Gowther sought the kitchen. It was never easy to keep anything from Bess, she knew him too well. But what could he say? That he, a countryman, had been frightened by a smell and a night bird? He almost blushed to think of it.
By the time he had made the tea, washed, and finished dressing, it was light outside and near milking time. The sun was breaking through the cloud. Gowther felt much better now.
He was halfway across the yard when he noticed the long, black feathers that lay scattered upon the cobblestones.
Thursday at Highmost Redmanhey was always busy, for on top of the normal round of work Gowther had to make ready for the following day, when he would drive down to Alderley village to do the weekly shopping, and also to call on certain old friends and acquaintances whom he supplied with vegetables and eggs. So much of Thursday was taken up with selecting and cleaning the produce for Friday’s marketing.
When all was done, Colin and Susan rode with Gowther to the wheelwright in the nearby township of Mottram St Andrew to have a new spoke fitted to the cart. This occupied them until teatime, and afterwards Gowther asked the children if they would like to go with him down to Nether Alderley to see whether they could find their next meal in Radnor mere.
They set off across the fields, and shortly came to a wood. Here the undergrowth was denser than on most of the Edge, and contained quite a lot of bramble. High rhododendron bushes grew wild everywhere. The wood seemed full of birds. They sang in the trees, rustled in the thicket, and swam in the many quiet pools.
“I’ve just realised something,” said Colin: “I felt the Edge was unusual, and now I know why. It’s the …”
“Birds,” said Gowther. “There is none. Not worth speaking of, onyroad. Flies, yes; but birds no. It’s always been like that, to my knowledge, and I conner think why it should be. You’d think with all them trees and suchlike, you’d have as mony as you find here, but, considering the size of the place, theer’s hardly a throstle to be found from Squirrel’s Jump to Daniel Hill. Time’s been when I’ve wandered round theer half the day and seen nobbut a pair of jays, and that was in Clockhouse Wood. No, it’s very strange, when you come to weigh it up.”
Their way took them through a jungle of rhododendron. The ground was boggy and choked with dead wood, and they had to duck under low branches and climb over fallen trees: but, somehow, Gowther managed to carry his rod and line through it all without a snag, and he even seemed to know where he was going.
Susan thought how unpleasant it would be to have to move quickly through such country.
“Gowther,” she said, “are there any mines near here?”
“No, none at all, we’re almost on the plain now, and the mines are over the other side of the hill, behind us. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I just wondered.”
The rhododendrons came to an end at the border of a mere, about half a mile long and a quarter wide.
“This is it,” said Gowther, sitting down on a fallen trunk which stretched out over the water. “It’s a trifle marshy, but we’re not easy to reach here, as theer’s some as might term this poaching. Now if you’ll open yon basket and pass the tin with the bait in it, we can settle down and makes ourselves comfortable.”
After going out as far as he could along the tree to cast his rod, Gowther sat with his back against the roots and lit his pipe. Colin and Susan lay full length on the wrinkled bark and gazed into the mere.
Within two hours they had three perch between them, so they gathered in their tackle and headed for home, arriving well before dusk.
The following morning in Alderley village Susan went with Bess to the shops while Colin stayed to help Gowther with the vegetables. They all met again for a meal at noon, and afterwards climbed into the cart and went with Gowther on his round.
It was a hot day, and by four o’clock Colin and Susan were very thirsty, so Bess said that they ought to drop off for an ice-cream and a lemonade.
“We’ve to go down Moss Lane,” she said, “and we shanner be above half an hour; you stay and cool down a bit.”
The children were soon in the village café, with their drinks before them. Susan was toying with her bracelet, and idly trying to catch the light so that she could see the blue heart of her Tear.
“It’s always difficult to find,” she said. “I never know when it’s going to come right … ah … wait a minute … yes … got it! You know, it reminds me of the light in Fundin …”
She looked at Colin. He was staring at her, open mouthed. They both dropped their eyes to Susan’s wrist where the Tear gleamed so innocently.
“But it couldn’t be!” whispered Colin. “Could it?”
“I don’t … know. But how?”
But how?
“No, of course not!” said Colin. “The wizard would have recognised it as soon as he saw it, wouldn’t he?”
Susan flopped back in her chair, releasing her pent-up breath in a long sigh. But a second later she was bolt upright, inarticulate with excitement.
“He couldn’t have seen it! I – I was wearing my mackintosh! Oh, Colin …!!”
Though just as shaken as his sister, Colin was not content to sit and gape. Obviously they had to find out, and quickly, whether Susan was wearing Firefrost, or just a piece of crystal. If it should be Firefrost, and had been recognised by the wrong people, their brush with the svarts would at last make sense. How the stone came to be on Susan’s wrist was another matter.
“We must find Cadellin at once,” he said. “Because if this is Firefrost, the sooner he has it the better it will be for us all.”
At that moment the cart drew up outside, and Gowther called that it was time to be going home.
The children tried hard to conceal their agitation, yet the leisurely pace Prince seemed to adopt on the “front” hill, as it was called locally, had them almost bursting with impatience.
“Bess,” said Susan, “are you sure you can’t remember anything else about the Bridestone? I want to find out as much as I can about it.”
“Nay, lass, I’ve told you all as I know. My mother had it from her mother, and she always said it had been passed down like that for I dunner know how mony years. And I believe theer was some story about how it should never be shown to onybody outside the family for fear of bringing seven years’ bad luck, but my mother didner go in much for superstition and that sort of claptrap.”
“Have you always lived in Alderley?”
“Bless you, yes! I was born and bred in th’Hough” (she pronounced it “thuff”), “but my mother was a Goostrey woman, and I believe before that her family had connections Mobberley way.”
“Oh?”
Colin and Susan could hardly contain themselves.
“Gowther,” said Colin, “before we come home, Sue and I want to go to Stormy Point; which is the nearest way?”
“What! Before you’ve had your teas?” exclaimed Bess.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. You see, it’s something very important and secret, and we must go.”
“You’re not up to owt daft down the mines, are you?” said Gowther.
“Oh no,” said Colin; “but, please, we must go.