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'Hereward! Hereward!' The dog came bounding in, eager for his usual evening walk. Confound the creature! How did it manage to keep so thin? Always stuffin' itself, wasn't it?

The drive of End House, some half a mile long, was lined by rhododendron bushes. In the season people would come from hundreds of miles to see the Winstanley rhododendrons, and the Winstanley lawns, and the Winstanley roses and... 'Evening, Squire.'

'Heavens above, never noticed you, Bates. Everything under control?'

'Yessir, apart from a touch of blackfly. Soon put paid to 'un, though.'

Bates, latest in the long line of Bateses, gardeners to the Winstanleys since the days of good Queen Anne, touched his hat as the Squire rolled away down the immaculate gravel of the drive. Feudalism died hard in Devil's End.

'Oh... Squire, sir.'

The Squire turned back. Bates' mahogany face was troubled.

'The missus. She's worried, like. Asked me to speak to you...'

'Well?'

'It's her hens, you see. Haven't laid a single egg for nigh on a fortnight.'

'Go on.'

Bates shuffled slightly, obviously embarrassed. 'That's it, sir.'

Winstanley looked at him in some perplexity. Not like Bates to be so roundabout in his manner. 'I don't understand, Bates. How can I help?'

Bates took off his hat and carefully brushed some invisible dust from its mud-caked crown. 'Well you see, sir... she says... it's a lot of nonsense, and I... well, she says they've been bewitched, like!'

'Ah. I see. Bewitched, eh?'

'Yessir.'

The Squire puffed at his old briar for a few seconds. 'Be that as it may... what can I do about it?'

'Well, you see, Squire, we was thinking... that is, she was... well, you might have a word with Vicar, like. He'd listen to you, sir.'

The Squire grunted. 'Doubt it. Doubt it very much. Sensible fellow, this new chap. Can't see him worrying about a few fowls. Still, could mention it in passing, I suppose.'

'If you'd be so good, sir. Elsie, you see... she does carry on so. If I could say I'd spoken to you...'

'Of course, of course, leave it to me...'

Bates replaced his ancient hat and vanished into the shrubbery, lifting a respectful forefinger to Squire Winstanley's retreating back.

'Hereward! Heel, sir!' The Squire automatically fell into his accustomed routine as he stepped through his front gate. But his heart wasn't in it. Hens not laying, for Heaven's sake! Always happening. Fox about, probably. Must have a word with the hunt.

Still, Elsie Bates was no fool. If she thought they were bewitched... no, no, no, a lot of nonsense. Like those ridiculous rumours put about by Miss Hawthorne after poor old Josh dropped dead in the churchyard...

...And the rotund figure of the Squire of Devil's End progressed in stately fashion down the hill to the village, the gun-dog at his heel. Nobody could have guessed that his heart had been gripped by a sudden fear that had almost stopped the breath in his throat.

Down the steep track leading from the Goat's Back flew a strange figure, cloak fluttering behind like the wings of a giant moth, and uttering occasional weird cries such as 'Ha!' or 'Fool, fool, fool!' Miss Hawthorne on her bicycle. Swooping through the spinney at the corner of Longbottom farm and out into Shady Lane, she narrowly avoided the Ransomes' ginger cat and never even noticed—this being most odd as Marmalade was a personal friend—so exhilarated was she still by her righteous anger at that idiot Horner.

'My giddy godfathers, but I told him!' she thought to herself, starting to pedal as the road turned itself upside down and she faced the long pull up Box Hill. 'He won't forget little Olive Hawthorne in a hurry...'

Slower and slower went the bicycle as Miss Hawthome's spirit slowly sank back to earth. What good had she done after all? He was still going ahead. Devil's End still faced the ancient curse; the terrible curse which every child in the village could repeat and no adult would dare; the curse whose origin was lost in the morning of time.

As she reached the