The Witch of Clatteringshaws by Joan Aiken

Author:Joan Aiken [Aiken, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5089-7
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

After two days working for Mrs. McClan, Dido and Piers wondered how the woman had ever managed without them.

There had been, previously, a servant-maid called Hennie, they learned, but she was gey flighty, Mrs. McClan said; she would go oyster gathering on the far side of the loch on her afternoon off, “and the Hobyahs got her.”

“What are the Hobyahs?” Dido asked.

“Pesky wee gangrels,” Mrs. McClan said vaguely. “They’ll no worrit you if you don’t worrit them. Mostly they bide across the loch—’tis likely they are frit of the Monster.”

“And what is the monster? What does he do?”

“Och, he’s not often seen—not above twice in a twelvemonth. He bides in the loch—or, some folk say, he has a cleugh in the brae.”

“What is a cleugh? What is a brae?”

“Ach, leave speering at me, girl! Can’t ye see I’ve twenty things to do this instant minute?”

And Mrs. McClan went off to give the Residents their breakfast, one teaspoonful of oatmeal and half a pinch of tea.

Dido was left to guess that a cleugh in the brae meant a cave or den somewhere in the hills. Nor did she and Piers get any clear notion of what the Monster might be; the inn sign of the Monster’s Arms showed a creature like an octopus with hands at the end of each of its eight tentacles. It looked highly improbable, though undoubtedly sinister and threatening.

“I don’t believe the man who painted that sign had ever seen the Monster,” said Dido. “It isn’t a bit like that glimpse of the beast we got when the children threw their oat buns into the loch.”

Meanwhile, another of the Residents had died, and Mrs. McClan was arranging with the Reverend Knockwinnock for yet another funeral.

An old man was to be seen out in the churchyard digging graves.

“And he has to be paid, forbye,” grumbled Mrs. McClan. “My husband would ha’ done it for nothing.… And he’ll want his morn-piece as well.… You, Dido, take him oot a bittie oatcake and a mug of mint tea—not too strong, mind!”

When Dido obeyed this instruction—the snack was received with loud complaints—“Beggars’ bite and gnats’ piss—trust mean old Phemie McClan!”—she noticed a long line of small plain gravestones whose occupants were all described as “Sadly Missed Resident of the Eagles Guesthouse.” Plainly, Mrs. McClan did not reckon to keep her customers long.

“Aye, aye.” The old man nodded, handing back the empty mug. “Phemie don’t keep ’em langsyne—’tis quick come, quick go, in her book. Reckon though she willna be so speedy now her man’s underground—” He pointed at the grave he was digging. “Though she’ll train up young Desmond quick enough, nae doot.”

Dido felt sure that he was right.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I think somebody is waving at me over the hedge.”

“Aye, ’tis the witch. Ever one, she is, for poking her neb into other folks’ business. Well, ’tis true, Phemie willna let her in the hoose after she pit in a report to the Provost telling that the guests at the Eagles were being starvit to death.

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