Book 1

1 Giles and Anne

One evening long ago, two children lay in bed in an attic. From downstairs the noise of rattling knives and forks came up to them. And the youngsters, as they often did, were guessing what guests their mother and father had invited for supper. They knew most of their parents’ friends by name and sight; but they themselves were not yet old enough to be allowed to take supper with the grown-ups—except at Christmas time and on birthdays. For in those times life was much stricter for young people than it is now. The boy’s name was Giles. The girl’s name was Anne. They were twins, nine years old.

They could hear, too, the tinkle of the bell which their father rang when he wanted the maid to come in and change the plates. It was fun to try and tell from the smells of the food, and from the noises of glasses, china and silver, which dishes were being served.

‘They are having the pudding now,’ whispered Anne. ‘Didn’t you hear that oven door slam just then, Giles?’

‘Sh!’ growled the boy. ‘Not so loud—with our own door open and all. We’re supposed to be asleep. No, they’ve finished the pudding. I can hear Father cracking nuts—or else it is that grumpy old Doctor Seymour. His voice is hard to mistake. Besides, I heard Mother say something about his coming tonight.’

‘How late the light lasts!’ said Anne. ‘How can they expect us to sleep while the setting sun still glows on the window-pane?’

‘And how hot it is!’ said Giles, throwing back a blanket from his bed. ‘I’m going to open that other window. One is not enough on a night like this.’

He stepped quietly out of bed and, moving over to the dormer, gently opened the latch and swung the casement outwards. He gazed down into the street. Hardly anyone was abroad. The town clock chimed the half-hour—half-past seven. On the tiles of the opposite roof a black cat stretched himself lazily in the last of the red sunlight.

‘Listen, Anne,’ whispered the boy. ‘Come over here—but quiet now.’

‘What is it?’ asked his sister. Noiselessly she glided from her bed and across the floor to his side.

‘It’s the Applewoman,’ said Giles. ‘Don’t you hear her? She’s away down the street around the corner. Soon you’ll see her.’

‘I don’t hear anything,’ said Anne. ‘Only the cracking of the nuts downstairs. I wish I had some. It makes me hungry to listen to them.’

‘Stop talking,’ said her brother, ‘and then you’ll hear. It is she, I tell you. A long way off. But you can catch it. “Apples! Fine pippins for sale!” It’s what she always cries.’

‘The Applewoman!’ said little Anne thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why grown-up people don’t seem to like her, Giles? Do you know?’

‘Oh, pshaw!’ said her brother. ‘I don’t believe they know themselves. They don’t understand her, I reckon. People are nearly always afraid of what they can’t understand—except the very brave ones, maybe. I never could see anything wrong with the Applewoman—though it’s true I’ve never spoken to her. “Shragga the Witch!” What a name to call her! But have you noticed, it is only the grown-ups who call her that? To the children she is always just “Agnes the Applewoman”. I don’t believe that woman ever did a bad deed in her whole life—for all her ugly looks.’

‘Shragga the Witch!’ murmured Anne. ‘It is indeed a terrible name to fasten upon anyone. Yet she is queer, Giles. Do you know what Mary Seymour says about her? She says she’s a mind-reader.’

‘What on earth is that?’ asked Giles.

‘She can read a person’s thoughts—or so Mary says. She can tell what you’re thinking about without your saying a word.’

‘Oh, I don’t believe that,’ said Giles. ‘Maybe she just guesses—and guesses right.’

‘But if she guesses right all the time,’ said Anne, ‘it would be the same as doing it, wouldn’t it?’

‘Humph!’ her brother muttered. ‘I’d like to see her do it. I think of a whole lot of things in one day. It would be very hard to guess my thoughts.’

‘Listen, she’s nearer now,’ whispered Anne. ‘She must be just around the bend. Goodness! I wish that noise of clattering plates would give over for a moment down below!’

‘Yes,’ said Giles. ‘But anyhow we’ll see her in a second or—Goodness, Anne! Look at the cat! ’

On the roof opposite, the black cat was indeed behaving strangely. Still glowing with the rosy light of the evening sun, it was now bounding up and down in the queerest way, while the long flat shadows behind it leapt still more wildly on the sloping tiles.

‘It sees her,’ whispered Anne. ‘It can see around the bend from here, while we can’t ... Oh, Giles, let’s go back to bed! I’m afraid. Don’t let Agnes see us here! Maybe the grown-ups are right, Giles. Maybe ... maybe she is a witch!’

2 Shragga the Witch

For a moment or two Giles did not answer. Very still he stayed at the window, frowning across the street. The cat’s antics seemed now to have become almost a mad, jumping dance, growing wilder and wilder as the singing voice of the woman drew nearer.

‘ Apples! Apples! Fine pippins for sale! ’

And then at last the children saw her. The cracking of nuts could still be heard from the parents’ table on the ground floor. The children for a while were silent. Seeing the old woman was more important than talking. She had a long, very wrinkled face—a clever face, a wise one—but not unkind. She pushed her apple barrow before her with strong, even shoves, stopping once in a while to raise her hand to the side of her mouth while she made her call: ‘ Apples! ’

‘I don’t believe it,’ repeated Giles. ‘Reading people’s thoughts! If she could do it, why couldn’t anyone? If I stuck my head under a pillow, could you tell me what I was thinking?’

‘Of course I couldn’t,’ Anne whispered. ‘But that is what Mary Seymour said: all Agnes has to do is to look at you and she knows what is passing through your mind.’

‘ Apples! Apples! Fine pippins for sale! ’

The old woman’s voice rang out nearer and louder. She still stared straight ahead of her along the street, looking neither to right of her nor to left. At last she stopped beneath the children’s window, seemingly tired of crying to an almost empty street.

Anne craned her neck out through the casement.

‘Oh, Giles, what beautiful apples! I’m hungry.’

Giles smacked his lips and grunted, ‘Umph, look at that enormous red one, almost at the end of her barrow, Anne. I’d like that one, wouldn’t you? Um ... my!’

