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too mummerset.’ She said: ‘But that’s just an act. It’s just an old dance-play. It’s like having mistletoe and plum pudding. Nothing else happens, Ernie. Nobody dies.’

      Ernie twitched the sacking off the body of his dog. Camilla gave a protesting cry and shrank away.

      ‘What’s thik, then?’ Ernie demanded. ‘Be thik a real dead corpse or bean’t it?’

      ‘Bury it!’ Camilla cried out. ‘Cover it up, Ernie, and forget it. It’s horrible.’

      She felt she could stand no more of Ernie and his dog. She said: ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you,’ and walked on past him and along the path to the smithy. With great difficulty she restrained herself from breaking into a run. She felt sick.

      The path came out at a clearing near the lane and a little above the smithy.

      A man was waiting there. She saw him at first through the trees and then, as she drew nearer, more clearly.

      He came to meet her. His face was white and he looked, she couldn’t help feeling, wonderfully determined and romantic.

      ‘Ralph!’ she said, ‘you mustn’t! You promised. Go away, quickly.’

      ‘I won’t. I can’t, Camilla. I saw you go into the copse, so I hurried up and came round the other way to meet you. I’m sorry, Camilla. I just couldn’t help myself, and, anyway, I’ve decided it’s too damn silly not to. What’s more, there’s something I’ve got to say.’

      His expression changed. ‘Hi!’ he said, ‘Darling, what’s up? I haven’t frightened you, have I? You look frightened.’

      Camilla said with a little wavering laugh: ‘I know it sounds the purest corn but I’ve just seen something beastly in the copse and it’s made me feel sick.’

      He took her hands in his. She would have dearly liked to put her head on his chest. ‘What did you see, my poorest?’ asked Ralph.

      ‘Ernie,’ she said, ‘with a dead dog and talking about death.’

      She looked up at him and helplessly began to cry. He gave an inarticulate cry and gathered her into his arms.

      A figure clad in decent blacks came out of the smithy and stood transfixed with astonishment and rage. It was the Guiser.

      III

      On the day before Sword Wednesday, Dame Alice ordered her septuagenarian gardener to take his slasher and cut down a forest of dead thistles and briar that poked up through the snow where the Dance of the Five Sons was to be performed. The gardener, a fearless Scot with a will of iron and a sour disposition, at once informed her that the slasher had been ruined by unorthodox usage.

      ‘Dame,’ he said, for this was the way he chose to address his mistress, ‘It canna be. I’ll no’ soil ma hands nor scald ma temper nor lay waste ma bodily health wi’ any such matter.’

      ‘You can sharpen your slasher, man.’

      ‘It should fetch the blush of shame to your countenance to ask it.’

      ‘Send it down to William Andersen.’

      ‘And get insultit for ma pains? Yon godless old devil’s altogether sunkit in heathen clamjamphries.’

      ‘If you’re talkin’ about Sword Wednesday, McGlashan, you’re talkin’ bosh. Send down your slasher to the forge. If William’s too busy one of the sons will do it.’

      ‘I’ll hae nane but the smith lay hands on ma slasher. They’d ruin it. Moreover, they are as deep sunk in depravity as their auld mon.’

      ‘Don’t you have sword dances in North Britain?’

      ‘I didna come oot here in the cauld at the risk o’ ma ain demise to be insultit.’

      ‘Send the slasher to the forge and get the courtyard cleared. That will do, McGlashan.’

      In the end, the slasher was taken down by Dulcie Mardian, who came back with the news that the Guiser was away for the day. She had given the slasher to Ernie with strict instructions that his father, and nobody else, was to sharpen it.

      ‘Fancy, Aunt Akky, it’s the first time for twenty years that William has been to Biddlefast. He got Dan Andersen to drive him to the bus. Everyone in the village is talking about it and wondering if he’s gone to see Stayne and Stayne about his will. I suppose Ralph would know.’

      ‘He’s lucky to have somethin’ to leave. I haven’t and you might as well know it, Dulcie.’

      ‘Of course, Aunt Akky. But everybody says old William is really as rich as possible. He hides it away, they say, like a miser. Fancy!’

      ‘I call it shockin’ low form, Dulcie, listenin’ to village gossip.’

      ‘And, Aunt Akky, that German woman is still at the Green Man. She tries to pump everybody about the Five Sons.’

      ‘She’ll be nosin’ up here to see it. Next thing she’ll be startin’ some beastly guild. She’s one of those stoopid women who turn odd and all that in their fifties. She’ll make a noosance of herself.’

      ‘That’s what the Old Guiser says, according to Chris.’

      ‘He’s perfectly right. William Andersen is a sensible fellow.’

      ‘Could you turn her away, Aunt Akky, if she comes?’

      Dame Alice merely gave an angry snap of her false teeth.

      ‘Is that young woman still at the Green Man?’ she demanded.

      ‘Do you mean William Andersen’s granddaughter?’

      ‘Who the deuce else should I mean?’

      ‘Yes she is. Everyone says she’s awfully nice and – well – you know –’

      ‘If you mean she’s a ladylike kind of creeter, why not say so?’

      ‘One doesn’t say that somehow, nowadays, Aunt Akky.’

      ‘More fool you.’

      ‘One says she’s a “lidy”.’

      ‘Nimby-pimby shilly-shallyin’ and beastly vulgar into the bargain. Is the gel more of a Campion than an Andersen?’

      ‘She’s got quite a look of her mother, but of course, Ned Campion brought her up as a Campion. Good schools and all that. She went to that awfully smart finishing school in Paris.’

      ‘And learnt a lot more than they bargained for, I dare say. Is she keepin’ up with the smithy?’

      ‘She’s quite cultivating them, it seems, and everybody says old William, although he pretends to disapprove, has really taken a great fancy to her. They say that she seems to like being with them. I suppose it’s the common side coming out.’

      ‘Lor’, what a howlin’ snob you are, Dulcie. All the more credit to the gel. But I won’t have Ralph gettin’ entangled.’

      ‘What makes you think –?’

      Dame Alice looked at her niece with contempt. ‘His father told me. Sam.’

      ‘The rector?’ Dulcie said automatically.

      ‘Yes, he’s the rector, Dulcie. He’s also your brother-in-law. Are you goin’ potty? It seems Ralph was noticed with the gel at Sandown and all that. He’s been payin’ her great ’tention. I won’t have it.’

      ‘Have you spoken to Ralph, Aunt Akky?’

      ‘’Course I have. ’Bout that and ’bout somethin’ else,’ said Dame Alice with satisfaction, ‘that he didn’t know I’d heard about. He’s a Mardian, is Master Ralph,

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