The four year-old pile of ashes must've still been an inch thick on the tunnel floor and standing at the entrance of the cave,
Peggy Powler leaned her glowing lantern into the shadows on the off-chance Doramus' footprints had endured the passing
of time. Apart from a recent scuttle of mouse tracks, nothing implied the trapped-Vampyre had engaged the roaring flames
and escaped in this direction.
Peering at the soot-scarred walls, the diminutive Witch whispered to the agitated clergyman standing a couple of feet away.
"Nowt' here... are yer' sure nothin' came out, Father?" she asked again and Mathew Jacobs repeated his claim in a voice that
told Peggy he wished to be away from this terrible place. Appeasing the flinching Priest's concern, she sighed to herself and
aimed her bare feet towards a faint rabbit-run that lay between the wall of the ravine and the large boulder.
Following the cottontail's obscure spoor upwards, Peggy grunted her way through the tangled brush that hid the top of the bluff
from anyone on the ravine floor and after finding what she'd been looking for, the squatting Witch carefully set the lamp beside
the foot-wide fissure and called Father Jacobs up to her position.
"Here... Doramus got out here" Peggy muttered at the approach of the panting man struggling his way past the barbed twigs
and stubborn branches of the undergrowth. Mathew wiped his eyes of spider's webs as he reviewed the confusing marks in
the sandy soil adjacent to what he'd have just thought was a naturally-formed home of a rabbit.
There was a dog print that was overlayed with a human's palm impression and leaning closer over his companion's shoulder,
he spied an odd substance that was crusted around the opening of where the Witch was pointing to.
"That'll be the bugger's skin where he was changin' as he come through..." Peggy whispered to the man behind her. "...It seems
ol' Doramus' escape didn't go well" she furthered. Both Ms Powler and Father Jacobs remained quiet in their own thoughts as
the climbed back down to the arroyo's base and whilst the vicar of Little Compton went through his benedictions to ward off evil,
the last Witch of Underhill nurtured the rudiments of a plan to catch the aberration that had crawled out that hole.
...................................................
Carstairs heard it first and rising from his seat in the scullery he peered through the kitchen window towards where the kennels.
It was a yowl, a whimpering yowl from one of the hounds and suspecting some poacher had decided to cut-out any interference
in his night-time industry, the Butler judged the thieving beggar to have come to the wrong conclusion.
With a lantern in hand and punishment in mind, the servant stepped out into the night.
As a faint illumination cautiously made its way down past the summer house, an inquisitive face appeared at the window of the
main bedroom. Lady Ophelia watched the lantern bob its way towards where the dogs were kept and she -too, thought along
similar lines of her steward. Maybe it was even that ungroomed hat-wearing runt that had visited a few days back and maybe
he'd returned to hurt the two remaining hounds.
With a swish of her chiffon nightgown, the six foot-three woman plucked her robe from the bed and left her boudoir to teach
this sawn-off ruffian a lesson. Sir Reginald was sleeping-off his evening brandy and any notion of rousing him from his slumber
was a task Ophelia had failed to do many times, even when he wasn't snoring.
Fastening her flat-heeled shoes, she muttered words not very decorous for such a noble patrician. Firebrand was a fine dog
and whatever uncouth poison had been fed to him would be paid back double by the lady of the manor.
Brandishing her husband's blackthorn walking stick, she opened the front door and headed out to castigate this inbred intruding
defalcator.
...................................................
The town was in darkness as the unlikely pair trudged back to the chapel and opening the cemetery gate to allow the sullen
Witch through, Father Jacobs looked at the shadowed shapes of the cottages around him. Was Doramus visiting one of his
faithful right now...? What horror would a person gaze upon as the malformed beast took its foul nutriment from the innocents
of Little Compton?
Crossing his heart once more, he followed the small resolute sorceress towards the vestry.
Peggy Powler leaned her glowing lantern into the shadows on the off-chance Doramus' footprints had endured the passing
of time. Apart from a recent scuttle of mouse tracks, nothing implied the trapped-Vampyre had engaged the roaring flames
and escaped in this direction.
Peering at the soot-scarred walls, the diminutive Witch whispered to the agitated clergyman standing a couple of feet away.
"Nowt' here... are yer' sure nothin' came out, Father?" she asked again and Mathew Jacobs repeated his claim in a voice that
told Peggy he wished to be away from this terrible place. Appeasing the flinching Priest's concern, she sighed to herself and
aimed her bare feet towards a faint rabbit-run that lay between the wall of the ravine and the large boulder.
Following the cottontail's obscure spoor upwards, Peggy grunted her way through the tangled brush that hid the top of the bluff
from anyone on the ravine floor and after finding what she'd been looking for, the squatting Witch carefully set the lamp beside
the foot-wide fissure and called Father Jacobs up to her position.
"Here... Doramus got out here" Peggy muttered at the approach of the panting man struggling his way past the barbed twigs
and stubborn branches of the undergrowth. Mathew wiped his eyes of spider's webs as he reviewed the confusing marks in
the sandy soil adjacent to what he'd have just thought was a naturally-formed home of a rabbit.
There was a dog print that was overlayed with a human's palm impression and leaning closer over his companion's shoulder,
he spied an odd substance that was crusted around the opening of where the Witch was pointing to.
"That'll be the bugger's skin where he was changin' as he come through..." Peggy whispered to the man behind her. "...It seems
ol' Doramus' escape didn't go well" she furthered. Both Ms Powler and Father Jacobs remained quiet in their own thoughts as
the climbed back down to the arroyo's base and whilst the vicar of Little Compton went through his benedictions to ward off evil,
the last Witch of Underhill nurtured the rudiments of a plan to catch the aberration that had crawled out that hole.
...................................................
Carstairs heard it first and rising from his seat in the scullery he peered through the kitchen window towards where the kennels.
It was a yowl, a whimpering yowl from one of the hounds and suspecting some poacher had decided to cut-out any interference
in his night-time industry, the Butler judged the thieving beggar to have come to the wrong conclusion.
With a lantern in hand and punishment in mind, the servant stepped out into the night.
As a faint illumination cautiously made its way down past the summer house, an inquisitive face appeared at the window of the
main bedroom. Lady Ophelia watched the lantern bob its way towards where the dogs were kept and she -too, thought along
similar lines of her steward. Maybe it was even that ungroomed hat-wearing runt that had visited a few days back and maybe
he'd returned to hurt the two remaining hounds.
With a swish of her chiffon nightgown, the six foot-three woman plucked her robe from the bed and left her boudoir to teach
this sawn-off ruffian a lesson. Sir Reginald was sleeping-off his evening brandy and any notion of rousing him from his slumber
was a task Ophelia had failed to do many times, even when he wasn't snoring.
Fastening her flat-heeled shoes, she muttered words not very decorous for such a noble patrician. Firebrand was a fine dog
and whatever uncouth poison had been fed to him would be paid back double by the lady of the manor.
Brandishing her husband's blackthorn walking stick, she opened the front door and headed out to castigate this inbred intruding
defalcator.
...................................................
The town was in darkness as the unlikely pair trudged back to the chapel and opening the cemetery gate to allow the sullen
Witch through, Father Jacobs looked at the shadowed shapes of the cottages around him. Was Doramus visiting one of his
faithful right now...? What horror would a person gaze upon as the malformed beast took its foul nutriment from the innocents
of Little Compton?
Crossing his heart once more, he followed the small resolute sorceress towards the vestry.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.