can’t spoil. Even if he chose ‘Hollingside’, instead, that would be only a shade less satisfying than the majestic Welsh harmonies. Only the rest of the choir rose apathetically. Bossie, for once, had missed practice, owing to the slight aftermath of a visit to the dentist, and the sound of a completely strange, complicated and extremely uncongenial tune rolling down from the organ-loft caused his jaw to drop, and his eyes to pop out like hat-pegs with indignation. He could even spoil this! Here on the edge of Wales, in a parish of fervent singers, who but Rainbow would have dared to ditch something as splendid as ‘Aberystwyth’ for this trendy drivel?
Bossie grasped the pencil and wrote the final line of the quatrain so violently that he pushed holes in the paper:
‘Rainbow’s
They sat on upturned boxes among the coke, and there wasn’t a dissentient voice among them.
‘Our choir’s been made to raise new anthems long enough,’ said Bossie grimly, setting his rounded but resolute jaw. ‘The others are just as fed-up as we are, and dislike him just as much, and if he stays here much longer somebody’s going to get desperate and dot him one, or set his house on fire, or something. Because he’s never going to fit in, he’s all wrong, and he’s
‘You’re only saying what everybody’s been saying for weeks now,’ Ginger reminded him reasonably. He was a solid, sensible boy, large for his thirteen years, freckled and sandy, but placid of disposition instead of fiery. ‘They shut up if they think we’re listening, but you should have heard the basses letting fly the other night, after he produced this new tune. They didn’t know I was still there. But if they can’t think of any way of getting rid of him, what do you reckon we can do?’
‘He won’t go easily,’ said Toffee Bill gloomily. His mother’s shop had not benefited at all from the coming of the Rainbows, who had most of their exotic goods delivered from Comerbourne. Middlehope was good enough to exploit and patronise, but not to mix with; except, of course, its top layers, where layers had never played much part before. The pub didn’t benefit, either, drinks were sent up by the crate from dealers in Birmingham. ‘He’s got that house all poshed up, he won’t let go of it now, after all the money he’s spent, not unless he’s druv out. And I don’t know how you set about that.’
‘Grown-ups are too squeamish,’ said Bossie darkly. ‘What’s the use of fair means, if they don’t work? They’ve been trying to chill him out for ages, ever since they found out what he’s like, but he doesn’t even notice. As long as he’s running everything in sight his way, he doesn’t care whether people like him or not.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m saying. If he doesn’t care, freezing him out isn’t going to work, is it?’ Toffee Bill, treasurer of the gang’s funds and adviser on best-buys in the sweet world, expert on special offers, competitions and bonus bars, was the thinnest child in the choir, being blessed with one of those metabolisms that can deal with huge amounts of food without putting on an ounce of flesh. His voice was passable, but nothing to write home about, but his value to the group was immense, and they would have resigned
‘We could scare him off with a ghost,’ this diminutive genius offered brightly. Three suppressive voices at once opined that of all people, Rainbow would be the last to believe in ghosts, since he didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t buy, sell or boss. ‘Besides, he’s been in the house more than four months now, where’s this ghost been all that time? He’d laugh his head off!’
‘He wouldn’t if everybody else was laughing,’ said Bossie thoughtfully. ‘Laughing at him! That’s the one thing he wouldn’t be able to stand. He can’t be all that sure of his ground, he’s always been a townie until now, this is a new venture for him. We’ve let it go on too long, but it’s still new. Once shake him, and he won’t think it worthwhile fighting it out, he’ll make off to the town again. But it’s got to be a real shocker to prise him loose. After all, he can sell the house, can’t he? It’s all done up beautifully, he needn’t lose on it, it’s a walk-in job, ready for occupation. He’d realise and get out. If we can make him a laughing-stock.’
He had them all eating out of his hand by this time, as he usually could do at need, if only by reason of his overwhelming vocabulary. Bossie was twelve years old, only child of a marriage between a classically-educated intellectual and a shrewd, practical farmer’s daughter, brains on both sides of his parentage, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge in the product. He was relatively small for his age, but compact and tough, as plain as the plainest pike-staff that ever carried a deadly pike, with corrective glasses to eradicate the infant consequences of what is technically termed a lazy eye. His colouring was nondescript brown, with thick dun-coloured hair that grew in all directions, and unnerving hazel eyes enlarged unequally behind their therapeutic lenses, which in a few years he would discard, to become disarmingly human. Altogether, a walking time-bomb, propelled by precocious intuitions and abilities, and restrained by a classical and liberal education. He knew he was formidable, but he didn’t know how formidable.
‘And how do we do that?’ wondered Ginger, reserving judgement.
‘Well, he’s a dealer in antiques, isn’t he? That’s how he’s made his money, and that’s his weakness, because you can’t know everything about everything, and antiques is practically everything. So if we hooked him on an antique that would get him foaming at the mouth, thinking he’d cornered a fortune, and then show him up either as a cheat who was pinching something belonging to someone else, or a fool who’s fallen for a common forgery – you think he’d stand up to that? I don’t! He’s got a reputation to lose in the trade. He’d spread his wings and fly, as fast and quietly as he could, and hope nobody outside here would ever hear of it.’
They mulled that over in silence for some moments, and found but one fault in it. Ginger dispiritedly put it into words. ‘That sounds all very well. But we haven’t got an antique to shove under his nose, real or fake. And even if we had, we wouldn’t know how to set about it.’
‘But I have,’ said Bossie portentously, sinking his voice to hollow depths of conspiracy. ‘And
‘Dad,’ demanded Bossie, emerging with knitted brows from behind an enormous book containing full-page illustrations from the Stonyhurst Gospels, ‘how late did they go on writing in uncials?’
Sam barely looked up from his desk, and showed no excitement or curiosity whatever at this sudden enquiry. No question from Bossie, on any subject from Egyptian hieroglyphs to nuclear physics, could surprise his parents. He was an insatiable sponge for knowledge of all kinds.
‘Oh, it petered out round about the eighth to the ninth century, I suppose.’
‘Pity!’ said Bossie. ‘It’s easy to read. How did they write after that, then?’
‘It got more and more loose and cursive, and a lot harder to read, you’re right there.’
‘Where can I find a copy, say about late thirteenth century?’
