The Witch of Clatteringshaws Read Online Free PDF Page A

customers? Two huge sycamore trees presided over the gloomy plot and kept out most of the light. In the distance a gray figure did something with a spade
.
    “
Angus—my husband—is the acting sexton. He is entirrely devoted to his task; he keeps the graveyard in pairrfect orrder.”
    I wondered what was the difference between an acting sexton and a regular sexton
.
    “
And little Fred—helps him?”
    I wondered how little Fred had come by that black eye
.
    “
Och, no! My son does that.”
    “
Oh, yes, your own boy—is he at school?”
    “
Ay, Desmond—he’s fourrteen. A grrand boy. A grrand help to me and Angus.”
    “
And little Fred—does he attend school?”
    “
Losh, no! Whiles, I teach him his reading and figuring. And he lends a hand about the hoose. Fetches in firewood, scours the pots, polishes shoes—”
    “
You are a good useful boy, little Fred, I can see that—”
    Little Fred gave me a terrified glance and retired under the table. A big, bulky black-haired boy came into the room. Seeing me, he began to retreat, but his mother said
,
    “
Desmond—tell your father that I’ll be wanting a basket of potatoes for the boarrders’ tea.”
    “
Can’t Fred get them?”
    “
Och, vairry well.”
    Fred tried to slip out of the room, but Desmond caught him by the scruff of his neck
.
    “
Don’t try to run off, you little scug!”—giving him a clout—“And you can fetch some logs, too, when the potatoes are in. When’s dinner?” Desmond asked his mother
.
    “
Soon.” The words “when this lady has gone” trembled in the air but were not spoken
.
    Desmond cast a puzzled glance at my golf club and left the room, pushing little Fred before him
.
    “
You will be sending little Fred to school, I hope, by and by?”
    “
Och, nae doot—by and by …”
    Mr. McClan walked in, stripping off a pair of leather gardener’s gloves. He gave me a cautious look, ducked his head in speechless greeting, then retired toward the kitchen
.
    There was something curiously, unnaturally smooth about his face. And that of his son, Desmond. As if they had been iced over, like birthday cakes, and then colored pink. Whereas Mrs. Euphemia McClan, the wife and mother, had deep angry grooves cut from her nostrils to her jaw, and a permanentfrown from eyebrows up to her stiff gray shock of hair. Rage lurked just behind her look of wary watchfulness
.
    “
Can I have a chat with the boarders?”
    “
Och
, no,
they’ll all be sleeping. Their afternoon nap, ye ken—”
    “
Oh! Next time I call, then.”
    “
Ay. Next time.”
    She looked as if ten years on in the future would be quite soon enough for my next visit. By then it would be a new generation of boarders.…
    Walking up the main street of Clatteringshaws toward the Monster’s Arms, with my golf club over my shoulder, I realized that I had asked nothing, learned nothing about the new habits of the Hobyahs or about my friend Tatzen
.
    More about them in my next. Though you don’t deserve a next, you moldy old recluse
.
    But I see that Saint Arling is up there in the list of saints, so you must have fiddled it somehow. Maybe you are up hitting the high spots in London? While I molder here …
    Did someone with kind hands turn up?
    Where’s Cousin Rod and Wiggonholt these days?
    Oh, that cursed tune! If only I could remember it! I’m still haunted by it—never getting it quite right
.
    Regards,
M

THREE
    Simon read through the day’s Royal Program, which lay beside his breakfast boiled egg.
    “Open Parliament,” it said. “See applicants.” Applicants for what? Simon wondered. “Review Household Cavalry. Meet Foreign Dignitaries. Lunch with Bishops. Inspect Hospitals. Attend Civic Function. Dinner with Finnish Royal Family.”
    Simon laid the paper down and dug a spoonful of boiled egg from the shell. It had not been boiled quite long enough; the white was transparent and runny. It ran over Simon’s chin, which he crossly wiped, using a stiffly