Chapter Fifteen
Well now, a fine mess was goin’ on there! How long do ye think it took for word to spread in Tilby that sommat weren’t right? Not long, no! Not long at all. An’ they all came to find me, Mr. Balligumph. Expected me to have all the answers, they did. Course, I had no answers at all for ‘em—not then, not yet. But we had a merry little band put together in a trice, an’ then there was no stoppin’ us!
The first thing we had to do was warn Mr. Aubranael. Good soul, he is—like him very much. Couldn’t leave him labourin’ under a misapprehension, like, could we?
Aubranael was in the midst of an argument with Grunewald when the note arrived.
‘Just for a few days!’ he was saying imploringly.
‘Not even for five minutes!’ Grunewald snapped in reply.
‘Why not?’
‘Because there has