And then, for the first time, suddenly, Agnes the Applewoman looked up, straight at the children’s window. A kind and almost beautiful smile spread over her funny old wrinkled face. Without turning her eyes aside she reached out and grasped an apple, and with a queer quick twist of the wrist threw it straight up into the dormer window. It landed gently in Giles’s hands.

‘It’s the very one,’ whispered the boy. ‘The red one I chose!’

‘ Apples! Apples! Fine pippins for sale! ’ On went the Applewoman, on went the barrow.

The cat had disappeared from the roof; and as Agnes passed out of sight around the bend of the street, they saw the animal following at her heels.

‘ Apples! Apples! Fine pippins for sale! ’ The voice was now soft and distant.

‘Oh, my goodness, Giles!’ (Anne’s face was quite pale as she turned to her brother and pointed to the rosy fruit lying in his hands.) ‘The woman picked out the very apple you were longing for—the one you were already chewing in your mind. And she couldn’t possibly have heard a word you whispered. If that isn’t reading people’s minds, I’d like to know what is. Do you believe it now?’

3 Luke

The apple had been divided and eaten. It was now past midnight, and yet the children were not asleep. Doctor Seymour’s deep voice mumbled on downstairs. And still Giles was arguing in whispers that what they had seen had been nothing more than a happy accident; and still Anne stuck to it that Agnes’s thought-reading had been clearly proved.

And so it was two very weary-eyed children who came down to breakfast next morning. But they were at the table before their parents. When their father appeared it was Giles who first noticed that he wore a worried look. This later troubled Anne also, but in those days children were supposed to be seen and not heard, so she did not speak of it then. And as soon as the meal was over the youngsters went out into the garden.

‘What do you think is the matter with Father, Giles?’ asked Anne when they were well away from the house.

‘I’m not quite certain,’ said Giles. ‘But after you fell asleep last night I crept down the stairs a little way. And from what I heard I believe Father owes Doctor Seymour—and others, too—a lot of money. I had thought that Father had money enough for his needs, but it seems he has been borrowing from the Doctor and the Doctor wants him now to pay it back.’

‘Is it very much?’ asked Anne.

‘Yes,’ said Giles seriously. ‘I imagine it would be very much more than he could pay now. And Doctor Seymour was almost rude. He must have it within the week, he said—needs it to pay his own bills. Then a long talk followed, Father saying he couldn’t possibly pay it in so short a time and the Doctor almost shouting he must have it. This money business seems a curse, I wish people could live without it altogether.’

‘Dear me!’ said Anne thoughtfully. ‘I wonder ... if anyone ... maybe Agnes the Applewoman could do something. Couldn’t we go and see her, Giles?’

‘My goodness, Anne, don’t you know that all the grown-up people would make no end of fuss? You know they call her a witch. What help could she give us?’

‘Who can tell?’ said Anne. ‘But you said yourself you had faith in that old woman. And I am beginning to feel the same way, too. Though I don’t quite know why. Maybe it’s her kindly smile, or the way the animals follow her about. Grown-up people sometimes get very set in their ways. Let’s go and see her, Giles. She will do us no harm, of that I am sure.’

So a little later Giles and Anne stepped out through the lower garden gate behind their father’s home and started to make a tour of the town.

They inquired of the old blind man, who sat in front of Our Lady’s Church, where they could find Agnes the Applewoman.

‘You mean Shragga the Witch?’ said he gruffly, his whole body bristling with suspicion.

‘All right,’ said Giles, ‘if you would call her so. Where does she live?’

‘I ... don’t know,’ said the blind man, and he made the sign of the cross.

The children wandered on, looking here and there for someone else to ask, till finally they came upon a lame boy, a town character whom they had known almost as long as they could remember. He did not seem nearly so close-mouthed and careful.

‘Agnes,’ said he. ‘Why, of course I know where she lives. You go down to the bridge crossing the South River. And at the foot of the Archers’ Tower you’ll find a path running along the edge of the stream. Follow that till you see a little hut set up high where the tides cannot reach. And that’s where Agnes lives. A fine woman. You’ll like meeting her. Who cares if the Mayor and all those stuffy aldermen call her a witch? There are some who know her for what she is.’

4 The hut by the river

The children thanked the lame boy and went on. By following his directions carefully they at length came in sight of the hut he had spoken of. It was very small and shabby and looked as though it had sunk down from sheer age and feebleness into the mud that surrounded the tower. Many people might have passed it by without seeing it. It was only after a scramble over the half-dried ooze of the river that Giles and Anne could reach it.

The door was shut tight. There were no signs of life anywhere. Giles crept up and knocked timidly. There was no answer.

‘Maybe she’s away,’ whispered Anne.

‘Wait a moment,’ said Giles. And he rapped upon the door again, more loudly.

‘Come in,’ called a voice gently.

The boy took his sister’s hand in his, lifted the latch and pushed firmly. A square black hole opened before him. There seemed at first to be no light inside the hut whatever. It took a little courage to enter. And Anne felt her brother’s hand tighten on her own. He led her forwards and downwards into the darkness, feeling ahead for stairs with his feet.

‘Why, I declare!’ said the gentle voice again. ‘It’s my apple children. Come in, come in. Can you see? Wait now. We will make a light.’

There was the sound of a scratching of a tinder box. At the same time the door snapped to and latched itself behind them, though neither Giles nor Anne could make out by what means it closed. It was darker now than ever. But presently a flame glowed up and they saw the old woman bending over a table, lighting a candle.

‘I am glad to see you,’ she said, a smile spreading over her wrinkled face. ‘A little light makes it more cheerful, eh? And a fire—Oh, goodness me! Look, it’s gone out. What a welcome! No light and no fire—with a cold wind blowing, and all. Just a minute. Sit down and we’ll soon get it going.’

The old woman took up a bellows and with its point stirred the grey ashes in the hearth. Then, as she started to blow, two big black cats came forward out of the gloom carrying sticks in their mouths. Agnes took the sticks from them and fed the red coals, now glowing into life among the swirling dust. The cats kept going backwards and forwards for more wood in a most businesslike way, as though they were quite used to helping with the housework in this fashion. Soon a merry little blaze was flaring up the chimney. Its light helped the meagre candle on the table and made the small room less gloomy and strange.

