It is a type of karma, the spiritual principle of cause and effect.
If one strives to enhance another's well-being with a positive quality, there is a form of unasked-for payment for such deeds in
the shape of similar productive experiences and of course, visa-versa. Cause and effect.
In this case, the cause was Harrow Bent's act of damaging Bartholomew Drigg's income and due to his drunken and enraged
state, was currently threatening harm towards Drigg's friend, Peggy Powler. The resulting effect was the the salesman's vexation
manifesting itself in the form similar to the Dust Hob's earlier act on his former patron, Callendous Vole.
As Bent wallowed in his intoxicated conceptions of what he was going to do to Peggy Powler, the man who'd once believed he
was an island, a self-reliant atoll with ligatures to nobody except Sarson & Sarson's pharmacologists, was delivering his own
style of karma. It was simple really, Bart Drigg had evolved into a regular guy who knew he had a place in the world helping others.
In this case, assisting with the use of one of his empty bottles.
The little Witch witnessed such a dispatching of this kismet when she saw Bart sneakily cosh the Dust Hob on the back of the head
with a vessel of his now-drained merchandise. The thocking-sound of the impact notified Mr Drigg that he held an artistic bent for
this kind behaviour, if one pardons the pun.
As Harrow dropped like a sack of potatoes to the packed-earth of the cavern, Peggy had already turned and ignoring the searing
heat from the Djinn-Kiln's handle, tossed the last of the Yeti-Ice into the recalescent flames. Back in the Witch and Bart's reality,
only one single cottage remained. The building Peggy had seen faintly-illuminated during her trek to converse with Beckett, the
Hamadryad.
"We've got te' get out of here..." the Last Witch of Underhill informed the wide-eyed salesman in the dust-covered jacket. He was
stood in the sooty cloud of Bent's collapse and the surroundings were hypnotising to him. Mumbling a question about what he was
observing, Peggy interrupted his unintelligible query to add "...there's a piper te' pay and Ah' think it better the we shouldn't be here
fur' the dance".
Pushing Bart back through the tiny doorway, she kept looking over her shoulder as a low moan emanated from Callendous Vole.
But there was something else, something Peggy could feel and the coating of dread that surrounded that sensation was not a
regular motility to the woman following the salesman into the otherworldly passageway.
...................................................
The one-time favourite of the masses and poor courier of ethereal allurement came out of his bottle-induced bewilderment and
immediately felt the pain in the side of his head. The dull throb took second-stage when Callendous opened his eyes and saw
the figure standing beside the last working Djinn-Kiln.
He was seven feet-tall, gowned in what looked like a long coat of time-aged chain-mesh hiding a black suit that seemed to broil
and twist in agony on the person. His boots were of a similar hue to his inner-garment and when looked upon their sheen, faces
of woe stared back with eyes that pleaded for salvation. But to Vole, this rangy individual was no stranger. He was Old Scatch.
"I see you have been having besetment with my habiliments, Mr Vole?" the dashing Angel of Darkness asked benevolently and
stepped over the unconscious body of the Hob. "Not quite what we agreed within the specifics of our contract, is it?"
The contents of Callendous Vole's gastrointestinal tract decided they didn't need to be here for what was to happen next and
quickly mutinied into the failed-magician's underwear.
...................................................
"Your hat, Peggy... you've left your hat" Bartholomew called out as he pulled himself from the cloth carry-all, how he managed to climb
in there would always be a mystery to him. Inside the darkened bag, the little Witch glimpsed the brim of her headwear as she quickly
murmured the required incantation to close the Salem Doorway. But the pang of loss quickly evaporated when she saw a long shadow
appear upon its dirt-smeared surface.
"Bugger me-hat, Bart!" Peggy exclaimed and without any concerns regarding dignity, pushed the salesman out of the bag's opening.
Making sure her own respectability wouldn't be found wanting, the bantam sorceress tucked the hem of her poncho between her thighs
and followed her friend out of the temporary potion-free conduit.
...................................................
Now for some history.
Along the west coast where the warmer waters of the Great Sea lap gently on the mainly-sandy shores, the fishing communities have
an enchanting tale about Kendly-Punn the Wad. This allegorical character was supposed to be a creature that causes embers in the
fire hearth to glow by his actions of occasionally blowing on the coals when a nor'easter comes trouble-making around the eaves of
their seaboard-hugging homes.
