Just as they were about to turn for home after a climb from the foot of the Edge, the children came upon a stone trough into which water was dripping from an overhanging cliff, and harmigh in the rock was carved the face of a bearded man, and underneath was engraved:
DRINK OF THIS
AND TAKE THY FILL FOR THE WATER FALLS BY THE WIZHARDS WILL
“The wizard again!” said Susan. “We really must find out from Gowther what all this is about. Let’s go straight home now and ask him. It’s probably nearly tea-time, anyway.”
They were within a hundred yards of the farm when a car overtook them and pulled up sharply. The driver, a woman, got out and stood waiting for the children. She looked about forty-five years old, was powerfully built (“fat” was the word Susan used to describe her), and her head rested firmly on her shoulders without appearing to have much of a neck at all. Two lines ran from either side of her nose to the corners of her wide, thin-lipped mouth, and her eyes were rather too small for her broad head. Strangely enough, her legs were thin and spindly, so that in outline she resembled a well-fed sparrow, but again that was Susan’s description.
All this Colin and Susan took in as they approached the car, while the driver eyed them up and down more obviously.
“Is this the road to Macclesfield?” she said when the children came up to her.
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Colin. “We’ve only just come to stay here.”
“Oh? Then you’ll want a lift. Jump in!”
“Thanks,” said Colin, “but we’re living at this next farm.”
“Get into the back.”
“No, really. It’s only a few yards.”
“Get in!”
“But we …”
The woman’s eyes glinted and the colour rose in her cheeks.
“You – will – get – into – the back!”
“Honestly, it’s not worth the bother! We’d only hold you up.”
The woman drew breath through her teeth. Her eyes rolled upwards and the lids came down until only an unpleasant white line showed; and then she began to whisper to herself.
Colin felt most uncomfortable. They could not just walk off and leave this peculiar woman in the middle of the road, yet her manner was so embarrassing that he wanted to hurry away, to disassociate himself from her strangeness.
“Omptator,” said the woman.
“I … beg your pardon.”
“Lapidator.”
“I’m sorry …”
“Somniator.”
“Are you …?”
“Qui libertar opera facitis …”
“I’m not much good at Latin …”
Colin wanted to run now. She must be mad. He could not cope. His brow was damp with sweat, and pins and needles were taking all awareness out of his body.
Then, close at hand, a dog barked loudly. The woman gave a suppressed cry of rage and spun round. The tension broke; and Colin saw that his fingers were round the handle of the car door, and the door was half-open.
“Howd thy noise, Scamp,” said Gowther sharply.
He was crossing the road opposite the farm gate, and Scamp stood a little way up the hill nearer the car, snarling nastily.
“Come on! Heel!”
Scamp slunk unwillingly back towards Gowther, who waved to the children and pointed to the house to show that tea was ready.
“Th – that’s Mr Mossock,” said Colin. “He’ll be able to tell you the way to Macclesfield.”
“No doubt!” snapped the woman. And, without another word, she threw herself into the car, and drove away.
“Well!” said Colin. “What was all that about? She must be off her head! I thought she was having a fit! What do you think was up with her?”
Susan made no comment. She gave a wan smile and shrugged her shoulders, but it was not until Colin and she were at the farm gate that she spoke.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It may be the heat, or because we’ve walked so far, but all the time you were talking to her I thought I was going to faint. But what’s so strange is that my Tear has gone all misty.”
Susan was fond of her Tear. It was a small piece of crystal, shaped like a raindrop, and had been given to her by her mother, who had had it mounted in a socket fastened to a silver chain bracelet which Susan always wore. It was a flawless stone, but, when she was very young, Susan had discovered that if she held it in a certain way, so that it caught the light just … so, she could see, deep in the heart of the crystal, miles away, or so it seemed, a twisting column of blue fire, always moving, never ending, alive, and very beautiful.
Bess Mossock clapped her hands in delight when she saw the Tear on Susan’s wrist. “Oh, if it inner the Bridestone! And after all these years!”
Susan was mystified, but Bess went on to explain that “yon pretty dewdrop” had been given to her by her mother, who had had it from her mother, and so on, till its origin and the meaning of the name had become lost among the distant generations. She had given it to the children’s mother because “it always used to catch the childer’s eyes, and thy mother were no exception!”
At this, Susan’s face fell. “Well then,” she said, “it must go back to you now, because it’s obviously a family heirloom and …”
“Nay, nay, lass! Thee keep it. I’ve no childer of my own, and thy mother was the same as a daughter to me. I con see as how it’s in good hands.”
So Susan’s Tear had continued to sparkle at her wrist until that moment at the car, when it had suddenly clouded over, the colour of whey.
“Oh, hurry up, Sue!” said Colin over his shoulder. “You’ll feel better after a meal. Let’s go and find Gowther.”
“But Colin!” cried Susan, holding up her wrist. She was about to say, “Do look!” but the words died in her throat, for the crystal now winked at her as pure as it had ever been.
“And what did owd Selina Place want with you?” said Gowther at tea.
“Selina
