LITMIR.BIZ

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a man yt had his tongue cut out by ye Turks 0 0 2 Item to Philip Lea half his bill for walking 0 1 6 Item to a pretended Irish gentleman 0 1 3 Item spent for cluckin to make nets 0 1 8 Item to a woman yt was dumpe 0 0 6 Item spent when I did goe throw ye town to warne those to bring in ye wrishes yt had neglected on ye wrish burying day 0 0 4 Item given to a Majer yt had been taken by ye French and was runeated by them 0 1 0 Item payed to Mr. Hollinsheadfor warrants to punish ye boys’ Immoralities 0 0 8

      But the next entry took all the laughter from Colin’s face. He read it through twice.

      “Gowther!”

      “Ay?”

      “Listen to this: it’s part of the churchwardens’ accounts for 1617.

       ‘Item spent at Street Lane Ends when Mr. Hollinshead and Mr. Wright were at Paynes to confine ye devil yt was fownde at ye Ale house when ye new pipe was being put down and it did break into ye Pitt.’

      “Do you think it’s the hole at the Trafford?”

      Gowther frowned. “Ay, I’d say it is, what with the pipe, and all. That side of Alderley near the Trafford used to be called Street Lane Ends, and I’ve heard tell of a pub theer before the Trafford was built. Sixteen-seventeen, is it? It conner be part of the mines, then. They didner come that way until about two hundred years back, when West Mine was started. So it looks as though it was the well of the owd pub, dunner it?”

      “But it couldn’t be,” said Colin. “It was called ‘ye Pitt’, and by the sound of it, they didn’t know it was there. So what is it?”

      “Nay, dunner ask me,” said Gowther. “And who are yon Hollinshead and Wright?”

      “They’re often mentioned in here,” said Colin. “I think they were the priests at Alderley and Wilmslow. I’d like to know more about this ‘devil’.”

      “I dunner reckon much on that,” said Gowther. “They were a superstitious lot in them days. As a matter of fact, I was talking to Jack Wrigley yesterday – he’s the feller as put his pickaxe through the slab – and he said that when he was looking to see what he’d got, he heard a rum kind of bubbling sound that put the wind up him a bit, but he thinks it was summat to do with air pressure. Happen yon’s what the parsons took for Owd Nick.”

      “I dunner like it,” said Bess from the doorway. She had just come downstairs. “Susan’s not spoken yet, and she’s as cold as a frog. And I conner think wheer all the sand’s coming from – her hair’s still full of it – and everything’s wringing wet. Still, that’s not surprising with two hot-water bottles, I suppose. But theer’s summat wrong; she’s lying theer staring at nowt, and her eyes are a bit queer.”

      “Mun I go for the doctor, do you think?” said Gowther.

      “What? In this rain? And it’s nearly ten o’clock. Nay, lad, she inner that bad. But if things are no different in the morning, we’ll have the doctor in sharpish.”

      “But what if she’s getten concussion, or summat like that?” said Gowther.

      “It’s more like shock, I reckon,” said Bess. “Theer’s no bruises or lumps as I con see, and either way, she’s in the best place for her. You’d not get much thanks from the doctor for dragging him up here in this. We’ll see how she is for a good neet’s rest.”

      Bess, like many country-women of her age, could not shake off her unreasoned fear of medical men.

      Colin never knew what woke him. He lay on his back and stared at the moonlight. He had woken suddenly and completely, with no buffer of drowsiness to take the shock. His senses were needle-pointed, he was aware of every detail of the room, the pools of light and darkness shouted at him.

      He got out of bed, and went to the window. It was a clear night, the air cold and sweet after the storm: the moon cast hard shadows over the farmyard. Scamp lay by the barn door, his head between his paws. Then Colin saw something move. He saw it only out of the corner of his eye, and it was gone in a moment, but he was never in any doubt: a shadow had slipped across the patch of moonlight that lay between the end of the house and the gate that led to the Riddings, the steep hill-field behind the farm.

      “Hey! Scamp!” whispered Colin. The dog did not move. “Hey! Wake up!” Scamp whined softly, and gave a muted yelp. “Come on! Fetch him!” Scamp whined again, then crawled, barely raising his belly from the floor, into the barn. “What on earth? Hey!” But Scamp would not come.

      Colin pulled on his shirt and trousers over his pyjamas, and jammed his feet into a pair of shoes, before going to wake Gowther. But when he came to Susan’s door he paused, and, for no reason that he could explain, opened the door. The bed was empty, the window open.

      Colin tiptoed downstairs and groped his way to the door. It was still bolted. Had Susan dropped nine feet to the cobbles? He eased the bolts, and stepped outside, and as he looked he saw a thin silhouette pass over the skyline of the Riddings.

      He struggled up the hill as fast as he could, but it was some time before he spotted the figure again, now moving across Clinton hill, a quarter of a mile away.

      Colin ran: and by the time he stood up at the top of Clinton hill he had halved the lead that Susan had gained. For it was undoubtedly Susan. She was wearing her pyjamas, and she seemed to glide smoothly over the ground, giving a strange impression that she was running, though her movements were those of walking. Straight ahead of her were the dark tops of the trees in the quarry.

      “Sue!” No, wait. That’s dangerous. She’s sleep-walking. But she’s heading for the quarry.

      Colin ran as hard as he had ever run. Once he was off the hill-top the uneven ground hid Susan, but he knew the general direction. He came to the fence that stood on the edge of the highest cliff and looked around while he recovered his breath.

      The moon showed all the hill-side and much of the quarry: the pump-tower gleamed, and the vanes turned. But Susan was nowhere to be seen. Colin leant against a fence-stump. She ought to be in sight: he could not have overtaken her: she must have reached here. Colin searched the sides of the quarry with his eyes, and looked at the smooth black mirror of the water. He was frightened. Where was she?

      Then he cried out his fear as something slithered over his shoe and plucked at his ankle. He started back, and looked down. It was a hand. A ledge of earth, inches wide, ran along the other side of the fence and crumbled away to the rock face a few feet below: then the drop was sheer to the tarn-like water. The hand now clutched the ledge.

      “Sue!”

      He stretched over the barbed wire. She was right below him, spreadeagled between the ledge and the cliff proper, her pale face turned up to his.

      “Hang on! Oh, hang on!”

      Colin threw himself flat on the ground, wrapped one arm round the stump, thrust the other under the wire, and grabbed at the hand. But though

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