Heartsease

IV

THE men came back on the third day, arguing among themselves all the way up the winding hill. Nine villages, it seemed, had gathered for the hunt, and all their eager sportsmen had so hallooed and trampled through the flaming beech groves that the dogs had never had a chance to smell anything except man-sweat. Mr. Lyon had broken an ankle, though; and several small animals had been slaughtered, including five foxes; and Mr. Gordon and his cronies had spent the whole of the second day digging out a badgers’ set and killing the snarling inmates as they uncovered them. Mr. Gordon’s litter still swayed high above the procession as they tramped wearily up by the churchyard, and in his hand he waved a stick with the gaping head of a badger spiked on its end.

They were busy with boasting for several days after that, and then with critical discussions of the behavior of the people from other villages. So it was thirty-six days (Margaret reckoned them up) after Mr. Gordon had last come nosing round the farm before he came again.

This time he arrived while she was helping Aunt Anne with the heavy irons, lifting them off the stove when you could smell the burning fibers of the cloth you handled them with and carrying them back when they were too cool to press the creases out of the pillowcase. It was a peaceful, repetitive job until the latch lifted and the hunched shape stood outlined against the sharp winter sunlight.

“Mornin’,” he grunted, and without waiting for an invitation hobbled across and settled himself in Uncle Peter’s chair.

“Good morning, Mr. Gordon,” said Aunt Anne and started to iron a shirt she had just finished with an iron which was already cool. Mr. Gordon clucked.

“Sharpish weather we’re having,” she said after a while. “There’ll be snow before the week’s out.”

Mr. Gordon clucked again.

When Margaret brought the freshly heated iron she could sense how tense her Aunt was. At first she’d hoped to slide away, but now she saw she would have to stay, just in case she could help.

“That Tim,” said Mr. Gordon suddenly. “What d’ye reckon to him?”

“Tim?” said Aunt Anne, surprised. “He’s just a poor zany.”

“Aye,” said Mr. Gordon slowly and derisively. “Nobbut a poor zany.”

He sat and rocked and clucked while Aunt Anne carefully nosed her iron down the seam of a smock.

“Where’d he come from, then?” he shouted suddenly. “Answer me that!”

Aunt Anne jerked her body upright with shock, and dropped her iron. It made a slamming clatter on the flagged floor.

“I think he came from Bristol,” said Margaret.

“Aye, Bristol,” muttered Mr. Gordon. “Wicked places, cities.”

“That’s true,” said Aunt Anne.

Mr. Gordon clucked and rocked.

“Why do you want to know?” said Aunt Anne in a shivering voice.

“There’s wickedness about,” said Mr. Gordon. “I can smell un. It draws me here, same as a ewe draws her lamb home to her.”

There was no answer to that, so Aunt Anne went on with her ironing and Margaret with her fetching and carrying of the heavy irons. Mr. Gordon watched them with fierce little eyes amid the wrinkled face, as though every movement was a clue to the wickedness which lay hidden about the farm. The kitchen seemed to get darker. Margaret found she couldn’t keep her mind off the witch, tossing feverish on dirty straw. She tried to think about Scrub, or Jonathan, or even Caesar, but all the time the picture inside her skull remained one of dim yellow lantern light, the rusty engine, Tim squatting patient in the shadows, and the sick man whose presence drew Mr. Gordon down to this peaceful farm. Twice Aunt Anne started to say something, and twice

she stopped herself. When Margaret took a new iron to her their eyes met: Aunt Anne’s said “Help!” as plain as screaming.

Next time Margaret fetched a hot iron she went over towards the open hearth as if to chivvy the logs, tripped over the corner of the rug, and sprawling across the floor brought the rim of metal hard against the old man’s shin. He cried out with a strange, high bellow, leaped to his feet and before she could crawl out of reach started to belabor her over the shoulders. She cringed under two stinging blows before she glimpsed Aunt Anne’s shoes rush past her face; then there was a brief gasping struggle. When she came trembling to her feet Mr. Gordon was slumped back in the chair, panting, and Aunt Anne was standing beside him, very flushed, holding his stick in her hand. They all stayed where they were for a long while, until the rage and panic had faded from their faces. At last Mr. Gordon put out his hand for his stick.

Aunt Anne gave it to him without a word and held the rocking chair steady while he worked himself upright. He took one step, gasped, felt for the arm of the chair and sat down.

