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blissfully, in the argument.
    Ernie made no answer to any of them. He stared loweringly at his father and devotedly at Simon Begg, who merely looked bored and slightly worried. At last, Ernie, under pressure, submitted his sword for examination and there were further ejaculations. Mrs. Bünz could see it, a steel blade, pierced at the tip. A scarlet ribbon was knotted through the hole.
    “If one of us ’uns misses the strings and catches hold be the blade,” old Andersen shouted, “as a chap well might in the heat of his exertions, he’d be cut to the bloody bone. Wouldn’t he, Doctor?”
    “And I’m the chap to do it,” Chris roared out. “I come next, Ern. I might get me fingers sliced off.”
    “Not to mention my yed,” his father added.
    “Here,” Dr. Otterly said quietly, “let’s have a squint at it.”
    He examined the sword and looked thoughtfully at its owner. “Why,” he asked, “did you make it so sharp, boy?”
    Ernie wouldn’t answer. He held out his hand for the sword. Dr. Otterly hesitated and then gave it to him. Ernie folded his arms over it and backed away cuddling it. He glowered at his father and muttered and shuffled.
    “You damned dunderhead,” old William burst out, “hand over thik rapper. Come on. Us’ll take the edge off of it afore you gets loose on it again. Hand it over.”
    “I won’t, then.”
    “You will!”
    “Keep off of me.”
    Simon Begg said, “Steady, Ern. Easy does it.”
    “Tell him not to touch me, then.”
    “Naow, naow, naow!” chanted his brothers.
    “I think I’d leave it for the moment, Guiser,” Dr. Otterly said.
    “Leave it! Who’s boss hereabouts! I’ll not leave it, neither.”
    He advanced upon his son. Mrs. Bünz, peering and wiping away her breath, wondered, momentarily, if what followed could be yet another piece of histrionic folklore. The Guiser and his son were in the middle of her peep show, the other Andersens out of sight. In the background, only partially visible, their faces alternately hidden and revealed by the leading players, were Dr. Otterly, Ralph and Simon Begg. She heard Simon shout, “Don’t be a fool!” and saw rather than heard Ralph admonishing the Guiser.
    Then, with a kind of darting movement, the old man launched himself at his son. The picture was masked out for some seconds by the great bulk of Dan Andersen. Then arms and hands appeared, inexplicably busy. For a moment or two, all was confusion. She heard a voice and recognized it, high-pitched though it was, for Ernie Andersen’s.
    “Never blame me if you’re bloody-handed. Bloody-handed by nature you are. What shows, same as what’s hid. Bloody murderer, both ways, heart and hand.”
    Then Mrs. Bünz’s peep show re-opened to reveal the Guiser, alone.
    His head was sunk between his shoulders, his chest heaved as if it had a tormented life of its own. His right arm was extended in exposition. Across the upturned palm there was a dark gash. Blood slid round the edge of the hand and, as she stared at it, began to drip.
    Mrs. Bünz left her peep show and returned faster than usual to her backstairs in the pub.
    That night, Camilla slept uneasily. Her shallow dreams were beset with dead dogs that stood watchfully between herself and Ralph or horridly danced with bells strapped to their rigid legs. The Five Sons of the photograph behind the bar-parlour door also appeared to her, with Mrs. Bünz mysteriously nodding, and the hermaphrodite, who slyly offered to pop his great skirt over Camilla and carry her off. Then “Crack,” the Hobby-Horse, came hugely to the fore. His bird-like head enlarged itself and snapped at Camilla. He charged out of her dream, straight at her. She woke with a thumping heart.
    The Mardian church clock was striking twelve. A blob of light danced on the window curtain. Down in the yard somebody must be walking about with a lanthorn. She heard the squeak of trampled snow accompanied by a drag and a shuffle. Camilla, now wide awake,