'Wad' is a colloquial term for torch or bundle of straw, an item one certainly wouldn't store beside a fire, but that's the little Boggart's
name and vaguely connected to what occurred next in the shadowy cavern that Callendous Vole and the proper proprietor of the
dowsed Djinn-Kilns. Excluding one, of course.
...................................................
To many, the so-called 'cure-alls' that travelling salesmen attempt to convince and sell to their fascinated audiences, are mainly based
on a quantity of alcohol due to its euphoric nature. It makes a consumer of these alleged medicines feel elated and calls to the emotive
side of one's outlook -more than the practical side.
But liquor is also combustible and when a certain Dark Lord tosses a benumbed and useless drunken Dust Hob into a remaining oven
of flames, the chemical state -not just due to incendiary nature of booze, but also the additive of the alcohol coming from another reality,
well, even the non-esoteric Mr Drigg could correctly guess at the outcome.
Peggy and Bart felt the shudder, but it seemed like an explosion that only the body could diagnosticate. The soil didn't move, no fence
post trembled with the vibration and there was no sound to indicate a detonation. But something somewhere, basically blew-up and only
one's bones and organs can feel it. Reverberations from another place.
"Did you feel that?" Bart hissed as he leaned on his knees to gather himself and peering over at the narrow-eyed Witch, received a nod
of harmony. Peggy watched as the last cottage blinked out of existence and was sure she heard a pop from the air rushing into where the
building had been. "Aye, Ah' think the lil' Sprite had a use after all" she said and surveyed the result of her latest undertaking of putting the
world to rights.
It was just a field again, a field beside a road called Calder's Way. Hedgerows partially bordered its edges and in the Spring, lapwings will
scrape out a shallow depression in the tilled soil and rear their young. A frost-breathed farmer will walk the rows and with a handful of seed,
hope his family will make it through the next winter. Mice will chance their luck and skitter from their hiding-places for a meal of corn and the
hawk will know its chicks will have full bellies.
Peggy Powler saw all these things and yet, would never give utterance to what she knew to be the cycle of life. It was not a travelling Seer's
way and a bugger to endure, sometimes. With an almost imperceptible sigh, she neared her weary friend Bartholomew, patted him on his
shoulder and began to walk towards the sea-cobbled highway that had brought her here.
"Your hat, Miss Powler?" came a voice as she passed the remains of their first campfire. Bart hadn't seen him appear, but the sight of the
tall figure that seemed to exude a force of dread and warning, overtook the vendor's surprise of the stranger's arrival. Peggy turned to see
Bart falling back on his rump in shock and a lean giant in apparel that was more fitting with peasantry and the love of the land.
Old Scratch wore a flat-cap that matched his neck-wrapped muffler. An all-weather jacket that would be found hanging off a farmhouse
kitchen chair or a peg at a Sunday chapel, fitting loosely on shoulders that hinted of long days of hauling hay-bales and fence-mending.
The Diablo's pants were of moleskin and the heavy fabric held smears of hastily-eaten dinners and hoof-scuffs from sheep not wishing
to bow to the shearer's blades.
The Devil standing with a pleasant smile around a set of even teeth wore Hobnail boots that left a tread of confidence that wherever they
walked, the owner strode with a gritty aplomb from his years of testing the seasons. All these things Peggy saw, but in the well-lined and
calloused red-right hand of the false farmer, she saw her hat.
"It seems you dropped it in your briskness, Ma'am" Scratch said with an articulation that didn't match his clothes and gazed at the little
female curtsying in a formal greeting. "Why, that is very kind of you Sir and fair travels in your wanderings" Peggy cordially replied and
approached the most terrifying being that engaged in such roving.
Slowly placing her favourite headwear back on her head, she nodded and responded "Thank yer', Mister Scratch". The title failed to
draw any unfavourable look from the man in the land-worker's outfit. He knew it was a moniker of the rustic, the vernacular of the
prosaic and a name that reflected damage and abort.
The tall Commander of the Damned bowed slightly and whispered auricular enough that only the woman before him could hear.
"My condolences on your mother's passing, Miss Powler... she was..." Old Scratch stared intently at his single audience and gathered
the correct wording. "...She was noted" he murmured. The Deacon of Delinquency watched the woman's eyes for her level of cogitation
and saw from Peggy's pupil movement that she calculating towards a viable level of reasoning.
Then with a glance towards the terror-stricken trader, Mr Scratch produced another nod of his head and walked out into the middle of the
field. The Witch watched him leave and then remembered where she was. "Bart... look at me now" she said firmly and drew a confused eye
from her companion. It was at that moment, the Devil faded from this story.