“Ye’ve broken my leg, between ye,” he said harshly. “Fetch your man, missus. I’ll need carrying.”

Aunt Anne walked quietly out into the farmyard, leaving Margaret and the old man together. She wasn’t afraid of him for the moment; the fire seemed to have dimmed in his eyes. She began to be sorry she’d hit him so hard until he looked sideways at her from under his

scurfy eyebrows and muttered, “No child was ever the worse for a bit o’ beating.”

Margaret slipped away to the foot of the stairs, where she waited until Uncle Peter came. As soon as he heard the heavy footsteps Mr. Gordon started moaning and groaning to himself. Margaret gritted her teeth and waited for another beating, but Uncle Peter paid no attention to her. Instead he stood in front of Mr. Gordon’s chair with his hands on his hips and gazed down at the crumpled figure.

“What the devil d’ye think you’re up to, Davey?” he said. “Laying into my kin without my leave?”

Mr. Gordon stopped groaning, gave a pitiful snivel and looked up at the big, angry man.

“I’m hurt, Pete,” he said. “Hurt bad. Get me home, so as I can lay up for a couple of days.”

“Let’s have a look at ye,” said Uncle Peter curtly. He knelt down and, pulling out his knife, ripped open the coarse leggings. There seemed to be no end of sackcloth before the blue and blotchy shank came into view. Margaret tiptoed forward and saw where there was a small red weal on the skin that stretched over the shinbone. Now she wished she’d hit him harder.

“I’ll fetch the barrow,” grunted Uncle Peter, “and I’ll wheel you up to the Stars. Two jars of cider and ye’ll be skipping about, Davey. But don’t you take it into your head to wallop my kin again, not without my say-so.”

He lashed the leggings untidily back into position and went out. There came the rumble of an iron-shod wheel on the flagstones outside; then he strode into the kitchen, lifted Mr. Gordon clean out of the chair and carried him to the door. As he turned himself sideways to ease his burden through the gap Mr. Gordon gave a wild cackle.

“Ah,” he cried, “what I couldn’t do if I was as strong as yourself, Peter lad.”

The words sounded forgiving, but the voice rang with mad threats. Uncle Peter didn’t say anything, but carried him out and dumped him in the barrow and wheeled him up into the lane.

That afternoon, when she went out to tend to Scrub’s needs and poor old Caesar’s, she found the stonecutter from the quarry leaning on a low place in the hedge. She called a greeting to him, but he didn’t say anything, only watched every move as she walked to and fro. She went back into the house when she’d finished and looked out of an upstairs window; he’d moved up onto the little knoll in the six-acre, from which it was possible to see almost every movement on the whole of the farm. He stayed there until it was too dark to see.

Darkness, in fact, came early, under low heavy clouds; but in the last moments of daylight she saw a few big snowflakes floating past the window. There was an inch of chill whiteness in the yard when she went out to the cowshed to tell Uncle Peter it was time for supper. He was milking the last cow, Daisy, his favorite, by the light of a lantern set on the floor by his stool; the beams were full of looming shadows, and she couldn’t see his face when he looked up.

“What the devil happened in the kitchen this morning, Marge?” he said. “Davey will have it you banged his leg a-purpose.”

She hesitated, taken by surprise, until it was too late to lie.

“He was worrying Aunt Anne,” she said. “I didn’t think she could stand it any more, and I thought I had to try and do something. It was the best thing I could do. Do you think I was wrong, Uncle Peter?”

“No,” he said slowly. “No. But Davey’s not so crazed as he acts. Just promise me one thing, Marge. You haven’t been mucking around with wicked machines, have you, Marge?”

“No, really, I haven’t. I promise.” She was surprised and frightened. If they didn’t get the witch away soon, they’d all be found out.

Uncle Peter turned slowly back to his milking, leaning his cheek against Daisy’s haunch as though he were listening for secrets inside her.

“All right,” he said at last. “I believe you. But I won’t spare nor hide nor hair of you if I find you’ve deceived me. That’s a promise.”

“Yes, Uncle Peter. But can’t we do something to help Aunt Anne? He doesn’t seem to let her alone.”

“I don’t know, Marge. Honest I don’t. Davey’s a weird one, but he wouldn’t come worriting down here if he didn’t feel something was wrong. I don’t know what it is. Mebbe he’s right about Tim.”

“Oh, no!” cried Margaret. “Tim’s only a poor zany. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“You never know,” said her Uncle darkly. As he stood up and lifted the heavy bucket from under Daisy’s bag he said it again, almost to himself, as though he were talking about something else: “You never know.”

