Argosy, September 1955 — page 89: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MUSIC FOR THE WICKED COUNTESS 87 - ‘““T expect you are exaggerating,’ said the Countess sadly. * Still, he would be a useful replacement for Bran the Harpist, ever since the fool went and had his head chopped off at the Debatable Ford.” She looked crossly over to a corner where a headless harpist was learning to knit, for, being unable to read music, he could no longer play. ‘‘ We must entice this schoolmaster up to the Castle,” said the Wicked Countess. “Twill cheer up our dull and lonely life to have a bit of music once again. Ah, that will be the grand day when they have the television broadcast throughout the length and breadth of the country for the entertainment and instruction of us poor warlocks. I’ve heard they do be having lessons in ballet and basket-making and all sorts of wonderments.” ‘* How will you entice him up? ” asked one of the maidens. “The usual way. [ll toss out me keys and let it be known that my hand and heart is in waiting for the lucky fellow is after finding them. ‘Fhen we'll give him a draught of fairy wine to lull him to sleep for seven years, and after that he’s ours for ever.” So the Countess arranged for the message about the keys to be relayed through the village, and the keys themselves were left lying in a conspicuous place in the middle of the schoolmaster’s garden path, visible to him but invisible to everyone else. Quite a number of people became very excited at the thought of winning the Wicked Countess’s heart and hand, and the forest was almost as crowded as Epping Forest on Bank Holiday, but the schoolmaster was very preoccupied just then with his search for the Scarlet Striped Orchis, which blooms only during the first week in May, and he hardly noticed the commotion. He did observe the keys lying on his path, but he knew they did not belong to him, and they came into none of the categories of things that he collected, so he merely kicked them out of the way, and then forgot them in the excitement of noticing a rare orange fritillary by his garden gate. ‘The man’s possessed! ”’ exclaimed the Countess in vexation. It was mortifying to have her message so completely ignored, but she did not abandon her purpose. “We'll try the snake trick—that’ll be after fetching him in, and he interested in all manner of bugs and reptiles, the way it’d be a terrible life for his wife, poor woman.” The snake trick was a very old ruse for enticing mortals. One of the maidens of the forest changed herself into a beautiful many-coloured snake with ruby eyes and lay in the path of the intended victim, who was unable to resist picking it up and. taking it home. Once inside his house, it changed back inta comiclooks.conn