The Witch of Clatteringshaws Read Online Free PDF Page B

letters from a kind of cousin of his—yours too?—who lives up there. But she only writes about once in ten years, and he hasn’t heard from her for a while. And she’s a bit unreliable, he says. But she was supposed to know something about a rumor that a royal child went missing after the Battle of Follodden. Child of King Malcolm of Caledonia and his wife, who was Princess Ethelfleda of Lower Saxony, both of them in direct line from Aelfred the Great and Brutus of Troy.”
    “Mind you,” said Rodney Firebrace, “mind you, I’m not saying those qualifications are not exemplary, they certainly are that—but even if Miss Twite succeeds in rummaging out this contender for the Crown, how are we to know that the Civil Servants will find them in any way superior to yours? Or find this person preferable? How old is he or she, by the way?”
    “When was the Battle of Follodden?”
    “Around fifteen years ago.”
    “Humph …”
    “Truly diverting,” said the parrot. “Rib-tickling. Ho ho ho. First for a curse. Second for a laugh. Third for telling.”
    “Shut up, Wiggonholt.”
    A footman came in with a note for Simon from the Lord Chancellor.
    “The King and Queen of Finland and Princess Jocandra are due to arrive in ten minutes.”
    “Oh, bother it,” said Simon.

FOUR
    To the Archbishop of Canterbury, c/o St. James’s Palace, London SW1 HRH
    Funny old Smowell! Fancy hearing from you after all this time! You say you have not had any letters from me. Well, I didn’t have any from you, so that makes us even. You still feel bad about the awful thing we did. What puzzles me is this: you say we failed to hear the words, so they are lost to posterity. I suppose that is so. But the thing is, Sammy, that it would have been kept secret in any case—so what difference does it make? Nobody would have heard the words either way—so where’s the loss? You tell me that. And I still think that my penance was a lot worse than yours
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    Things here go on much as usual. There have been extra high spring tides, and the twin whirlpools of Mindluck and Hartluck have been so active that no boat could cross the loch. It is just as well they built the rail bridge where they did—anyfarther west toward the mouth of the loch would have been hopeless. There’s a rock bar in the middle that makes it very shallow at low tide. That’s what causes the whirlpools
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    Your penance. How can you make atonement in the middle of city luxuries? I realize that you have to crown the King (may he live forever), but won’t that make your reparation time twice as long? Quartered in my Ladies’ Convenience for the next dunnamany years, I feel quite sorry for you
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    You say that you have this problem about the King. (I feel sorry for him too; he sounds as if he is having a hard time). You ask about descendants of Brutus of Troy born in Follodden year. My dear friend, I must point out that even in this small town there are at least thirty children, male and female, born in that year. Is that the only pointer you can provide? There is a large rock near here, carved with the figure of a giant boar, and beside it a human foot; these relics are supposed to be connected with the coronation ceremonies of the Ancient Kings of Lerryn in 1108 B.C. A local belief has it that if a descendant of the Ancient Kings passes that way, there will be a loud clap of thunder. But do you seriously suggest that I gather together thirty schoolchildren and take them on a picnic to the Crag of Lerryn on a day when it is likely to thunder? Half of them would fall into the ravine
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    The Hobyahs are still active, and when the loch froze in January, they raided this side on several occasions. The golf course was not safe after four p.m
.
    My friend has not been seen in public for two years; he is being dismissed as a myth, something like the Red Etin. Mothers use him to threaten their children—“Hush ye, hush ye, dinna fret ye, or the Loch Grieve Monster will get