‘And that goat of his!’ Mrs Whistler added, folding her impressive arms under her even more impressive chest. ‘Looks a testy animal to me, but that Geoffrey has him trotting along all peaceful like.’
‘Wish he could do the same to my Joe!’ Betsy cackled, and she and Mrs Whistler chortled together as they headed off down the street.
Tiffany watched them go, and began thinking about her backhouse boy, wondering how he made things settle down so well, and she thought, I’ve seen those people before – the ones who seem to know everybody. They hold the ring, stop the fighting. I think I shall let him go round the houses with me now, and see what he does.
And so Geoffrey went out the next day with Tiffany, hanging on behind her on the broomstick, his face lighting up with sheer joy as Tiffany awkwardly steered the much heavier stick into the mountains; and the houses lit up as soon as he came in, so cheerfully alive. He could be funny, he could sing songs, and somehow he made everything . . . a bit better. Crying babies began to gurgle instead of howl, grown-ups stopped arguing, and the mothers became more peaceful and took his advice.
He was good with animals too. A young heifer would stand for him, rather than skitter off in fright at a stranger, while cats would stroll in and immediately decide that Geoffrey’s lap was the place to be. Tiffany once saw him leaning up against a woodland cottage wall with a family of rabbits resting at his feet – at the same time as the farm dog was by his side.
Nanny Ogg, after seeing Geoffrey with Tiffany one day, said, ‘His heart’s in the right place, I c’n smell it. I knows men, you know.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve seen a great many in my time in all kinds of circumstances, believe you me. I won’t say as he’s rich material right now, and some of the other witches might not like a boy comin’ into the business, but, Tiff, never let no one tell you as Granny Weatherwax wouldn’t like it. Remember, she chose you to be her successor, not none of them. An’ you got to do it your way too. Not hers. So if’n you wants to train up this lad, well, you go ’n’ do it.’
Tiffany herself was becoming fascinated by Geoffrey’s goat. Mephistopheles came and went, but unless she and Geoffrey were off on the broomstick he would usually be somewhere near Geoffrey and it seemed to Tiffany that the goat watched over the boy. They had a code. It was as if the goat could talk just by tapping a hoof, and occasionally there would be a staccato of complicated hoof taps. If Mephistopheles had been a dog, he would have been a pointer, she thought. His master was his friend, and woe betide anyone who took advantage of Geoffrey’s good nature – the hooves of Mephistopheles were exceedingly sharp.
When Geoffrey was away, the goat often took himself off. He had soon got the goats at Granny’s cottage doing his bidding, and Nanny Ogg said once that she had seen what she called ‘that devil goat’ sitting in the middle of a circle of feral goats up in the hills. She named him ‘The Mince of Darkness’ because of his small and twinkling hooves, and added, ‘Not that I don’t like him, stinky as he is. I’ve always been one for the horns, as you might say. Goats is clever. Sheep ain’t. No offence, my dear.’
The triumph of Mephistopheles – proving Nanny right on both counts – happened at the edge of the woods surrounding the cottage, near the foothills of the nearest mountain, when Geoffrey had taken the cart over to look at a small boy who needed medicine.
On this homestead, on this particular day, the mother was watching Geoffrey. In the flurry of worry about her son she had left the gate to the sheep pen open. And the sheep, like all sheep, got hysterical and were getting out and running away before she looked out of the window and noticed.
‘My husband isn’t going to like this. It takes ages to get them settled down,’ the young mother wailed. ‘Look at them, running everywhere!’
Geoffrey put his head out of the window and made a clicking sound to Mephistopheles, whom he had unhitched from the cart and allowed to graze. The goat stopped eating the herbage – and then what happened next went all round Lancre. To hear it, the goat Mephistopheles rounded up those sheep like the best of shepherds. The sheep outnumbered him, of course, but carefully – one after the other – he herded them neatly back through the gate.
When the mother told her husband later that the goat had not only got the sheep into the pen but had also shut the gate after them, he thought that was a bit far-fetched, but it still made a good story down the pub, and the legend of Mephistopheles spread rapidly.
Geoffrey and Nanny Ogg told Tiffany the tale. Along with Geoffrey’s work for the little boy, that made it a day well done. But Tiffany couldn’t help looking at the slot-eyed Mephistopheles. She knew goats. But this goat had a purpose, she was sure. And it was watching her, she noticed, and watching You, who was watching the goat whilst, of course, pretending to look anywhere else. Everybody was watching everybody else, it seemed. She smiled.