"That's your near neighbour - Alf Ingles. He's a great one for this Home Guard... always crawling about the country on his stomach. I tells him he'd be better lookin' after his cows, for that old Hitler's not goin' to bother about us up here... not that we wouldn't give him something to remember if he did!"

They were now almost at the foot of the Mynd, and in its shadow. Above them a dense wood of swaying larches clung to the side of a steep valley. Their lane came to an end and the car stopped on a level of close, springy turf alongside a white gate in a wall of loose stones.

Beyond the gate they could see the gleam of water and the shadow of a long barn and, on the right, the house. In the dusk Witchend looked bigger than they had imagined. In front under the roof two gabled windows jutted, while at the back the hill came so close that it looked as if the house was leaning against it.

A stream came tumbling under the wall and ran chattering round the edge of the turf on which they were standing and finally disappeared under the hedge at the bend of the lane.

Old John opened the car door for Mrs. Morton. "Witchend, mum - and a welcome to you all to your new home."

By the time the car was through the gate the front door had opened, and a tall, thin, forbidding-looking woman came out onto the step.

"You'll be Mrs. Morton, I'm thinking. Ye're late. I've been expecting you this half-hour gone."

David didn't hear what his mother replied, but he did hear Dickie muttering "She's a witch. She must be, Mary. Just look at her."

The next hour was a desperate muddle. Old John carried the trunks up the narrow stairs, but they all helped to bring in the other bundles. Macbeth got trodden on and yelped.

Mrs. Braid did not seem a friendly sort of person, and once snapped at Richard for getting in the way. Mary answered back indignantly for her twin - they often did this for each other - and so surprised was the housekeeper that she dropped a heavy suitcase.

"It wasn't his fault," said Mary. "Can't you see he was only trying to help. We always help. We're jolly useful at helping, and maybe you'll be sorry for speaking to us like that..."

"Mary," said Mother, in her special, quiet voice, "go into the other room with Dickie and Macbeth and stay there until you are called. You can be thinking of how you will apologize to Mrs. Braid."

Mutinously they went into a long, low room lit by the flickering flames of a wood fire.