The figure standing in the shadows of the cobweb-adorned attic sighed the lament of the damned as he slid the thick
grey coat onto his broad shoulders and set his hat in the manner to hide his eyes. With his concoction solidified and
carefully stored in its cool confine, he looked towards the panelled door to make sure the key was still in the lock and
the chair was set properly beneath the handle.
The smell of stale urine mixed with sodium chloride was pungent in the small space beneath the cold slate tiles of
the Burrows abode, but the lodger knew that the night air would soon steal it from its confines and quickly exchange
it for a fouler aroma of the metropolis outside. "It will soon be time to make them bemoan their iniquity" said a voice
that nobody could hear and the lone shape scanned the cramped flop for any tell-tale sign of his intent.
He was a long way from the inception of his cathartic odyssey and his unwavering wake had been a bloody one,
but here in Thameston, he had accepted that this urban slough was rife with the Machiavellian harlots who beguiled
and corrupted the innocent. Moving his heavy-lidded eyes over to where the desiccated bodies of moths dangled from
silvery strands of their mummification, Madge and Jim Burrows' tenant picked up a strange fist-sized box and the pretty
pheasant-feather quill from the dirt-grained table and placed them into his coat pocket.
Thameston's current distemper was a symptom of poor breeding and the crossing over from the old ways, he thought
to himself as he treaded softly on the bare boards of the attic towards the window that would bring him onto the apex
of his temporary accommodation. There'd been a time when people feared the night and watched for chittering Goblins
snatching their children or mephitic Imps abusing their livestock just as the flittermouse came out to feed.
He had travelled many leagues and found many a boastful colleen deficient in the knowledge of what their ancestors
mewled to their children every winter's evening in front of a roaring fire-hearth. Hamlets, lonely farmhouses and even
those hip-swaying courtesans who travelled Calder's Way, all had become infected by the profane New Religion.
Just as the cryptic voice had stated and who'd roamed the land with Mister Fawkes on his crusade, he would once
again remind these fallen women of the icy warnings their parents had muttered and will weep for the diminishing
old days when morality meant something. Pushing open the rotting casement bedecked with neglected spider food,
this admonisher of the sinful climbed out into the night air to purge Thameston of the malady that had befallen it.
His true name wasn't Fawkes, of course, nor the callow moniker that the puerile ink-slingers had branded him. The
label his parents had given him was now lost to the winds of time and interred under the two grass-covered graves
on a forgotten plot of land outside of a village he couldn't -or didn't want to, recall.
"Do you have your provisions?" the voice asked and Mister Fawkes nodded into the cold fog that was rolling quietly
in from Thameston's polluted river, it's creeping chilliness was akin to the temperature of the special container in
his pocket. One shadow set off across the roofs of Whyte Chapel, but it was a brace of impassioned hatred for the
new Priests and their contaminated females that headed for the hunting grounds of The Cold Caller.
.................................................................
As Bishopsgate Police Station went about it's daily activities and Inspector George Abernethy repeated his browsing
of the files piled high on his desk. Whyte Chapel's other visitor continued her style of study in what she could recall
from past. The ancient woman from Weathercote had said her name was Gertrude and if one ignored the the faint
smell of days-old urine pulsing off the toothless crone, the tale about how the Weathercote was presently short of
men was interesting enough for Peggy Powler to ask for directions to the median for the whereabouts.
A babbling brook with kingfishers snatching minnows from its gurgling waters, a startling of two courting pheasants
and a thicket of larches surrounding a large clump of disturbed Hosta were components to the little Witch's journey
to the Cartwright residence, and all under a warm sun.
It was a small wooden cabin with the usual external furnishings that a small rustic freehold required to raise a family.
A few chickens scurried around the proverbial chopping-block and a half-built refuge to house the clucking fowl stood
next to the dwelling of someone who's wife had gone missing. "Fair travels Miss, can I help yer'?" someone asked
from behind a mule-less cart parked beside a neat stack of firewood.
He was a handsome man, a well-built young man who introduced himself as Mathew Cartwright and added that his
mother was missing. Peggy offered a half-curtsy and copied his greeting. "Me-heart goes out te' yer, me-lad..." the
little Witch said kindly, "...the woods can be confusin' sometimes" she offered lamely.
The rest of day found the barefooted visitor watching men come and go to the small farm and by the look on their
faces, they returned without results. Peggy caught sight of the young man's father a couple of times and after a
while, Edward Cartwright approached the small stranger in the grubby poncho to politely refused assistance from
the weird woman who still believed in outdated concepts.
Such a conundrum wouldn't appear again until a few days later when Peggy arrived in the fishing bay of Durridge.
Some woman called Connie Drake had left her house along the harbour to take her husband a pack of sandwiches
he'd forgotten for his trawling out to the Greater Banks and had never reached the jetty.
Maybe old malodorous Gertrude was right when she suggested to Peggy that a passing cold-caller may've taken
to stealing a woman of the Cartwright family and later added to his compilation with a fisherman's wife? Leaving
the concerned residents of Durridge to their scouring of the cliffs and wind-stunted woodlands for Mrs Drake, the
young necromancer set her bare feet back onto Calder's Way and out of the haunt of the stranger they'd one day
call The Cold Caller.
grey coat onto his broad shoulders and set his hat in the manner to hide his eyes. With his concoction solidified and
carefully stored in its cool confine, he looked towards the panelled door to make sure the key was still in the lock and
the chair was set properly beneath the handle.
