The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood by Susan Wittig Albert Page B

the vicar himself had noticed) to the alarming decline in the stock of port in the vicarage’s cellar. Worse, certain unfamiliar charges—cigars and an ebony walking stick, a cashmere shawl and pair of lady’s boots—appeared on the vicarage accounts in several shops in Hawkshead. Pressed by the vicar, Mr. Thexton assured him that repayment would be made as soon as expected funds arrived. And it was, although not promptly, and several new charges brought the total to an even higher amount.
    Faced with this evidence, the vicar began to suspect, with a growing horror, that the Thextons belonged to that dreaded race of spongers : free-loading parasites who lived at the expense of others and who, once comfortably established, could not be got rid of.
    Altogether, it was enough to try the patience of Job. And while Samuel Sackett did not pretend to saintliness, he knew himself to be a man of peace—not a coward, exactly, but . . . well, a man with something of a timid nature, who deeply disliked confrontation. But clearly, it was time that something—several somethings, actually—were done.
    So he closed all of the vicarage accounts in Hawkshead, with instructions that they were not to be reopened until personally authorized by himself. He locked the wine cellar and directed Mrs. Thompson to serve cod three times a week. And finally, he suggested that the Thextons might move down to the Sawrey Hotel, where there was rather more interesting society, or to the Tower Bank Arms, which carved a fine joint of roast beef every night. But Mrs. Thexton sighed and said that she found country hotels most shockingly boring, so he did not pursue the subject. He did, however, take to spending longer and longer hours in his study, where he was writing—as if from his personal experience—a scholarly article on the sufferings of Job.
    And it was there, on the same bright April afternoon that Miss Potter had overheard Mrs. Kittredge and Mr. Richardson discussing the construction of holiday villas, that Mr. Thexton found him.
    “I have just learnt,” Mr. Thexton said with an air of suppressed glee, “that a nearby estate is one of a very few ancient houses of Cumberland which possess a relic granted to it by fairies.” His thick walrus mustache bristled with excitement. “A goblet, I understand.”
    The vicar put down his pen. “You are speaking of the Luck of Raven Hall, I believe.”
    “I am indeed!” Mr. Thexton exclaimed. “And I must say, Cousin Samuel, I take it rather hard that you did not tell me about this yourself. It would have advanced my researches substantially.”
    “I didn’t think of it,” the vicar confessed. “I haven’t thought of it in years, as a matter of fact—perhaps because there has been so much very bad luck there.”
    The story of the Luck of Raven Hall was known throughout the Land between the Lakes, and the vicar reported it as he had often heard it. The Luck was a large glass goblet enameled in gilt, red, blue, and green. It was said to have belonged to the fairies—the Oak Folk, Lakelanders called them—who lived among the ancient trees of Cuckoo Brow Wood, where the Kittredge family estate was located. Soon after Raven Hall was built, on the eve of the wedding of the eldest Kittredge son, a dairymaid went out to milk a cow. When she sat down to milk, however, she discovered to her consternation that her bucket had a hole in it.
    At that moment, a trio of Oak Folk approached, dressed in oak leaves, wearing acorn caps, and carrying a beautiful goblet. They promised that if the maid should milk the cow into the goblet and give the milk to the bride to drink, they would bless the marriage, and the Kittredges’ descendants for all time. But if the goblet were broken, the marriage would be doomed, and with it, the luck of Raven Hall.
    Having given this warning, the Oak Folk danced off into Cuckoo Brow Wood, leaving a last fairy caution ringing in the air:
     
If that glass should break or fall