Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley Read Free Book Online

self-conscious at the volume of their conversation. He reached in gingerly and grabbed a carved wooden figure. He held it up and inspected it carefully.
    Thomas leaned forward. The carving resembled a rather elaborate bookend, fashioned into the shape of a horned demon with folded bat's wings, crouched on its haunches with its hand to its face in the pose of someone whispering, its long saturnine face frozen into a wide grin.
    'What is it, Father?' said Thomas, fascinated and revolted in equal measure.
    'I believe it to be a medieval bench end, Thomas,. ' said his father, turning it over in his hands admiringly. 'They sit at the end of pews in some old churches. Do you remember the ones we saw in Suffolk last year?'
    Thomas remembered now. There had been elaborate carvings of animals and figures in medieval dress. But there had been nothing quite like this.
    'Not for sale,.' shouted the tinker.
    'How did you come by this?' said Thomas's father imperiously.
    'It's not for sale,.' repeated the tinker even more loudly, already beginning to turn away.
    'Do not adopt that impertinent tone with me,.' said Thomas's father. 'I have a good mind to fetch a policeman!'
    'It still won't be for sale,.' said the tinker over his shoulder, pulling on the barrow and moving away towards the market.
    'How dare you!'
    'Rupert, please,.' said Thomas's mother. 'You are causing a scene. People are staring.'
    Thomas looked about and saw that people were indeed looking their way and two urchins, one with no shoes on his feet, were pointing and giggling. Thomas's father bristled, his face reddening, and he stroked his moustache with his thumb and forefinger a number of times before smiling at his wife.
    'Very well, then. Who's for lunch?' he said, his humour restored, clapping Thomas on the shoulder as they walked on.
    But over lunch, Thomas's father soon returned to the subject of the tinker and the demon bench end.
    'What is the world coming to,.' he said wearily, 'when something like that can simply be removed from a place of worship without any redress whatsoever?'
    'It was rather ugly if you ask me,.' said Thomas's mother.
    'Grotesque, I will grant you,.' said his father, 'but all the more fascinating for it. But he should not have it. It was part of the fabric of a church, darling.'
    'And what about all those beastly things at the museum?' teased his mother. 'Were they not ripped out of temples and tombs and such like?'
    'That's different, as well you know, my dear,.' said his father. 'I hope you are not comparing my esteemed colleagues with that . . . that . . . odious beggar. He has no respect for such things. No respect at all. It is sacrilege, pure and simple.'
    Thomas was surprised to find that despite the fact that he did not in any way share his father's interest in antiquities, he could not get the image of the bench end out of his mind. Long after his parents had moved on in their conversation, Thomas kept seeing in his mind's eye the hideous, leering face of the carved demon.
    After lunch they walked past the venerable old colleges and out of town, through Newnham, out on to the river path back to Grantchester. Summer was coming to an end, but it was still warm and the countryside around them was bathed in September sunshine.
    Thomas's parents walked the high bridleway, but Thomas himself kept close to the river, searching the weed-tangled waters for pike and excitedly watching a kingfisher flash by, exotically iridescent, like a jewel from a pharaoh's tomb.
    Some rough village boys were clambering about in the branches of a tall tree on the opposite bank and stared at him sullenly as he walked past before renewing their games - one of them jumping from a dizzying height with a great splash in the middle of the river.
    Further along, punts glided by, piloted with varying degrees of competence. Thomas looked at a group of laughing students sailing by and dreamed of the day that he might go to one of the colleges, whose high walls and