‘Ha!’ said Agnes, standing back. ‘That’s better. Now let me see what fruit we have to eat. Sit down, children. Draw that bench up here—so.’

Then she rummaged down into the back of the hut and brought forward a large pear and two luscious peaches. The youngsters took them from her outstretched hands and murmured awkward thanks. Agnes seated herself on the bench between them.

‘Dear, dear!’ she said. ‘It isn’t often I have visitors—except the kind I do not want. Now tell me: what can I do for you, little people?’

‘Well—er—er,’ Giles began. ‘We—er—thought perhaps—’ Then he stopped, silent.

‘Humph!’ muttered Agnes, as the two black cats crept forward again and rubbed their heads against her knee. ‘Perhaps the little girl can tell me better.’

‘Well, you see, Mother Agnes,’ said Anne, fidgeting restlessly on the bench, ‘you—er—er—’

The old woman looked steadily at her as she hesitated. Then she took Anne’s small hand in hers a moment.

‘Is it something about your father, child?’ she asked presently.

At that both children jumped a little and looked at one another. Anne was on the point of asking the old woman how she knew. But she found her still staring steadily at her and went on:

‘Yes, it is. He’s in trouble.’

‘In what way?’ asked Agnes. ‘Business? Money matters, my dear?’

‘Oh, Mother Agnes,’ said Anne, ‘he always had had enough for the needs of his whole family. And now, suddenly, he seems to be in debt. His life is troubled. He looks worried, sometimes almost ill ...’

‘Well?’ asked the Applewoman gently after a moment.

Anne again glanced across at her brother, this time as if for help.

‘We thought we ought to do something to try to aid him,’ Giles put in. ‘That’s why we came to you.’

‘To me?’ said Agnes. ‘Well, well! And did you tell anyone you were coming?’

The children shook their heads.

‘This needs thinking over,’ said Agnes, more, it seemed, to herself than to anyone else. She got up and moved over again to the back of the hut, where she disappeared behind a ragged curtain. The two cats rose also, like pages waiting on a queen, and followed her. At once the children slid together on the bench. And Anne whispered:

‘What do you think of her, Giles?’

‘I think she’s fine,’ her brother whispered back. ‘But those cats? My, they’re strange!’

‘Did you notice the way she seemed to know what you’re going to say before you say it?’ asked Anne.

‘Yes,’ answered Giles. ‘But you’re not afraid of that, are you?’

‘Oh, no. I ought to be, I suppose, if it’s magic. But somehow I don’t seem to be. I like her—a lot. What a funny, queer little room, Giles, isn’t it?’ Anne’s glance swept round the inside of the hut as she bit into a ripe peach. ‘Copper saucepans on the walls. No pictures. Old wooden chests—I wonder what’s inside them. A sleeping-basket for the cats—I suppose they make their own beds. And the apple barrow, over there, see the wheels sticking out from under the cover full of patches. Old clothes and a bonnet hanging on the peg. Oh, I do hope she’ll be able to help us about Father’s troubles, Giles. But she seems dreadfully poor herself ... Sh! Here she comes back again.’

Agnes hobbled forward to the bench at the fire. The two cats followed her into the room. Then they went off into a far corner, sat down side by side like a pair of soldiers and watched the blaze from a distance.

‘Well now, young people,’ said the Applewoman, ‘are you aware that you might get into serious trouble if your parents learned that you had been here?’

‘Yes, surely,’ said Anne. ‘But, oh, it’s so important that something be done for Father, Mother Agnes. And you were the only one we could think of who might be able to help.’

‘I see, I see,’ muttered the old woman ... ‘You know what folks call me, I suppose?’ she asked, suddenly looking at Giles with black eyes wide open, piercing.

‘Shragga the Witch,’ murmured the boy in almost a whisper, not meeting her gaze.

‘That’s it. “Shragga the Witch”,’ she nodded. ‘A lot they know, the fools! Tell me, do I look like a witch to you?’

‘No, indeed,’ said Giles quickly. ‘You look to me like a very—er—sensible woman. But we can’t quite understand those cats. That one over there, now, he has a sort of queer, creepy look in his eyes when he stares at me. Seems almost as though he were listening, taking in everything that’s said.’

Agnes chuckled.

‘Would you like him to come over here and join us by the fire? ... All right. Here he comes, look.’

The big sleek creature, with the firelight glinting green in his eyes, stalked slowly across the floor and planted himself solemnly at Giles’s feet.

‘But there you are!’ cried the boy. ‘You didn’t call him, you gave him no order, and yet he came as soon as you wanted him. How do you do it?’

‘You mean, how does he do it?’ said Agnes. ‘Well, I’m not sure that I know, myself. They are a pair of ordinary cats to look at, as you see. Larger than most—but very much cleverer. They were born twins, kittens from the same litter, you know. Perhaps it’s because we have lived together so long. They are older than either of you. And they are both very fond of me—quite jealous about it, sometimes, it would seem. Though, strange to say, they never fight and have never cried or made a single sound since I’ve had them. When they were younger I used to teach them all manner of tricks. It was very easy with such clever creatures. But now they seem to teach themselves—or one another. Sometimes I fancy that they are continually on the watch to know, or guess at, what I want, what I am going to do next. And that seems to sharpen up their wits. For anyone can see that they watch one another as well as watching me. But, be that as it may, they certainly often carry out my wishes without being told. And, after all, what’s strange about that? The same thing happens with people. But we are getting away from your father and his troubles.’

‘You will be able to help him, yes?’ asked Anne eagerly.

‘Well, now,’ said Agnes, ‘wait a minute. First of all I want you children to have one or two things quite clear in your minds. Since I am called a witch, I am in daily danger of being hauled up before the magistrates and perhaps even of being burned for my sins.’