A glance and a warning jerk of the head were enough, so tense were the children, to call a council after they had all gone yawning up to bed. They sat in the dark in Lucy’s room, furthest away from where the adults slept, and talked in whispers. It was very dark outside, with snow still floating down steadily from the low cloud-base. Margaret told them everything that Mr. Gordon had said and done, and then what Uncle Peter had said in the milking shed. When she’d finished she heard Jonathan stirring, then saw his head and shoulders black against the faint grayness of the window.

“If we went now,” he said, “the snow would blot out the marks of the runners.”

“Now?” said both the girls together.

“Yes. And if we leave it for another night the snow will be so thick that everyone will be able to see the tracks going down to the barn, and we’d never be able to get the sledge across the valley anyway.”

“Oh dear,” whispered Margaret. Her shoulders began to ache for a mattress and her neck for a pillow.

“Tim must come too,” said Jonathan. “And you, Lucy — you’d go with him if he ran away, wouldn’t you? They’ll just think you overheard something that was being said and decided to take him away. You could stay if you really want to, Marge, but Scrub will pull much better if you’re there. Besides, you know the way.”

“I could tell you,” said Margaret sulkily. “You go up Edge Lane and then . . . then . . . no, it’s much too difficult. I’ll have to come.”

“Good,” said Jonathan. “I don’t think I could do it alone, honestly. Lucy, there’s a pair of Father’s boots drying in the pantry. We’ll take them for Tim.”

Lucy sighed in the dark. “I’ve never been a thief before,” she said.

“You aren’t now,” said Jonathan. “I’m giving them to you.”

Scrub didn’t seem at all surprised to be harnessed and led through the orchard to where Jonathan had dragged the log-sledge. While Lucy and Jonathan cajoled Tim into his new boots, and then, talking very slowly, persuaded him to carry the witch outside into the dangerous night, Margaret picked up Scrub’s hooves one by one and smeared them with lard from a little bowl which she had taken from the larder. That meant the snow wouldn’t ball inside his shoes.

All the time the soft, feathery flakes of snow floated down. When they brushed her cheek they felt like the down from the inside of a split pillow, but when they rested for more than a second on bare flesh and began to melt they turned themselves into nasty little patches of killing cold. Tim came cooing out into the darkness. The witch groaned sharply as he was laid on the sledge, made comfortable, and then wrapped by Jonathan in an old tractor tarpaulin.

“Tim,” whispered Lucy, “we’re going. Going away. We’re going.”

Tim’s bubbling changed, deepened, wavered and then restored itself to its usual note. He lurched into the darkness and they heard him scrabbling in the straw of his shed; then he came back and knelt by the sledge; the tarpaulin rasped twice as he readjusted it. Margaret realized he was taking his treasures with him.

It is steep all the way up to the ridge of Edge Lane. Margaret led the pony between the dark walls of silent houses, only able to see where the road was because of the faint glimmer from fallen snow. The runners of the sledge whimpered gently as they crushed the fluffy crystals to sliding ice. Tim’s boots crunched and his throat bubbled. Once or twice Scrub’s shoes chinked as they struck through the soft layer of whiteness to a stone underneath. Otherwise they all moved so quietly that Margaret could hear the tiny pattering and rustling of individual flakes falling into the dry leaves of Mrs. Godber’s beech hedge.

Scrub took the slope well enough, but Margaret was beginning to worry how he’d manage the real steeps down into the valley and out again, where sometimes the lane tilts almost as sharply as the pitch of a roof. But at least she could see better now. As they came to the short piece of flat at the crest she understood why: the sky ahead really was lighter. Soon they would come out from under the snow-cloud into starlight.

“I’ll take the brake,” said Jonathan. Margaret had been so rapt in her world of stealth and silence that she was startled to hear him speak aloud. She reached up to pat Scrub’s neck and steady him for the descent, then heard the iron spike on the end of the brake-bar beginning to bite through the snow into the pitted tarmac. Scrub plodded on, unamazed; but when a hundred yards down the hill and just as they were getting to the steepest place, the moon came out and he saw the treacherous white surface falling away at his feet, he snorted and tossed his head and tried to stop. The brake grated sharply as Jonathan hauled at it, but even so the sledge had enough momentum to push the pony forward onto the frightening decline. She felt the wild tide of panic beginning to rush through his blood, and put her hand right up inside the cheekstrap, so that she could at least hold his head still.

