Free Village Affairs by Miss Read

Mr Salisbury's manner at the managers' meeting made me fear the worst, and I was surprised to find how upset I was.
    Normally, I sleep for nine hours, drugged with work and good downland air. Now I took an hour or more before drifting off, as I tossed and turned trying to decide what to do. Even my appetite suffered, a most unusual symptom, and I found myself nibbling a biscuit and cheese rather than facing a square meal in the evening. What Amy would have said if she could have witnessed my more than usually casual eating habits, I shuddered to think.
    Now and again, I found myself trembling too. Good heavens, was I becoming senile into the bargain? Fat chance I should have of landing another teaching post if I appeared before strange managers with my head shaking and possibly a drop on the end of my nose!
    It was all extremely unnerving, and I was grateful for the children's company in my alarming condition.
    There were other disquieting factors. The weather had turned cold and blustery, despite the fact that June had arrived. We could have done with some heating from the tortoise stoves, but that, of course, was out of the question.
    Then Minnie Pringle's presence about the house on Friday afternoons was distinctly unsettling. On the first visit, she had managed to drop a jar of bath salts into the hand basin, smashing the former and badly cracking the latter.
    Also, in a fit of zeal, she had attacked my frying pan with the disinfectant powder kept for the dustbin, and some steel wool, thus effectively removing the non-stick surface.
    'I thought as it was Vim,' she explained, in answer to my questioning.
    'But it says DISINFECTANT POWDER on the tin!'
    'Can't read them long words,' said Minnie truculently.
    'But you can read "Vim", can't you? And this tin didn't have "Vim" written on it.'
    'Looked the same to me,' replied Minnie, and flounced off, tripping over a rug on the way, and bringing the fire-irons into the hearth with a fearful crash.
    I fled into the garden, unable to face any more destruction. So must victims of earthquakes feel, I thought, as they await the next shattering blow.

    It was during this unsettled period that the case of Arthur Coggs and his companions was heard at Caxley.
    As they appeared in Court on market day, several people from Fairacre were interested spectators, among them Mr Willet. He had travelled in by bus to pick up some plants from the market, and having two hours to spare before the bus returned, decided to witness the fate of the four accused.
    Mr Lovejoy, the most respected solicitor in Caxley, was defending all four, as he had done on many previous occasions.
    'And an uphill job he'll have this time,' commented Mr Willet to me. 'They had the sauce to plead Not Guilty, too.'
    'Perhaps it's true,' I said.
    Mr Willet snorted, puffing out his stained moustache.
    'Want to bet on it? Anyway, old Colonel Austin was in the chair, and he read out a bit, before they got started, about committing 'em to Crown Court if they was found guilty. Something about their characters and antecedents, whatever
that means. But it made it plain that they could get clobbered for more than six months, if need be, and I'd stake my oath that's where they'll end up. All four's got a list as long as my arm, as everyone knows.'
    'A man is innocent,' I said primly, 'until he is proved guilty.'
    'Them four,' replied Mr Willet,' are as innocent as Old Nick hisself. My heart bleeds for that chap Lovejoy trying to whitewash them villains. It'd turn my stomach to do a job like that. I'd sooner dig Hundred Acre Field with a hand fork, that I would!'

    On Monday morning, Mrs Rose arrived in good time, in a little car, shabby and battered enough to win approval from Mrs Pringle, in whose eyes it appeared a very suitable form of transport for teachers. Amy's large high-powered beauty had always offended Mrs Pringle's sense of fitness. She opened the gates for Mrs Rose's vehicle with never a trace of a limp, or a word of