Both the cats suddenly sprang on to her lap together. Anne fancied that one looked fierce and the other looked sad. Agnes smiled, patted them and pushed them gently down.

‘Therefore,’ she went on, ‘it is necessary that we go about the matter with much care. For there may be danger in it—for you and others. I don’t want you to tell any lies, to your parents or anyone else. But for the present I want you to keep your little mouths shut very tight.’

Both the children tried to close their jaws at once. But as Anne’s mouth was full of peach, and her brother’s full of pear, they only succeeded in looking like two bad cases of toothache. Agnes laughed.

‘I only meant that you mustn’t talk. No one knows you came here—’

‘Oh, excuse me,’ Giles interrupted. ‘We did ask two people how to find your home: Michael the Blind Man, and Luke.’

‘That’s no matter of consequence,’ said Agnes. ‘Old Michael is no gossip, and he doesn’t know whether you got here or no. As for Luke, he is a good boy. I’ve been trying to set that twisted joint in his leg. You can talk to him as much as you want. But your parents don’t know you have been here. And no one else must know. Remember, now. And don’t let yourselves get into a position where you’ll be questioned. And try’—Agnes rose from the bench and placed a hand on the shoulder of each—‘try not to ask me too many questions either,’ she ended slowly.

She moved over to the door and opened it.

‘It is time for you to be going,’ she said. ‘Come back tomorrow morning and—well, we will see what can be done. Good-bye!’

5 In the sea garden

Next morning, the children were so anxious to get back to the Applewoman’s home that they hardly ate any breakfast at all. Luckily for them, their parents had not yet risen. And only the old cook Elsbeth grumbled something after them about not finishing their porridge, as they sped out of the house towards the garden gate.

The town at that early hour was very quiet, with almost empty streets. Fifteen minutes of running brought them again to the door of Agnes’s hut.

This time they did not have to knock. The door swung open as they approached and the old woman, with a bonnet on her head, came out to greet them.

‘It’s a good day for the seashore,’ said she. ‘Let’s go down and hunt for shells and pebbles while the tide is out.’

‘Yes, but we won’t forget about Father, will we?’ asked Anne.

‘Oh, no,’ crooned Agnes, in a strange, sing-song voice. ‘You know, I never forget anything. Often I wish I could. Come along, youngsters.’

Silently the two children followed her down the funny, winding streets, past wharves and landing walls, till a fresh sea wind struck their faces. It set the thrill of adventure tingling through their minds. Just the sharp, clean scent of it conjured up glories of travel, voyage pictures which they had never known but which they hoped some day to see.

Soon the town was left behind entirely. And now old Mother Agnes led the way more slowly, over the loose sands of a beach.

Further yet, the shore took on a wilder look, with high cliffs, rocks and bays. And there were pools, pools that lay upon the beach like little lakes where creatures swam or crawled, crabs and shrimps and burrowing things. They seemed so easy to catch that Anne was all for stopping to gather up some shellfish. But the Applewoman seemed bent on going farther, as though she had a place in mind to reach.

At last, when they came to it, the children found it well worth their patience and the walk. Where two walls of tumbled rock stretched down from the cliffs into the sea, a piece of the beach was surrounded and cut off from the eyes of the world. It seemed like a fairies’ sea garden. Big wet boulders, patterned with barnacles and mussels, hung with curtains of kelp, stood close together in rows and squares—a little town, in fact, of tiny streets, with something new to find around each corner. Sometimes these streets of Boulder Town turned into canals, linking together more ponds and tiny lakes where gay anemones and starfish waved beneath the water.

The children, every other thought and care swept from their minds, ran or waded to and fro from place to place, each for ever calling to the other to come and see a new discovery.

So many things were to be seen, caves of mystery to be explored, coloured pebble-gems to be collected and goodness knows what besides, that it must have been nearly an hour before the youngsters suddenly remembered they had not seen Agnes since they came here.

They found her, after some hunting, on the far side of a large rock. Here the tides had scoured out a pool larger and deeper than the rest; and under the overhanging boulder no bottom could be seen to its fascinating blue-green depths. It might have been the lair of some monster of story, half-beast, half-fish.

At the side of the pool was a piece of drift-wood, a long, stout timber from some wrecked ship. This Agnes was using as a seat—and as a table also, it appeared. For on it she had spread out fruits and sandwiches and cheese, a whole picnic luncheon taken from a little box which she had brought with her.

She invited the youngsters to come and eat. And it was only after they were seated and had their mouths full of food that they found how hungry they had grown and that their weary legs were glad to rest.

And later, even after the luncheon was all gone, they sat on, well-fed and contented, watching the beauty of the sky and sea and shore change with the shifting sun. Anne had noticed a number of weeds and plants which Agnes had laid out at the end of the timber to dry. And, on asking about them, learned that they were things the Applewoman used in the making of her medicines. From medicine the conversation turned to many different matters; and the children enjoyed their long talk with this strange new friend as much as any other part of the outing.

Anne had no idea how late it was when thoughts of her father and his troubles came again to her mind. But she did remember, long afterwards, that at that point, when she turned to Agnes to speak, she found the old woman’s keen eyes had been staring at her steadily and thoughtfully. And it was the Applewoman who spoke first.

‘Did you ever listen to a shell, to hear the roaring of the sea in it?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ cried Giles, breaking in. ‘We listened to one this morning, a pink spotted one.’

‘Well, they’re very different, you know,’ said Agnes. ‘The size and the shape of them make them so. Some sing a high song and others a low; some loud and some soft. While there are yet others that are very peculiar indeed. Let me see now if I can find one and show you what I mean. If I’m lucky I might find the one.’

From where she sat the old woman, rolling back her sleeves, reached down into the deep pool at their feet. For a long time her hand moved and swayed beneath the water. Both children thought they saw her lips moving as though she were muttering something to herself.

‘What did she mean, the one?’ Anne whispered in her brother’s ear.

‘I don’t know,’ he whispered back. ‘But remember what she said: not too many questions. I’ve an idea that something queer is going to happen.’

