“Well, all’s not gone ill yet,” said Elfrida, wriggling her neck in its prickly muslin tucker. “Let’s go and see the witch.”
“You’d best take her something—a screw of sugar she’d like, and a pinch of tea.”
“Why, she’d not say ‘Thank you’ for it,” said Edred, looking at the tiny packets.
“I expect you’ve forgotten,” said cook gently, “that tea’s ten shillings a pound and sugar’s gone up to three-and-six since the war.”
“What war?”
“The French war. You haven’t forgotten we’re at war with Boney and the French, and the bonfire we had up at the church when the news came of the drubbing we gave them at Trafalgar, and poor dear Lord Nelson and all? And your grandfather reading out about it to them from the ‘George’ balcony, and all the people waiting to cheer, and him not able to get it out for choking pride and because of Lord Nelson—God bless him!—and the people couldn’t get their cheers out neither, for the same cause, and every one blowing their noses and shaking each other’s hands like as if it was a mad funeral?”
“How splendid!” said Elfrida. “But we don’t remember it.”
“Nor you don’t remember how you killed all the white butterflies last year because you said they were Frenchies in their white coats? And the birching you got, for cruelty to dumb animals, his lordship said. You howled for an hour together after it, so you did.”
“I’m glad we’ve forgotten that, anyhow,” said Edred.
“Gracious!” said the cook. “Half after eleven, and my eggs not so much as broke for my pudding. Off you go with your letter. Don’t you tell any one else about you forgetting. And then you come home along by Dering’s Spinney—and go see old Betty. Speak pretty to her and give her the tea and sugar, and keep your feet crossed under your chair if she asks you to sit down. And I’ll give you an old knife-blade apiece to put in your pockets; she can’t do nothing if you’ve got steel on you. And get her to take it off—the ill-wishing, I mean. And don’t let her know you’ve got steel; they don’t like to think you’ve been beforehand with them.”