This last remark was followed by the sounds of a scuffle.

Mr Aching glanced nervously at the roof and leaned closer. ‘You know your mother is very worried about you? You know she’s just been a grandma again. She’s very proud of them all. And you too, of course,’ he added hurriedly. ‘But all this witchy business, well, that’s not the sort of thing a young man looks for in a wife. And now that you and young Roland …’

Tiffany dealt with this. Dealing was part of witchcraft too. Her father looked so miserable that she put on her cheerful face and said, ‘If I was you, Dad, I would go home and get a decent night’s sleep. I’ll sort things out. Actually, there’s a coil of rope over there, but I’m certain I won’t need to use it now.’

He looked relieved at this. The Nac Mac Feegle could be pretty worrying to those who did not know them very well, although now she thought about it, they could be pretty worrying however long you had known them; a Feegle in your life very soon changed it.

‘Have you been here all this time?’ she demanded, as soon as her father had hurried off.

For a moment it rained bits of hay and whole Feegles.

The problem with getting angry at Nac Mac Feegles was that it was like getting angry at cardboard or the weather; it didn’t make any difference. She had a go anyway, because by now it was sort of traditional.

‘Rob Anybody! You promised not to spy on me!’

Rob held up a hand. ‘Ah weel, there ye have it, right enough, but it is one of them miss apprehensions, miss, ’cause we wasn’t spying at all, was we, lads?’

The mass of little blue and red shapes that now covered the floor of the barn raised their voices in a chorus of blatant lying and perjury. It slowed down when they saw her expression.

‘Why is it, Rob Anybody, that you persist in lying when you are caught red-handed?’

‘Ah weel, that’s an easy one, miss,’ said Rob Anybody, who was technically the head man of the Nac Mac Feegles. ‘After all, ye ken, what would be the point of lyin’ when you had nae done anything wrong? Anyway, now I am mortally wounded to my giblets on account of me good name being slandered,’ he said, grinning. ‘How many times have I lied to you, miss?’