World's End in Winter by Monica Dickens Read Free Book Online Page B

Diller, or they’d never have built that fancy house there where the spinney used to be.’
    ‘Who was old Diller?’ Michael hardly dared ask it. He loved horror stories and dreaded them at the same time.
    ‘He was a batty old character, had to do everything different from other people. In those days, it was horses and carts, but Diller had three big dogs and he harnessed them to a home-made wagon. Three abreast, the dogs used to dash him along the highway. Horses would shy and coachmen used to give him the horn. Daft Diller, they called him. At the inns, they wouldn’t serve him, or feed the dogs.’
    ‘Poor Diller,’ Em said.
    ‘Even his wife had deserted him. Jealous of the dogs, so the story goes. But there was one thing old Diller wanted in life, and that was a child. A child who would remember him, and look after his dogs when he was gone.
    ‘There was a woman had a baby and she didn’t want it, which is one of the worst things that can happen to a baby, so don’t try it next time you’re born. She used to keep it in the wash house because she couldn’t stand it crying, and one night, daft Diller stole it away, all bundled up andprobably crying to raise the dead, but the mother snored on with her nightcap over her ears.
    ‘Diller put it into the cart with him, gave his team the order and away they went. They were coming across the fields there, back of where Brookside is now, heading for the only bridge there was in those days, to cross the stream. There must have been a rabbit ran into the spinney, because those big dogs went after it, dashing old Diller and his wagon and his baby in among the trees.’
    Miss Etty paused, heaving and wheezing.
    ‘Go on.’
    But she could only flap a pudgy hand at Michael, trying to get her breath. Em went into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of vinegar which she held under Miss Etty’s nose, and she sniffed it mightily.
    ‘Thank you.’ Her chest stopped heaving. Her wobbling cheeks and chins grew still. Her eyes cleared. Theo, who had been roving restlessly in her hair during the commotion, settled down again.
    ‘It was the crying of the baby that led them to find him. Daft Diller was dead, his skull bashed against a tree. One of his dogs was dead too, choked itself trying to struggle free of the harness. The other two had bitten through the leather straps and gone. The baby was lying bundled up among the splinters of the wagon.’
    ‘What happened to it?’
    ‘No one knew. The only thing they did know was that sometimes after that, people going by the spinney would hear a wailing. They began to cut down the trees to try and put a stop to it. But one of the woodmen heard the barking of dogs. Dogs that weren’t there. And the other - the other, when he struck his axe into a young tree, it sobbed like an infant. They ran, both of them.’
    ‘So would I.’
    ‘It wasn’t till many years afterwards when the land was sold and that house Brookside was to be built, that the trees were cut down by machinery saws, too loud to hear the baby or the dogs.’
    ’We heard them’
    ‘I told you.’ Miss Etty nodded at Lester. ’I told you, didn’t I? You can change the scenery all you want, build a house, tear down a monastery, to the dead it stays the same. There’s a house in Rutland where they raised the floor to put in heating pipes, and the ghost of the grey lady walks through on her knees, because she’s walking where the old floor was.’
    ‘When we were in the turret room ...’ Carrie remembered how Lester had listened to the wind. ’But we thought it was dogs barking.’
    ’We thought it was Bristler crying,’ Michael said.
    ‘There’s some people hear ghosts,’ Miss Etty said, ’and some that don’t.’

Nine
    There was no question where they should go on Saturday.
    It was an unexpectedly warm day - hooray for Mr Agnew and his Old Boys’ rugger - so they would ride over to Brookside, and take halters to tie up the horses.
    ‘Why don’t you