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the bright pink slippery exhausted look that comes at the end of a day’s wind and rain and open air and ineffectiveness. Mr. Bateman considered how stupid he was, not even being able to stay in and wait for a phone call. James considered what it was going to feel like when he’d failed his exams. The other boys considered how unwise they had been to come up here to this wet bit of England for their holidays. Their hostess considered how unmarried women with wonderful jobs have a better time of it, and who, if they knew, would be silly enough to have children? Harry considered how much he loved Mr. Kendal the sweep who never got out of sorts and here he was coming from his Land-Rover carrying a covered basket.
    â€œSalmon,” he said. “Brought it up this morning in the car from the wife. Cold enough in there to stay fresh in this weather, and cooked all ready to eat, with peppercorns and bay leaves.”
    A glorious cold salmon slid out of the basket on a long dish and was placed upon the table. “Wow!” said several people at once, and “Oh my goodness!” said Mrs. Bateman blushing pink.
    â€œBut food is not enough,” said Mr. Kendal, “to save a day. Especially a day like this one. Just hark!”
    Rain still beat on the little house on the fell and the wind knocked and pushed ominously at the chimney pot. “Sometimes,” said Kendal, “I’d reckon it was worse up here in August than at any other time. There’s something demented about dark storms in midsummer. More salmon? Yes indeed. All must be consumed. Food does go some distance towards happiness in bad weather. My, but I’ve not ever eaten such grand potatoes.”
    â€œOh, I’ll miss the potatoes for the salmon any time,” said the London father. “We can eat potatoes at home.”
    â€œThen I’ll have the recipe for Mrs. K,” said the sweep. “We grow tired of chips.”
    One of James’s London friends said he couldn’t believe in being tired of chips, though the salmon was wonderful.
    â€œSo’s the little fishes,” said Harry.
    â€œBut not enough. Not enough,” said Kendal, “like I and the Bible were saying. Not even on a dark night with good friends in an old house with the wind round it. Food is not enough. There’s things I could tell you about this house, given time.”
    â€œIs it haunted?” said James.
    â€œNot at all. Not like yonder. But there’s a tale or two—”
    â€œWhere is yonder?” Mr. Bateman leaned back in his chair and sighed with pleasure, for he felt so fit and well—the fresh rain, the clean air, the salmon, the family all around him (“Yes—up in the north again this year. Oh yes—terrible weather but good for fishing. For trout fishing, you know, rain is what we like,” he was saying in his mind, back in London).
    â€œOh—here and there. Just about everywhere round here. Plentiful ghost stories in Stainmer and North Westmorland. Deficient in much but plentiful in stories. Some of them old’uns. None I’d say not known to me. Kendals has been here seven hundred years and they say we’ve never done much or made money, but the one thing we do aright is tell stories. Apart from fish, that is, and sweep. They’re all fairly ancient occupations.”
    â€œWere there chimneys in the thirteenth century?”
    â€œThere were Kendals so there were chimneys,” said Kendal. “Well, Kendals probably got called in long before—to the Celts, messing about with holes in the roof and doors fore and aft for winnowing grain. Very dangerous and unscientific but you can’t expect a great deal of Celts. Some of them peat hags is as old as Celts. You can probably pick out their spade marks. There’s a Celtic settlement above this house.”
    â€œ
Now?
” suddenly said Harry.
    â€œOh yes. Still there. Just a ring of green old turf