The Witch of Clatteringshaws (3 page)

Dear Cousin Sammyvell:

You never answer my letters, you moldy old wretch
.

I believe you don’t care a pinch of snuff how the world goes on outside your grotto. Now me, I do care. I do come out every five years or so to see what has been going on—battles lost or won, roads laid or not, new fashions in kids’ games, railway lines taken across farming land, mansions ransacked by burglars, shipwrecked hulls hoisted up off the seabed. Some of these tales odder than others. Why do children come to the coach park despite parental warnings about Hobyahs, every now and then forgetting they must leave before dusk, and then what happens? There’s a child missing and
I
get the blame. I think about blame. You left me in charge, though you
knew
I was unreliable, and you get off with a caution while I am
landed with the longest penalty. Unfair! Kids play a game called broken bottles. Why is it called that? Who knows? The old ship hoisted off the seabed at the mouth of Loch Grieve—who would have guessed that it had a seventy-seven-carat emerald hidden inside a conch shell among its cargo—now there will be a lawsuit lasting years about the ownership of that emerald. They say Tatzen has got it. Well, he has! I nipped it from the Town Hall and gave it to him.—And the new rail line, running from Wold’s End Junction in the midlands past Roman Wall in the borders and over Loch Grieve—who in the world is going to pay the huge cost of that stretch of permanent way? Let alone the upkeep of the bridge? It needs a man, fulltime, painting the metalwork, forever. And my friend Tatzen, hovering above, is desperately tempted to pick off a painter from time to time—he has only done it once or twice, since I pointed out to him that it was built instead of the tunnel which would have cut straight through his nest in Cult Bank.—And what about the Hobyahs, who are beginning to think they might cross the rail bridge by night (lying flat as the Midnight Scot thunders by), and the Picts, sending an occasional scouting party to snatch a few cattle—though how to get cattle back across the rail bridge is something the Picts have not yet solved. But the left bank is not quite the safe haven from Hobyahs that it once was
.

Anyway, more public-spirited than Cousin Sammy—yes, it’s you I’m addressing—I once in a while take down my golf club from its hook (the new broom was never as biddable as the old one) and cross the loch northward and pay duty visits to the householders of Clatteringshaws village to check on their health and social habits
.

Where do they keep their milk? And do their children attend school? And do they still do their laundry in the loch?

There used to be a ghost called the Bone Nixie, who reputedly washed shrouds in the shallow water. She was certain death if she grabbed hold of you, but I hear no more of her now the bridge has been built; perhaps it was my friend Tatzen who helped himself to a few laundry ladies from time to time. They all have washing machines now
.

Well, five years after the Battle of Follodden was fought and lost by both sides, I cross the loch to the north bank and go to earn my shilling-a-year salary from the Clatteringshaws Council by inquiring into the habits of its taxpayers
.

Where do you keep your milk? And how do you dispose of your empty bottles? And are pets allowed to sleep on your children’s beds?

“
We don’t keep pets in
this
house, I’m happy to tell ye,” snapped Mrs. Euphemia Glamis McClan
.

I was interested in her reply, since, coming along the lochside road outside her house, the Eagles Guesthouse, I had heard a frantic screaming; if not a pig being killed, or a Siamese cat desperate for its dinner, could it have been a child? Having something horrible done to it? The only child visible was little Fred, aged five or thereabouts, who was now dragged out from under the table by his threadlike arm. I noticed that he had a black eye
.

“
Say good day to the welfare lady!” hissed Mrs. McClan
.

Fred whispered something inaudible
.

“
He’s shy”—giving his arm a jerk that ought to have pulled it from its socket—“and his nature’s naturally evil. He’ll go to the Bad Place, for sure.”

Not shy, I thought. Terror-stricken
.

“
Is he yours, Mrs. McClan?”

“
Maircy, no!”

“
One of the guests’?”

The Eagles, as advertised by its board, was a Residential Guesthouse. But most of the residents seen creeping about were far too ancient to have produced little Fred
.

“
Dearr me
, no!
A wee motherless bairn. An orrphan. A charity child. My dearr husband has a hearrt as big as the worrld. He took him in.”

Mrs. McClan’s expression indicated that she entirely regretted this charitable act
.

“
Your husband?”

Mrs. McClan made a vague gesture toward the town graveyard, visible through the large rain-streaked window. It was crammed with massive granite gravestones—Mrs. McClan’s past 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 permanent
frown 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