“Easy,” she said. “Easy. Easy. You’ll do it easy.”

For a second she thought he wasn’t going to believe her. Then he steadied and walked carefully down. “That’s the worst bit,” said Jonathan.

The stream in the bottom was a black snake between the white pastures; it hissed like a snake too, and moonlight glistened off its wavelets as it might off polished scales. The old mill, which somebody had rebuilt just before the Changes, was a ruin again now; nobody cared to live so far from the village. They halted for a minute to allow Tim to move the witch round so that his feet would be below his head during the climb.

“We aren’t going fast enough,” said Jonathan. “It’ll be morning before we get back.”

“It’s not so bad after Edge,” said Margaret, “and it’ll be much easier with the moon out.”

She looked round at the black trees, the ruined mill, the white meadows with the black stream hissing between them; everything in the steep and secret valley looked magical under the chill moon. She’d never have dreamed that a world so dangerous could be so beautiful.

There are two very steep stretches on the far side.

Jonathan showed Lucy how to work the brake, then cajoled Tim into hauling on one of the traces on one side of the sledge while he took the other. Scrub stumbled on the second slope, but was on his feet and pulling almost at once, which was lucky because Lucy was thinking about something else and hadn’t even begun to use the brake. The pony’s knees seemed unhurt, thanks to the cushioning snow, and he toiled bravely on.

Edge, on the last rim of the Cotswolds, was fast asleep, and the road to Gloucester curved through it and into the darkness of beechwoods.

“Do you think you could ride him down here, and get him to trot for a bit?” said Jonathan as soon as they were past the last inhabited house. “There’s room for the rest of us on the sledge.”

It meant rearranging the sick man again, but they crowded onto the rough slats, with Jonathan at the back to work the brake and Tim clutching the sack of food Jonathan had stolen from the farm. Scrub was uneasy about the changed arrangement, and suspicious of the surface beneath his feet, but Margaret coaxed him into a trot. He faltered, changed pace to a walk and tossed his head.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Margaret. “It’s quite safe, and you’ll enjoy it. Come on.”

She felt his mouth with the reins and nudged his ribs and he tried again, and this time he kept it up. The slope was just right for the sledge: left to itself it would have stopped, with that weight on it, but it needed very little pulling to keep it going and in a minute Scrub had completely changed his mind about the whole affair and was tugging at the bit and trying to stretch into a canter. Margaret looked over her shoulder to her passengers as they passed through a patch of moonlight where no trees masked the sky. Tim was crouched over his sack, staring out sideways at the blinks of light between the trunks. Lucy was smiling her elf smile, looking as wild as the wind that slipped icily past her. Jonathan perched on a nook of sledge between the witch’s head and the brake-bar, looking intently forwards, ready for the next disaster. They could never have got this far without him: he knew what to do because he had thought about it before it happened — and he could think in secret because nobody could tell what was going on behind that funny crumpled face.

“Scrub wants to go faster,” she shouted.

“Provided you don’t miss your turn,” he shouted back. “Throw your hand up when you see it coming.”

The next few minutes were heroic adventure — real as the touch of timber but quite different, as different as dreams, from the everyday bothersomeness of roofs and clothing. The icy night air burned past her, long slopes of moonlit snow opened and closed on her left as the trees massed and thinned, Scrub covered the dangerous surface with a muscled and rhythmic confidence while she moved with his movement as a curlew moves with the northwest wind, and the road curved down the long hillside with the generous swoops imposed by the contours — and all the time a lower level of her mind kept telling her that what she was doing was dangerous. And right. Dangerous and right. Right and deadly.

Something nicked the corner of her awareness, the corner of her eye as they raced past — the cottage before the turn. She threw up her arm for a second (you could trust Jo to rely on the briefest signal) and busied herself with the problem of coaxing Scrub to a walk without letting him fall. The brake grated harshly just as she let him feel the pull of the bit.

“Too good to last, boy,” she said.

He understood at once, slowing as fast as was safe on that surface and with the danger of the sledge banging into his hind legs. (No horse is really happy about pulling something which hasn’t got shafts down a slope — he can’t hold it back.)

The ten yards into the lane after the turn is very steep, as steep as Edge Lane, but they took it slowly. After that it levels out and they were able to trot several times, but the exhilaration of the ride down the main road was lost. The night was wheeling on; the high, untended hedges closed them in; they began to feel the secrecy and strangeness of the Vale; the empty city now seemed very near.

