Catweazle

Catweazle.
    Carrot
looked at him worriedly. The old man’s face was grey and drawn and he was
trembling like a frightened dog. He had clearly made up his mind that he was
going to die.
    ‘You
haven’t got enough on,’ said Carrot picking up a very choice pair of
combinations from a pile of costumes. Leslie had dyed them pale green so that
they could be worn under a tabard instead of tights.
    ‘Put
these on,’ said Carrot firmly, anticipating resistance.
    ‘What
is it?’ said Catweazle in horror.
    ‘Corns.
Combinations. A vest and long pants all in one,’ explained Carrot. ‘They’re
jolly warm,’
    Catweazle
climbed fearfully into the combinations and Carrot was just buttoning them up,
when he saw the farm truck pull up outside. In a panic he pushed the protesting
Catweazle inside an empty clothes skip and sat down on the lid just as his
father and Sam came in.
    ‘Oh,
there you are,’ said his father. ‘I thought you were supposed to be numbering
the seats?’
    ‘Not
yet,’ said Carrot. ‘I’m minding the phone for Mr Milton,’
    ‘Isn’t
he here? Mr Gladstone’s getting in a panic about the rest of the costumes.
We’ve come to take all these skips up to the house,’
    For a
moment it looked as if they meant to take the one containing Catweazle but
Carrot didn’t budge, so Mr Bennet and Sam picked up one of the others and
carried it out to the truck.
    ‘Come
out,’ Carrot whispered to Catweazle as he jumped off the skip.
     

     
    ‘Nay,’
said Catweazle looking up at him.
    ‘They’ll
be back in a second!’
    ‘I care
not.’
    ‘Well I
do,’ said Carrot, hauling him out and looking round for somewhere to put him.
With a flash of inspiration, he pulled open the old mummy case and just managed
to get Catweazle safely stowed away before the two men came back.
    ‘You’d
better wait for Leslie,’ his father said to him as they took the final skip.
‘Then come up to Westbourne House.’
    ‘Right,
Dad,’ said Carrot, breathing a sigh of relief as the farm truck drove away.
    ‘Out
you come,’ he said to the mummy case.
    There
was a sudden frenzied knocking from within.
    ‘Push, you
idiot!’ said Carrot.
    A
frantic mumbling came from inside.
    ‘I
can’t hear you,’ said Carrot.
    There
was more loud mumbling accompanied by wild banging.
    ‘You’ll
have to speak up,’ said Carrot, grinning.
    But
when he tried to open the mummy case he found that it had stuck.
    ‘He’ll
suffocate,’ muttered Carrot, and he grabbed a sword from the wall and attempted
to lever the case open. As he did so, the whole thing began to rock to and fro
till finally it fell over backwards, landing, with a sickening thud, face upwards
on the floor.
    ‘Catweazle,’
said Carrot, kneeling beside it, ‘say something.’
    There
was silence from the mummy case, but Leslie, who had heard the crash, came
rushing into the shop.
    ‘Whatever’s
happened?’ he said.
    Carrot looked
up suddenly and saw Adamcos round the antique dealer’s neck.
    ‘Adamcos!’
he exclaimed.
    ‘Come
again?’ said Leslie, completely bewildered.
    Slowly
the lid of the mummy case began to open. Leslie stared at it with amazement,
turning to terror as the lid fell back and a very dazed Catweazle rose up in
his pale green corns, groaning most horribly, his beard and hair covered with
thick dust.
    Leslie
took one look at the apparition and slid down the wall in a dead faint. Carrot
pounced on Adamcos and restored it to Catweazle, who was still feeling pretty
faint himself.
    The
effect was magical. Feeling his sacred knife once more, Catweazle jumped
briskly out of the mummy case, picked up his robe and ran out of the shop with
hardly a
    backward
glance at Carrot. He didn’t stop running until he was safely back in Castle
Saburac.
    ‘Did
you see it? Did you see it?’ said Leslie, coming round.
    ‘See
what?’ said Carrot.
    ‘The
thing! The thing from the tomb!’
    ‘You’ve
been overworking, Mr Milton,’ said Carrot innocently.

10
     

THE HOUSE OF THE SORCERER
     
    Sam Woodyard had worked at
Hexwood for twelve years. He hated the turkeys and he wasn’t very interested in
farming, but he was reliable, even tempered and generally got on well with
everyone. He was a good foreman and an expert with the farm machinery. Whenever
anything broke down, Sam was always the one who would get it going again, so it
was a shock when he came to Mr Bennet one morning and told him he was leaving.
    ‘But
why, Sam?’ said Mr Bennet,