Then both children gave a little gasp. For the heads of the two black cats had suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere, staring into the pool over the woman’s shoulders. Their big green eyes followed the movements of her arm with keen expectant interest, as it searched groping in the depths.

At last, very slowly, Agnes’s hand came to the top and in its knotted grasp was a shell. It was a beauty, and like no other the children had ever seen; the size of a large apple; green on the outside, pearly white within; plump, almost round in shape, screwed slightly at one end. It was half filled with sand. Agnes rinsed it clean and then examined it carefully. And Anne heard her whisper to herself:

‘What luck! It is the one—and not a chip on it.’

Then she looked up at the children, and that kind, wrinkly smile spread over her face, which for a while had worn an anxious, worried look.

‘But where on earth did these cats come from, Mother Agnes?’ asked Giles.

‘Oh, they just followed me out from the town, most likely,’ said the old woman. ‘Never mind them. They’re always turning up. I want you to hold this shell to your ear now and hear how it can sing you the roaring song of the sea.’

From where they were standing, hardly anything of the ocean’s surf could be seen or heard except the little murmurous rushes of flat water that from time to time ran in and out again over the shingly sands between the boulders.

Giles held the shell to his ear.

‘Do you hear anything?’ asked Agnes.

For a moment the boy was silent, listening. But soon a slow smile came over his screwed-up face.

‘Oh, my, yes!’ he murmured. ‘I hear great waves breaking on the shore, rolling, fighting up against the cliffs, tumbling and beating on the rocks. Then falling back again with a weaker, washy sound ... Now they come thundering in some more. It’s a storm ... I hear great winds screaming through trees and the rigging of ships ... And now it dies down again—Oh, my gracious!’

Giles dropped the shell upon the sand as though it had bitten him.

‘It’s hot!’ he gasped. ‘It suddenly grew hot.’

‘Don’t be afraid of it,’ said the old woman. ‘It did not get hot enough to hurt you really, did it?—And it never will.’

Without waiting for the boy to say anything more, Agnes buttoned up her cape at the throat and placed under her arm the little lunch-box which was now filled with the medicine-plants. The two cats rose and moved to her side as though they, too, were preparing to depart. Somewhat to Anne’s alarm, the Applewoman then stepped up the rocks a little way till she had gained a narrow footpath that led towards the top of the cliffs. Only one of the cats followed her. And as she stood there, about a man’s height above their heads, the children both felt that some odd change had come over her. The wind from off the sea billowed out her cape behind her and rippled along the glossy black fur of her strange companion.

‘I must leave you now, little people,’ she said slowly. ‘And it may be a long time before I see you again. Take the shell and guard it with great care from breaking. For it is very precious. And now listen, listen and remember!’ Her right hand rose slowly from her side as if to hold their attention to her words. The last of the sun suddenly disappeared into the sea and the breeze of coming twilight blew more freshly and strong. Her voice now sounded like someone chanting, a long way off, yet clear and sharp.

‘ Whoever carries the Whispering Shell to the one in greatest need of it shall make his fortune... I must be gone. Lest you should not find your way safely in the dark, one of my cats will remain to guide you home. Good luck to you! I will see you both again. Farewell.’

With rather a sad, bewildered feeling in their hearts the two watched her hobble up the footpath towards the high ground at the cliff-tops. Presently Anne gripped her brother’s arm and pointed to the other cat. It was already leading the way ahead of them down the beach. Giles picked up the shell at his feet.

And then, still too puzzled and thoughtful for talk, they both fell in behind their guide and started homewards through the twilight.

6 The Whispering Shell

The children were back in their attic. It was a little later than their usual hour for going to bed. On the way home the cat had kept them running fast, as though it knew they were not going to be in time for supper and would be blamed for their lateness. But no one except the cook had remarked on it, and they had got safely upstairs without a scolding.

‘What do you make of it, Giles,’ Anne asked, ‘her going off like that and leaving us alone on the shore?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said the boy. ‘She had other business to attend to, I suppose. What I’m interested in is this thing she left with us.’

And he drew from his pocket the big green shell and laid it gently on the table between himself and his sister.

‘ Isn’t it beautiful?’ said Anne. ‘Let me listen to it. I’d like to hear the roaring of the sea.’

She took it and held it to her ear.

‘Wonderful!’ she said presently. ‘The sea could almost be pouring through the room here. It’s much better than any shell I ever tried before. You can nearly smell the salt water, the flying spray ... Now it stops ... It’s growing warm—hotter and hotter, Giles—Oh, will it hurt me?’

‘No, no,’ said her brother quickly. ‘Hang on. For pity’s sake, don’t drop it! You heard Agnes say it would never grow hot enough to hurt you.’

With grim determination Anne still held it to her ear. And presently a queer look came into her face.

‘Why,’ said she breathlessly ... ‘I hear someone talking about me ... It’s the cook. She says I left an awful mess of crumbs beneath the table tonight. It isn’t true.’ (Anne took the shell away from her ear and scowled across the table at her brother.) ‘Those were your crumbs, Giles. I never drop crumbs on the floor—at least hardly ever ... Oh, now it grows cold again.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Giles, grabbing the shell from her. ‘You heard voices in the shell? You must be dreaming. I knew it could grow hot and cold. But voices? ... Let me listen.’

The boy held it to his own ear.

‘Nothing,’ he said after a moment. ‘Nothing but the old sea roaring.’

‘But wait!’ cried Anne. ‘Wait till it grows warm again. That’s when I heard voices.’

Giles brought the shell to rest upon the table.

‘Hark to me, Anne,’ he said severely. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you believe this shell can talk?’

‘I would not have done,’ said Anne gently, ‘if I had not heard it. But the shell isn’t talking itself. It’s only letting you hear what other people say.’

‘Such rubbish!’ Giles grunted. ‘Such rub—Ow—oo!’

He snatched his hand from off the shell.

‘Don’t mind if it grows warm,’ said Anne. ‘Remember what Agnes said. Listen now before it gets cold again.’

Giles tried once more.

‘It’s Father speaking,’ said he presently, his voice atremble—‘talking about me.’

