river.”
    â€œHere?” said Gwyn. “The wood in the garden, where it’s swampy?”
    â€œYes. We don’t go there.”
    â€œReally, really mad?” said Gwyn.
    â€œThat’s what the English