Read The Boggart and the Monster for Free Online

and delectable chip on one of their plates disappeared. They had experimented with giving the Boggart a plate of his own, but seldom with success. Except on special occasions, he much preferred the trickery of stealing.
    Sitting companionably now with them in the living room, curled up in a Japanese cloisonné bowl inherited from Mr. Maconochie’s sea-captain grandfather, he drifted in and out of sleep as Jessup regaled Mr. Maconochie with the details of the day the Boggart had put himself into the control system of the traffic lights of Toronto, turning the red lights to blue and causing a variety of traffic accidents. Mr. Maconochie shook his head in concern, and got up to pour himself his evening dram: two fingers’ breadth of a good single malt whisky in a graceful round glass.
    â€œDid he understand what he was about?”
he asked.
    â€œOh no,”
Emily said.
“He was just like a kid having fun. I don’t think he has a clue of the danger in some of the tricks he plays.”
    The Boggart paid no attention. All his attention now was on Mr. Maconochie’s whisky. A wee dram would be just the thing to set nicely on the fried potatoes, in which perhaps he had overindulged. He flitted across to the table beside Mr. Maconochie’s chair, and the next time Mr. Maconochie raised his glass to his lips he found half the whisky had gone.
    And so it was Mr. Maconochie’s good malt whisky that sent the Boggart flittering a little erratically out of the living room in search of a comfortable bed. Heading for the library, where he rested habitually in a gap on a high shelf, he found himself hovering instead over the pile of camping equipment brought down from the third floor, waiting in the corridor to be loaded the next day into boat and then car.
    The Boggart sank downward and landed on a rolled-up blanket, into which he gratefully burrowed and curled up, and fell asleep.
    *  *  *
    S MALL WAVES LAPPED against the stony grey beach of Port Appin, with a gentle rhythmic rasping sound. Emily and Mr. Maconochie left Tommy and Jessup loading bundles from the boat into the Range Rover, and took William across the little graveled parking area to the Camerons’ general store.
    Tommy’s mother came smiling to the door to meet them, smoothing her already smooth and spotless apron, and William bounded toward her, waving his tail and barking joyfully. Though he loved his owner, he was never sorry to be left with the Camerons when Mr. Maconochie went away. He knew it would mean long walks on moors and beaches, instead of the limited space of Castle Keep’s island — not to mention the occasional surreptitious treat from the dinner plate of Tommy’s father, Angus Cameron, who could never resist a plaintive whine and a hopeful look from large soulful brown eyes.
    â€œHere he is, Mrs. Cameron,”
said Mr. Maconochie, handing her the basket with William’s leash, bowl and favorite blanket.
“Seven days’ exchange, not very fair -I take away your useful son and leave you my loving but useless dog.”
    â€œNot useless at all,”
said Mrs. Cameron, rubbing William’s feathery golden ears.
“He makes sure Angus gets some exercise, instead of sitting in the boat or the car all day.”
    Angus Cameron came out of his storage shed, carrying a large untidy bundle.
“I heard that,”
he said amiably.
    Emily gazed at him with interest: he was an exact grown-up version of Tommy, though the curly dark hair had retreated quite a long way up his head. She had never had much contact with Mr. Cameron, a quiet, rather absentminded man who always seemed to be on his way to or from somewhere else. He was a freelance journalist who wrote stories about the Highlands ofScotland for two or three major British newspapers; it was Mrs. Cameron who very efficiently sold groceries, stamps and almost anything else anyone could need at the village store.
    William bounded at