“Cheer up, Marge,” said Jonathan while they were all rearranging themselves to allow Scrub to cope with a slight rise. “We’ve just about caught up with the time now. You tired?”

“Not if I don’t think about it.”

“Is there any way round Hempsted? Someone’s bound to hear us with everything so quiet.”

“I don’t know. Anyway, I probably couldn’t find it. This is much the best way in, because the houses are only just on both sides of the road, and not spread out in a great mass. If we try some other way we might meet the dogs.”

“All right.”

If anyone heard them in Hempsted they gave no sign. It was impossible to tell when they were out of the little inhabited village and into the derelict suburbs. Scrub was tiring now, difficult to coax out of his stolid walk. Margaret dismounted and walked beside him. Tim came and strode on the other side of him, as though he felt some mysterious sympathy with the weary limbs. The moon blanked out, and then there was a swirling flurry of snow, much more wind-driven in this open flatness than it had been up in the hills. Margaret bent her head and plodded on, looking only at the faint whiteness of the road a few feet in front of her. The level crossing told her that they were nearly there — otherwise she might have trudged on forever.

The snow-shower stopped again just as they reached the docks, but the moon didn’t come out for several minutes, during which she edged forward onto the quay in a panic lest someone would fall into the bitter water. Her memory was mistaken, too; there seemed to be far more obstructions and kinks in the quayside than she’d remembered in the quick glance from the bridge. Then suddenly the light shone down between the blind warehouses and they could all see the whole basin.

“Those were the ones I meant, Jo,” she said.

“Yes, the middle one’s no good. It must be half full of water. I’ll nip ahead and nose around. You come on slowly.”

He flitted off between the shadows and was lost. Margaret heard a faint clunking. Scrub was worried and restless, and she herself was too tense to calm him. The water in the basin looked as black as polished slate. Jonathan came back.

“I’ve found one which will do for the time being,” he said. “There’s enough room for all three of them, and we needn’t try and get Otto down a ladder — I forced the door of the wheelhouse. We can cast off one hawser and slack off the other one and just shove her out into the middle of the basin. Then there shouldn’t be any trouble from dogs. But I’m worried about water.”

“Water?”

“For them to drink. The stuff in the basin doesn’t smell too good.”

“Couldn’t we melt some snow?”

“Good idea. You scout around and see if you can find something big enough to hold it. Tie Scrub up. Lucy, bring Tim along and I’ll show you what I want.”

Margaret explored all along the side of the quay, groping into shadows and waiting until the faint light reflected from the snow allowed her to distinguish the blacker shapes of solid objects amid the general blackness. She had in her mind’s eye some sort of galvanized iron washtub, and didn’t pause to wonder whether any such object was likely to be found in a commercial dockyard, so she came back to the tugs emptyhanded after twenty minutes’ search. The witch had vanished from the sledge and Tim was gone too. Jonathan and Lucy were performing a curious dance round a chimneyshaped thing, hopping, bending and half straightening before they hopped again. As Margaret came up Jonathan dragged the chimney-thing a couple of yards further on.

“No luck, Marge?” he said. “Never mind. Lucy found an old oil drum with the lid off. I think it’ll be all right — it holds water because we tried it in the dock, and it’s not too dirty. Give us a hand.”

So Margaret joined in the bending and hopping ritual, scooping up the light snow and throwing it into the drum.

“That’ll do,” said Jonathan at last. “We won’t be able to carry it if it gets any heavier. Hang on, Lucy, while I make a lashing; we’ll have to get it down into the hold or it won’t melt. Fetch that bit of rope you found while I try and get my fingers warm enough to make knots.” Margaret suddenly felt the bitter numbness in her own fingers and put her hands under her armpits and jigged up and down in the puddled snow to get her blood moving. Jonathan swung his arms against his ribs with a dull slapping noise while Lucy slid off into the dark. When she returned there was a long period of just watching and feeling useless while Jonathan fiddled and fussed with the rope. Then Lucy fetched Tim and persuaded him to lift the drum onto the tug and lower it down a hatch.

“That’s fine,” said Jonathan. “There should be enough melted by morning to drink. Don’t drink the water in the basin. Now we’ll put you out to sea. All aboard. Got that pole, Lucy?”

“Yes, master,” said the quiet voice.

