Catweazle

clearing. The clouds roll
away. I see the trees of the forest. Look there, look there!’
    As the
sun came up he made the invocation to the Spirits of the Brazen Vessel, reading
carefully from Rap-kyn’s book. It was true that the book was from a later time
than his own, but he felt sure that with its help he would return to the past.
With nothing more to do until sunset, when he had to begin the Great Spell, Catweazle
went off to search for food.
    He was
a first-class scavenger. In his own time he had often gone foraging at night,
creeping silently from the forest and taking whatever he could find from lonely
Saxon farmsteads. It had become part of his nature to collect things.
    His
search led him to the edge of the wood, where he found a ruined cottage. It had
been empty for many years and part of the roof had collapsed. The windows were
all broken and the door hung crazily from its hinges.
    Catweazle
looked at it for several minutes and then sniffing suspiciously, he approached
it, blowing on his magic thumb-ring. ‘Gab, gaba, agaba,’ he muttered as he
crept inside.
    The
place was a treasure house! On the floor was a large pile of rubbish. Eagerly
the sorcerer began to hunt through rusty tin cans, old bedsprings and broken
pieces of china. Everything bewildered him and at the same time he was
enchanted by it.
    ‘See,
Touchwood!’ cried Catweazle, holding up an old roller skate. ‘ ’Tis a chariot
for thee!’
    Touchwood’s
throat pulsed quickly as Catweazle put him on the roller skate. For a moment he
endured the rusty iron against his belly and then he flopped off on to the
floor again, and crawled away in search of beetles while his master went on
picking over the pile of rubbish.
    He
found many things, but none that he recognized. There was an old aluminium
coffee pot, a hockey stick, a bicycle pump and an old electric iron. He placed
these mysterious objects around him and sat on the floor.
    While
he was trying to puzzle out what they were for, Carrot’s head suddenly appeared
round the door.
    ‘So
that’s where you got to,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you.’
    ‘And
thou hast found me,’ said Catweazle calmly.
    ‘Well,
you can’t stay here,’ said Carrot, pulling Catweazle to his feet. ‘Dad’s on his
way up. He’s bringing someone to look at this place. It’s for sale you see.’
    ‘Let me
be, thou cobweb!’ snapped Catweazle.
    ‘What
are you doing here anyway?’ asked Carrot.
    Catweazle
pointed proudly to the rusty things on the floor. ‘See the treasures I have
gleaned,’ he said, beginning to put them into an old sack. An old boot followed
the other rubbish as he continued to rummage through the junk. Then he picked
up a battered suitcase.
    ‘What
is this?’ he asked.
    ‘A
suitcase,’ replied Carrot. ‘You know, for travelling.’
    ‘For
travelling?’ said Catweazle softly. ‘Then I will take it.’
    This
last remark was lost on Carrot who had just seen his father and the two
American ladies who wanted to look at the cottage.
    ‘They’re
here!’ he said, making for the back door. Catweazle took one quick look out of
the window and made off after Carrot with his sack and his suitcase.

    ‘It’s just
great,’ said Eleanor Derringer looking at the cottage. The famous photographer
clicked the shutter of her expensive Japanese camera and then glanced up in
surprise.
    ‘Oh!’
she said, turning to Mr Bennet and her companion, ‘did you see him?’
    ‘See
who?’ said Mr Bennet.
    ‘There’s
someone in there,’ she said, pointing towards the cottage.
    ‘I’ll
take a look. Probably a tramp,’ said Mr Bennet.
    As he
went to the front door, Carrot and Catweazle ran out of the back.
    ‘Did
they see you?’ whispered Carrot as the two of them hid in the long grass but
Catweazle shook his head. They waited and saw Mr Bennet go back to Mrs
Derringer.
    ‘I
guess that hobo got a shock,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you see him, Maud?’ Maud, a thin,
pale, long-suffering woman with most of Mrs Derringer’s photographic equipment
hanging from her, shook her head. ‘No Eleanor,’ she said.
    ‘The
place has been empty for years,’ said Mr Bennet. ‘So tramps tend to move in.
They’re an awful nuisance. It’s one of the reasons I want to do the place up.’
    ‘I
think it’s perfect! I want to buy it,’ said Mrs Derringer.
    ‘You’ll
have to spend a lot of money,’ said Mr Bennet. ‘It hasn’t got electricity.’
    ‘I
don’t care. I’m buying