There was a minute’s silence while the boy listened and his sister waited.

‘Well?’ said she when at length he set the shell down. ‘What did he say about you?’

‘Oh—er—nothing important,’ said the boy with a frown. ‘Sometimes I think Father doesn’t understand me very well. He might have had a worse son. “It’s too bad that good-for-nothing boy has gone to bed,” he was saying. “I can’t find my big hammer anywhere. He would soon find it for me. The only thing Giles was ever any good for was finding things.” ’

‘Never mind,’ said Anne. ‘Be thankful that you’re good for something. Now it’s my turn, Giles. Let me listen. I think this is a splendid game, don’t you?’

‘Er—yes,’ said her brother, pushing the shell across to her. ‘But it depends on what you hear.’

Already Anne had the shell clasped tightly to her ear.

‘The sea!’ she murmured. ‘The old sea, mumbling and tossing, hissing and washing.’

And she began to hum a little tune of her own as she rocked to and fro to that song of the waves. Then, suddenly, she stopped. A smile spread over her face. Her eyes sparkled as she pressed the shell still closer against her ear. At last, slowly, she put it back upon the table with a deep sigh.

‘Dear me!’ she murmured. ‘Of course I always knew it myself. But I hadn’t known that anyone else knew it.’

‘Knew what?’ asked Giles in a grumpy tone.

‘Somebody just said that I was the best-behaved girl in the town. I didn’t recognize the voice. But it’s true. So anyone might have said it.’

She pushed the shell across the table to her brother.

‘Your turn, Giles,’ she said. And she settled herself back in her chair with hands folded on her lap.

‘Look here,’ said her brother, suddenly rising and pushing back his chair, which made a scraping sound ... ‘Sh!’ he hissed. ‘Blow out the candle. Someone might come up. We are supposed to be asleep ... So! We can go to bed by moonlight. Now let’s get to the bottom of this thing. Have you noticed anything peculiar about the way the shell speaks, Anne?’

‘Certainly,’ said his sister. ‘For one thing, it always grows hot first.’

‘Yes,’ said the boy. ‘But did you notice that when you hold it, the voices only say things about you; and when I hold it they only say things about me. I think we have its secret now. Let’s try again.’

And so, for hours, talking in whispers, the children sat up in their night-clothes. While one was listening to the shell the other would listen for footsteps on the stairs, lest they should be caught at their work.

Anne heard her mother speak of her and a new frock for Easter she was making for her daughter; Giles heard his father speak again—this time of what the boy should be when he grew up; they both heard Doctor Seymour speak of them together; and each heard Luke the Lame Boy speak of them separately—apparently talking aloud to himself in his bed of straw.

As it grew later, and more and more of the townspeople put their lights out and went to bed, the shell grew warm less often. But in the end the children were sure they had proved its secret: that he who held it upon his person would feel it grow warm if anyone anywhere in the world spoke of him.

They were now both dead tired. And, with the shell safely hid beneath his pillow, Giles murmured as he fell asleep:

‘I suppose it’s magic ... I s’pose it’s magic. Don’t you think ... it’s magic, Anne?’

But from Anne’s bed there came no answer. She was already asleep.

7 Michael the Blind Man

Next morning it was only just light when Giles woke his sister up—by throwing a slipper over on to her cot.

‘The thing to work out now,’ said Giles, ‘is, who is to get the shell. “Whoever shall carry the Whispering Shell to the one in greatest need of it shall make his fortune”—that’s what Agnes said. Well, Father is the one most in need. How about him?’

At once, still fuddled with sleep though she was, Anne shook her head hard.

‘Be sensible, Giles,’ she warned. ‘What would Father have to do with anything like this which smacks of magic. Fancy asking such a very—er—sensible man to carry around a shell in his pocket, waiting for it to get hot before he listened to it! No, Giles, we’ve got to be very careful how we go about this business. I would not be surprised if we find it very difficult to get any grown-up person even to take the shell and try it.’

‘Doctor Seymour, then,’ said Giles.

‘Worse still,’ said Anne. ‘I wouldn’t dare even to explain the matter to such a stuffy old grump.’

‘But he fancies himself a very important person,’ said Giles. ‘I should think he would want to know what people were saying about him.’

‘He wouldn’t care to hear what I would be saying about him,’ Anne muttered. ‘No. He’s no good to us. But why should we begin with the high and mighty? If we don’t go carefully about this, we’ll only have the shell taken from us and get a whole lot of trouble, maybe, in exchange. Let’s begin with the poor and lowly, someone who can’t do us any harm if he doesn’t hold by what we’re doing. Agnes didn’t say the fortune would come from the person we take the shell to—only that a fortune would be made. Yet it is certain that the right person can be found. She wouldn’t have given it to us just to fool us. We’ve got to try it out first—on many different kinds of people perhaps—and see what happens.’

‘The poor and lowly?—Humph!’ muttered Giles thoughtfully ... ‘I have it: Michael the Blind Man.’

‘A good idea,’ said Anne. ‘To one who cannot see, it ought to be specially helpful ... Though we may have difficulty even with him. He has a suspicious nature. Well, let’s try him first. Anyhow, he likes us. That’s something.’

So, later in the morning, the children went forth into the town. Michael was one person who could always be found. At the east entrance to Our Lady’s Church he sat within the great arch—with all the saints carved around it—rain or shine, from daylight to dark. Beside him sat his faithful mongrel dog, Timothy, who barked out his thanks when folks put money in the little tin box that hung upon the blind man’s chest. Every morning the dog led Michael to the church and every evening he led him home again.

He wagged his tail in welcome as he saw the children coming. The blind man heard, or felt, the dog’s movements. He lifted his head to face the sky—seeking shadows.

‘Good day to you, Michael,’ said Anne gently.

‘Good morning, children,’ said the blind man, whose quick ears heard two pairs of footsteps.

‘Listen,’ Anne began. ‘We have a shell here which we would like you to keep for a while.’

‘Why should I keep it?’ grunted the old man.