If one strives to enhance another's well-being with a positive quality, there is a form of unasked-for payment for such deeds in
the shape of similar productive experiences and of course, visa-versa. Cause and effect.
In this case, the cause was Harrow Bent's act of damaging Bartholomew Drigg's income and due to his drunken and enraged
state, was currently threatening harm towards Drigg's friend, Peggy Powler. The resulting effect was the the salesman's vexation
manifesting itself in the form similar to the Dust Hob's earlier act on his former patron, Callendous Vole.
As Bent wallowed in his intoxicated conceptions of what he was going to do to Peggy Powler, the man who'd once believed he
was an island, a self-reliant atoll with ligatures to nobody except Sarson & Sarson's pharmacologists, was delivering his own
style of karma. It was simple really, Bart Drigg had evolved into a regular guy who knew he had a place in the world helping others.
In this case, assisting with the use of one of his empty bottles.
The little Witch witnessed such a dispatching of this kismet when she saw Bart sneakily cosh the Dust Hob on the back of the head
with a vessel of his now-drained merchandise. The thocking-sound of the impact notified Mr Drigg that he held an artistic bent for
this kind behaviour, if one pardons the pun.
As Harrow dropped like a sack of potatoes to the packed-earth of the cavern, Peggy had already turned and ignoring the searing
heat from the Djinn-Kiln's handle, tossed the last of the Yeti-Ice into the recalescent flames. Back in the Witch and Bart's reality,
only one single cottage remained. The building Peggy had seen faintly-illuminated during her trek to converse with Beckett, the
Hamadryad.
"We've got te' get out of here..." the Last Witch of Underhill informed the wide-eyed salesman in the dust-covered jacket. He was
stood in the sooty cloud of Bent's collapse and the surroundings were hypnotising to him. Mumbling a question about what he was
observing, Peggy interrupted his unintelligible query to add "...there's a piper te' pay and Ah' think it better the we shouldn't be here
fur' the dance".
Pushing Bart back through the tiny doorway, she kept looking over her shoulder as a low moan emanated from Callendous Vole.
But there was something else, something Peggy could feel and the coating of dread that surrounded that sensation was not a
regular motility to the woman following the salesman into the otherworldly passageway.
...................................................
The one-time favourite of the masses and poor courier of ethereal allurement came out of his bottle-induced bewilderment and
immediately felt the pain in the side of his head. The dull throb took second-stage when Callendous opened his eyes and saw
the figure standing beside the last working Djinn-Kiln.
He was seven feet-tall, gowned in what looked like a long coat of time-aged chain-mesh hiding a black suit that seemed to broil
and twist in agony on the person. His boots were of a similar hue to his inner-garment and when looked upon their sheen, faces
of woe stared back with eyes that pleaded for salvation. But to Vole, this rangy individual was no stranger. He was Old Scatch.
"I see you have been having besetment with my habiliments, Mr Vole?" the dashing Angel of Darkness asked benevolently and
stepped over the unconscious body of the Hob. "Not quite what we agreed within the specifics of our contract, is it?"
The contents of Callendous Vole's gastrointestinal tract decided they didn't need to be here for what was to happen next and
quickly mutinied into the failed-magician's underwear.
...................................................
"Your hat, Peggy... you've left your hat" Bartholomew called out as he pulled himself from the cloth carry-all, how he managed to climb
in there would always be a mystery to him. Inside the darkened bag, the little Witch glimpsed the brim of her headwear as she quickly
murmured the required incantation to close the Salem Doorway. But the pang of loss quickly evaporated when she saw a long shadow
appear upon its dirt-smeared surface.
"Bugger me-hat, Bart!" Peggy exclaimed and without any concerns regarding dignity, pushed the salesman out of the bag's opening.
Making sure her own respectability wouldn't be found wanting, the bantam sorceress tucked the hem of her poncho between her thighs
and followed her friend out of the temporary potion-free conduit.
...................................................
Now for some history.
Along the west coast where the warmer waters of the Great Sea lap gently on the mainly-sandy shores, the fishing communities have
an enchanting tale about Kendly-Punn the Wad. This allegorical character was supposed to be a creature that causes embers in the
fire hearth to glow by his actions of occasionally blowing on the coals when a nor'easter comes trouble-making around the eaves of
their seaboard-hugging homes.
'Wad' is a colloquial term for torch or bundle of straw, an item one certainly wouldn't store beside a fire, but that's the little Boggart's
name and vaguely connected to what occurred next in the shadowy cavern that Callendous Vole and the proper proprietor of the
dowsed Djinn-Kilns. Excluding one, of course.