“Show Tim how to push against the quay. I’ll shove with my leg. Marge, hang on to my hand so that I can let myself go a bit further, otherwise I’ll fall in. Off we go. All together now.”

Margaret held his hand and prepared to lean backwards against the weight of his stretch out over the water. Lucy found a good hold for the tip of her piece of timber; Jonathan began to shove; Lucy made Tim hold the pole where she’d been holding it and said, “Push. Push. That’s right.” Nothing happened for what seemed a long time, so that Margaret was sure that the basin must be silted up and the tug stuck. Then, suddenly, she saw a gleam of light between Jonathan’s feet, and the oily blackness of the water round the ripple of reflected moonlight.

“Hang on, Marge,” said Jonathan. “Don’t let him fall over, Lucy. That’s enough. We don’t want to shove it right round the other way.”

He hauled himself back onto the solid stone, and together they watched the tug drift, inch by inch, out over the water.

“That’s fine,” said Jonathan at last. “Lucy, you’ll have to keep an eye open. If you find yourself drifting too near the quay again Tim can pole you off. And if you want to get ashore just haul on the hawser. You’ve got enough food for three days, I should think. Marge or I will be down again with more before Friday. All right?”

“Yes master, and my thanks to you. And to you too, Miss Margaret.” Her silky whisper drifted over the water. Far off in the city a dog bayed. Then the moon went out.

“We must be off,” said Jonathan. “Do you think Scrub can stand it?”

“Yes. He’s been eating snow, which is just as good as drinking, and I think he’s found some grass in that corner. He’s had a good rest, haven’t you, boy?”

She knew he had heard the baying of the dog, and could feel the slight shivering of fright through his hide as she patted him in the pitch dark. He moved eagerly as she untied his reins from the stanchion, and she had a job walking as fast as he wanted to go along the treacherous cobbles, all littered with frozen hawser and rusting chains beneath the snow. Out on the road she climbed into the saddle and heard Jonathan settling at the back of the sledge. Scrub chose a quickish trot and bounced along the winding flat. They both got off to

walk up the slight slope into Hempsted, but rode again down to the bridge over the canal.

“Marge,” called Jonathan as they crossed the black water, “couldn’t we have come along the towpath? It must be quicker.”

“I expect so. I didn’t think of it. Anyway, it was too dark to be safe.”

“Let’s try next time we come down.”

“Yes.”

Then there was the easy straight along the big road that leads to Bristol and another fair stretch along the winding lane towards hills which seemed darker and taller with every pace. In one brief patch of moonlight she saw that it hadn’t snowed here since they came down, for the lines of the sledge’s runners slashed clear through the soft whiteness and between them were the scuffled ovals of Scrub’s hoofprints. Her legs were very tired when she dismounted to begin on the long climb up to Edge, and felt tireder still when the snow started again before they were halfway up to the main road. So there was nearly an hour’s slow plodding (head bent, shoulders hunched, little runnels of melting coldness beginning to find their way into the cringing skin) before they could once again start down the hill to the valley. Margaret was too tired to think about risks; she let Scrub take it at a dangerous, wallowing canter through the dizzying flakes. Jonathan had to shout to warn her at the two very steep places, but she didn’t even dismount then, only slowing the pony to a slithering walk while the brake scraped behind them. She had to walk up the far edge of the valley, and it took years of

darkness (though she knew from daytime blackberrying that it was really only ten minutes’ stroll) . Then they were in the village again, coming down between houses with the snow falling as thick as flour from the runnel of a millstone. She could see neither sky nor star nor horizon through the swirling murk, but the habit of living without clocks told her there were two hours till dawn. She led Scrub into his paddock, heartlessly leaving him to lick snow and rummage for grass, while Jonathan dragged the sledge back into the timber-store.

When she came reeling back to the tack room with the harness and the heavy saddle he was waiting for her.

“Marge!” he hissed, as though he had something vital to tell her. “She’s called Heartsease ”

“Who is?” said Margaret.

“The tug. I spelled it out by moonlight. It’s the name of Mother’s favorite flower — I thought it might be lucky.”

“Luck’s what we need,” said Margaret crossly. She hung her gear in the darkest corner, shifted a dry saddle and reins to the place where she usually kept hers, and then, wet and miserable as a storm-wrecked bird, climbed the freezing ivy, crept along the passage, hid her wet clothes under the bed, snuggled between sheets and allowed herself to drown in sleep.