Giles was about to burst out with a long explanation of what the shell could do, but Anne broke in:

‘Take it just as a favour to us, Michael,’ said she. ‘We want you to try it.’

And then she explained to him in what manner the shell worked.

He scowled as she finished.

‘I don’t quite like it,’ said he. ‘Where did you get this thing, child?’

‘Oh, don’t ask me that now, Michael, please,’ said Anne. ‘Just trust us that no harm will come to you from it. After all, you know us, don’t you?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said the old man slowly at last. ‘I’d trust some of you youngsters farther than I’d trust your elders—and that’s the truth. But I have no liking for conjuring tricks, mark you. A blind man’s life is a life of puzzling, anyhow. I’m loath, I suppose, to take over any new riddles. Give me your shell.’

He stretched out his big white hand and Anne placed the shell upon it. It closed with that curious searching feel that the blind use to take the place of seeing.

‘We will come again tomorrow or the next day,’ said Anne, ‘and learn what you have heard, Michael.’

‘Very good, child,’ said he. ‘I will expect you.’

8 Johannes the Philosopher

Two days later the children were back again at the east entrance of the church.

‘Well, Michael,’ said Anne eagerly, ‘what did the shell tell you?’

‘Nothing,’ said he. ‘What could you expect? No one ever talks about me.’

‘But didn’t it ever even grow warm?’ asked Giles with wide-open eyes.

‘Oh, aye, it grew warm once,’ grumbled Michael. ‘And when I listened to it, I heard only Timothy barking. He’d gone out after I was abed—across the river, chasing rats. Afraid he was, I reckon, that he’d not get back in time to take me out in the morning. My own dog barking—talking in his own language—that was all I heard. What else could I hear, Michael the blind beggar?—No one ever talks about me ... Here’s your shell, youngsters. Go, and my blessing with you.’

Sadly the children took the shell and made their way back towards home. For a space neither of them spoke.

‘Well, what do we do now?’ said Giles at last. ‘We didn’t learn much from that. It seems to me, in spite of what you say, we ought to seek some richer person. After all, if we are to make a fortune for Father by means of the shell I suppose it will be by selling it. We couldn’t expect to make anything out of a blind man.’

‘Have patience,’ said Anne. ‘So it often happens in fairy stories—that great fortune came from the last place to be expected. No harm is done—if no good. Remember we must be careful. You know how down they are in this town on anything that smells of magic. You remember how Agnes told us about their hauling her up before the courts for witchcraft. If we were questioned about where we got the shell and had to confess we got it from “Shragga the Witch”, what then? We’ve got to think of her as well as ourselves.’

‘Yes, perhaps you’re right,’ said Giles gloomily. ‘It would almost seem as though this town goes witchcraft-mad every once in a while. Luke told me that even the old philosopher Johannes was not spared from their hunting and meddling. Just because he studies the science of alchemy he had to be brought before the judges. Even harmless old Johannes.’

‘Johannes! That’s an idea,’ cried Anne. ‘He, at least, would not give us away. And he would be interested, too. He does not smell the Devil in everything new. Let’s take the shell to him!’

The philosopher Johannes lived up in the hills behind the town. The children had visited him once before—by accident. They had been hunting blackberries and lost their way. They blundered upon a tiny cabin. At first they had been frightened by the angry red face that popped out of the window. But presently when the angry red face had heard their sad story it invited them to come in, while the road home could be explained to them. And, finally, they had gone away with no feeling of fear in their hearts for this man who lived alone in the hills.

Now, without hesitation, they made plans for a second visit to him. They would have to go home and get lunch first. The clock in the church tower was striking noon as they broke into a run.

Elsbeth, the old cook, quickly provided them with a light meal, and they were on their way out again ten minutes after they arrived.

The trip was a long one, with a good deal of climbing. It took them two hours of hard travel before they stood before the door of the philosopher’s little home. Giles knocked gently. The door was opened, just a crack, through which one eye looked forth suspiciously.

‘May we come in and see you about something?’ asked Anne. ‘We will not stay very long.’

‘Is anyone else with you?’ asked the old man.

‘No,’ said Anne. ‘We are alone.’

The door was opened wide, the children passed in and it was closed again—and locked—behind them.

The time before, when they had been inside the hut, was late in the evening and they had seen little or nothing of the philosopher’s one-room home. But today, with a bright sun shining overhead, they were able to see the room clearly.

It was indeed a most unusual place. In some ways it reminded them of Agnes’s little house; and yet it was very different. Everywhere there were bottles, crystals, queer glass balls and pipes and things that are used in the study of chemistry. Everywhere, too, there were books: books on the table, all mixed up with the bottles and chemicals; books in rows and piles upon the shelves; books on the floor in stacks; books on the little bed beneath the window.

And then there were smells. Anne’s keen nose had never smelt so many gathered together in one small room before. Some were not unpleasant; some were very strong; and some were perfectly horrible. The worst one of all seemed to be coming from a small vessel set over a little charcoal fire in the corner. This, it would seem, was the chemistry work the philosopher was busy with when the children had knocked and interrupted him.

Giles inquired what the nature of this work was; and the philosopher, usually so grumpy and silent, seemed quite pleased to explain it. He at once started off into a long and learned explanation in which there was a lot about ‘salts of metals’, ‘temperatures’, ‘effects of mineral gases’—most of it far beyond the understanding of the children.

Anne watched the old man’s eager face as he turned to explain the mysteries of chemistry to her young brother; and she guessed that it was many a long day since anyone had shown a friendly interest in his work.

‘Aren’t you ever lonely up here, Sir?’ she said when at last he paused.

‘Lonely?’ he said, ‘er—no. Why should I be? No man is ever lonely if his work is what he lives for.’

‘But what do you hope to do with all this—’

It was Giles speaking. He broke off and, blushing a little with sudden shyness, waved his hand towards the cluttered benches that ran half-way round the walls of the room.

‘With chemistry?’ asked the old man. ‘Why, boy, we hope to do everything. Look here!’

The philosopher reached up to a shelf and lifted down a big glass jar filled with a curious amber-coloured paste that might have been frozen honey.