...................................................
To many, the so-called 'cure-alls' that travelling salesmen attempt to convince and sell to their fascinated audiences, are mainly based
on a quantity of alcohol due to its euphoric nature. It makes a consumer of these alleged medicines feel elated and calls to the emotive
side of one's outlook -more than the practical side.
But liquor is also combustible and when a certain Dark Lord tosses a benumbed and useless drunken Dust Hob into a remaining oven
of flames, the chemical state -not just due to incendiary nature of booze, but also the additive of the alcohol coming from another reality,
well, even the non-esoteric Mr Drigg could correctly guess at the outcome.
Peggy and Bart felt the shudder, but it seemed like an explosion that only the body could diagnosticate. The soil didn't move, no fence
post trembled with the vibration and there was no sound to indicate a detonation. But something somewhere, basically blew-up and only
one's bones and organs can feel it. Reverberations from another place.
"Did you feel that?" Bart hissed as he leaned on his knees to gather himself and peering over at the narrow-eyed Witch, received a nod
of harmony. Peggy watched as the last cottage blinked out of existence and was sure she heard a pop from the air rushing into where the
building had been. "Aye, Ah' think the lil' Sprite had a use after all" she said and surveyed the result of her latest undertaking of putting the
world to rights.
It was just a field again, a field beside a road called Calder's Way. Hedgerows partially bordered its edges and in the Spring, lapwings will
scrape out a shallow depression in the tilled soil and rear their young. A frost-breathed farmer will walk the rows and with a handful of seed,
hope his family will make it through the next winter. Mice will chance their luck and skitter from their hiding-places for a meal of corn and the
hawk will know its chicks will have full bellies.
Peggy Powler saw all these things and yet, would never give utterance to what she knew to be the cycle of life. It was not a travelling Seer's
way and a bugger to endure, sometimes. With an almost imperceptible sigh, she neared her weary friend Bartholomew, patted him on his
shoulder and began to walk towards the sea-cobbled highway that had brought her here.
"Your hat, Miss Powler?" came a voice as she passed the remains of their first campfire. Bart hadn't seen him appear, but the sight of the
tall figure that seemed to exude a force of dread and warning, overtook the vendor's surprise of the stranger's arrival. Peggy turned to see
Bart falling back on his rump in shock and a lean giant in apparel that was more fitting with peasantry and the love of the land.
Old Scratch wore a flat-cap that matched his neck-wrapped muffler. An all-weather jacket that would be found hanging off a farmhouse
kitchen chair or a peg at a Sunday chapel, fitting loosely on shoulders that hinted of long days of hauling hay-bales and fence-mending.
The Diablo's pants were of moleskin and the heavy fabric held smears of hastily-eaten dinners and hoof-scuffs from sheep not wishing
to bow to the shearer's blades.
The Devil standing with a pleasant smile around a set of even teeth wore Hobnail boots that left a tread of confidence that wherever they
walked, the owner strode with a gritty aplomb from his years of testing the seasons. All these things Peggy saw, but in the well-lined and
calloused red-right hand of the false farmer, she saw her hat.
"It seems you dropped it in your briskness, Ma'am" Scratch said with an articulation that didn't match his clothes and gazed at the little
female curtsying in a formal greeting. "Why, that is very kind of you Sir and fair travels in your wanderings" Peggy cordially replied and
approached the most terrifying being that engaged in such roving.
Slowly placing her favourite headwear back on her head, she nodded and responded "Thank yer', Mister Scratch". The title failed to
draw any unfavourable look from the man in the land-worker's outfit. He knew it was a moniker of the rustic, the vernacular of the
prosaic and a name that reflected damage and abort.
The tall Commander of the Damned bowed slightly and whispered auricular enough that only the woman before him could hear.
"My condolences on your mother's passing, Miss Powler... she was..." Old Scratch stared intently at his single audience and gathered
the correct wording. "...She was noted" he murmured. The Deacon of Delinquency watched the woman's eyes for her level of cogitation
and saw from Peggy's pupil movement that she calculating towards a viable level of reasoning.
Then with a glance towards the terror-stricken trader, Mr Scratch produced another nod of his head and walked out into the middle of the
field. The Witch watched him leave and then remembered where she was. "Bart... look at me now" she said firmly and drew a confused eye
from her companion. It was at that moment, the Devil faded from this story.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.