The smell of stale urine mixed with sodium chloride was pungent in the small space beneath the cold slate tiles of
the Burrows abode, but the lodger knew that the night air would soon steal it from its confines and quickly exchange
it for a fouler aroma of the metropolis outside. "It will soon be time to make them bemoan their iniquity" said a voice
that nobody could hear and the lone shape scanned the cramped flop for any tell-tale sign of his intent.
He was a long way from the inception of his cathartic odyssey and his unwavering wake had been a bloody one,
but here in Thameston, he had accepted that this urban slough was rife with the Machiavellian harlots who beguiled
and corrupted the innocent. Moving his heavy-lidded eyes over to where the desiccated bodies of moths dangled from
silvery strands of their mummification, Madge and Jim Burrows' tenant picked up a strange fist-sized box and the pretty
pheasant-feather quill from the dirt-grained table and placed them into his coat pocket.
Thameston's current distemper was a symptom of poor breeding and the crossing over from the old ways, he thought
to himself as he treaded softly on the bare boards of the attic towards the window that would bring him onto the apex
of his temporary accommodation. There'd been a time when people feared the night and watched for chittering Goblins
snatching their children or mephitic Imps abusing their livestock just as the flittermouse came out to feed.
He had travelled many leagues and found many a boastful colleen deficient in the knowledge of what their ancestors
mewled to their children every winter's evening in front of a roaring fire-hearth. Hamlets, lonely farmhouses and even
those hip-swaying courtesans who travelled Calder's Way, all had become infected by the profane New Religion.
Just as the cryptic voice had stated and who'd roamed the land with Mister Fawkes on his crusade, he would once
again remind these fallen women of the icy warnings their parents had muttered and will weep for the diminishing
old days when morality meant something. Pushing open the rotting casement bedecked with neglected spider food,
this admonisher of the sinful climbed out into the night air to purge Thameston of the malady that had befallen it.
His true name wasn't Fawkes, of course, nor the callow moniker that the puerile ink-slingers had branded him. The
label his parents had given him was now lost to the winds of time and interred under the two grass-covered graves
on a forgotten plot of land outside of a village he couldn't -or didn't want to, recall.
"Do you have your provisions?" the voice asked and Mister Fawkes nodded into the cold fog that was rolling quietly
in from Thameston's polluted river, it's creeping chilliness was akin to the temperature of the special container in
his pocket. One shadow set off across the roofs of Whyte Chapel, but it was a brace of impassioned hatred for the
new Priests and their contaminated females that headed for the hunting grounds of The Cold Caller.
.................................................................
As Bishopsgate Police Station went about it's daily activities and Inspector George Abernethy repeated his browsing
of the files piled high on his desk. Whyte Chapel's other visitor continued her style of study in what she could recall
from past. The ancient woman from Weathercote had said her name was Gertrude and if one ignored the the faint
smell of days-old urine pulsing off the toothless crone, the tale about how the Weathercote was presently short of
men was interesting enough for Peggy Powler to ask for directions to the median for the whereabouts.
A babbling brook with kingfishers snatching minnows from its gurgling waters, a startling of two courting pheasants
and a thicket of larches surrounding a large clump of disturbed Hosta were components to the little Witch's journey
to the Cartwright residence, and all under a warm sun.
It was a small wooden cabin with the usual external furnishings that a small rustic freehold required to raise a family.
A few chickens scurried around the proverbial chopping-block and a half-built refuge to house the clucking fowl stood
next to the dwelling of someone who's wife had gone missing. "Fair travels Miss, can I help yer'?" someone asked
from behind a mule-less cart parked beside a neat stack of firewood.
He was a handsome man, a well-built young man who introduced himself as Mathew Cartwright and added that his
mother was missing. Peggy offered a half-curtsy and copied his greeting. "Me-heart goes out te' yer, me-lad..." the
little Witch said kindly, "...the woods can be confusin' sometimes" she offered lamely.
The rest of day found the barefooted visitor watching men come and go to the small farm and by the look on their
faces, they returned without results. Peggy caught sight of the young man's father a couple of times and after a
while, Edward Cartwright approached the small stranger in the grubby poncho to politely refused assistance from
the weird woman who still believed in outdated concepts.
Such a conundrum wouldn't appear again until a few days later when Peggy arrived in the fishing bay of Durridge.
Some woman called Connie Drake had left her house along the harbour to take her husband a pack of sandwiches
he'd forgotten for his trawling out to the Greater Banks and had never reached the jetty.
Maybe old malodorous Gertrude was right when she suggested to Peggy that a passing cold-caller may've taken
to stealing a woman of the Cartwright family and later added to his compilation with a fisherman's wife? Leaving
the concerned residents of Durridge to their scouring of the cliffs and wind-stunted woodlands for Mrs Drake, the
young necromancer set her bare feet back onto Calder's Way and out of the haunt of the stranger they'd one day
call The Cold Caller.
Read The TV Guide, yer' don't need a TV.