‘You see that,’ said he. ‘If I were to place that beneath a castle wall and set a flame to it I could blow a hole in the ramparts big enough to march an army through, a score abreast. And then what use would be their archers and cross-bowmen? The King, I reckon, would give me the price of half his realm for fifty barrels of that paste, in time of war.—But,’ (he set the heavy jar back upon the shelf) ‘I do not work for the destruction of Man. That stuff, there, I discovered by accident—and nearly lost my life when first it exploded.’

‘What are all these papers?’ asked Anne, examining a pile of parchment sheets that lay on a side-table.

‘Oh, that’s a book I’m writing,’ said Johannes.

‘What’s it about?’ asked Anne, who, while she was very proud of what little reading she could do, was quite unable to make head or tail of this.

‘It’s a book on chemistry—a first book, an easy one,’ said the philosopher. ‘But it’s in Latin. Can you read Latin?’

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said Anne in an airy tone which might mean that it was only by chance that she had not yet mastered that language. ‘But why do you write it in Latin?’

‘Because,’ said Johannes, ‘Latin is the only language that all the world speaks—or, that is, that all the world reads—in books.’

‘You have written many books, Sir?’ asked Giles.

‘Yes, quite a few,’ said the philosopher.

‘We never see them in our schools. And yet they give us books on mathematics with figures and little jiggly things such as you have here,’ said Anne, turning over the pages.

The philosopher smiled.

‘Well, you see,’ said he, ‘with this kind of work it is different. Chemistry—or alchemy, as many call it—is something that people still connect with witchcraft and deviltry. Your schools, you say? Yes, they will take in works on mathematics today; but only a few years ago they wouldn’t do even that, mark you—at least nothing new in mathematics. Some day perhaps they’ll let books on chemistry into the schools. But not now. No, we have to work like thieves behind closed doors and sealed windows, lest we be called wizards and witches for bringing forward anything new ... Anything new!’—The philosopher suddenly threw his arms in the air and his face got even redder than usual—‘Anything new!—That’s what they’re afraid of. They want to make the world stand still. Sometimes I believe they’d sooner see it go backwards rather than forwards ... But you said you wanted to talk to me of something, eh?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Giles, suddenly brought back to the real reason of their visit. ‘We have here a shell. It does unusual things. We thought that you, a man of science, would be interested in it—though we have an end of our own to serve in bringing it to you.’

Slowly Giles brought the twisted green shell out of his pocket and laid it on the bench among the bottles and jars.

‘Usually, Sir,’ said he, ‘as of course you know, one only hears the roaring of the sea in an empty shell, if he holds it to his ear.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the philosopher. ‘I remember doing it myself as a child. Go on.’

‘But this shell does more than that,’ said Giles. ‘It tells you what anyone is saying about you anywhere in the world.’

‘What!’ cried the philosopher. ‘Poof! Poof!—Do you take me for a ninny, boy?’

‘It is true, Sir,’ said Giles. ‘Please believe us. This shell, when carried in your pocket, gives warning if anyone speaks of you.’

‘How?’ asked Johannes.

‘By growing warm,’ said Giles.

‘But this is ridiculous,’ cried the philosopher. ‘It cannot be done.’

‘Sir,’ said Giles, ‘have you not in your chemistry here made wonders happen? Your paste that can blow a hole through a castle wall, just with the touch of a spark. How is that done?’

‘Tut—tut!’ grunted the philosopher. ‘But all that I can explain. I can show you in figures and formulae, in diagrams and diameters, just how the paste works. But this! This is unexplainable.’

‘But, Sir,’ Anne put in, ‘can we explain how any shell gives out sounds—noises like the sea? Why?’

‘Oh, that is quite simple,’ said the philosopher. ‘The peculiar shape of a shell inside gives you an echo of all the little noises in the air about you which the naked ear cannot catch. The general roar sounds somewhat like the roar of the sea—which is also made of many small noises mixed together.’

‘Very well, then,’ said Anne; ‘why should not this shell have extra-funny insides and carry the echo of voices better than anything else?’

‘Humph!’ grunted Johannes. ‘That’s an interesting notion—very interesting. You talk much older than you look, young lady. I don’t say I believe it, but it is an interesting thought ... Well, what is it you would have me do?’

‘We want you to keep it, Sir,’ said Anne suddenly, taking up the shell and pushing it into the philosopher’s hands. ‘Just keep it—in your pocket always. We will come back later, by your leave, and see what luck you may have had with it.’

Suddenly the pot on the fire boiled over, making a great sputtering in the coals. The philosopher leapt to attend it.

‘Yes,’ said he; ‘come back when you wish, children; I’m busy now. But you at least I shall always be glad to see—whether your crazy shell works or no. Knock two and two— tap-tap, tap-tap —So! Then I shall know it is you.’

9 Chemistry and magic

Tap-Tap! ... Tap-Tap!

It was the children knocking on the cabin door next morning. They were not kept waiting long. Almost before the fourth tap had struck it, the door flew open, as if by magic. There stood the philosopher, a terrible frown upon his very red face. In his right hand, thrust out to them, he held the shell.

‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Take it and never let me see it again!’

There was a bang of the door slamming to. And the youngsters again stood alone outside. Speechless with surprise, they stared at one another across the shell that lay, where the philosopher had thrust it, in Giles’s hand.

Then, dreadfully disappointed, they turned away from the cabin. After such a welcome there was nothing else to do but leave. They had not walked more than fifty paces, however, before they heard a voice call them. Turning about they saw the figure of Johannes standing on his threshold again.

‘Forgive me, children,’ said he when they had returned to him. ‘Forgive me if I allowed my temper to get the better of me. I cannot have you go away like this. Hospitality, good manners—well, maybe I’ve forgotten all about them, living alone so long. Come in again and let me talk further with you.’

Neither Giles nor his sister had ever before been spoken to in such a manner by any grown-up person, much less by a philosopher, a learned professor of mathematics, chemistry and heaven knows what other sciences.