Я надену полночь

There is a lot of folklore about equestrian statues, especially the ones with riders on them. There is said to be a code in the number and placement of the horse's hooves: If one of the horse's hooves is in the air, the rider was wounded in battle; two legs in the air means that the rider was killed in battle; three legs in the air indicates that the rider got lost on the way to the battle; and four legs in the air means that the sculptor was very, very clever. Five legs in the air means that there's probably at least one other horse standing behind the horse you're looking at; and the rider lying on the ground with his horse lying on top of him with all four legs in the air means that the rider was either a very incompetent horseman or owned a very bad-tempered horse.

The misery of the place was getting on Tiffany’s nerves too, and she tried to stop herself being cruel; but how hard was it to slosh a bucket of cold water over a stone floor and swoosh it out of the door with a broom? How hard was it to make some soap? You could make quite a serviceable one out of wood ash and animal fat. And, as her mother had said once, ‘No one is too poor to wash a window,’ although her father, just to annoy her mother, occasionally changed it to, ‘No one is too poor to wash a widow.’

‘I suppose you think you’ve got away with it, do you?’ said a voice behind her. Tiffany waited a moment before turning round, and when she did turn round, she was smiling. ‘Why, Miss Spruce,’ she said, ‘are you still here? Well, perhaps there are some floors that need scrubbing?’
The nurse was a vision of fury. ‘I do not scrub floors, you arrogant little—’
‘No, you don’t scrub anything, do you, Miss Spruce? I’ve noticed that! Now, Miss Flowerdew, who was here before you, now she could scrub a floor. She could scrub a floor so that you could see your face in it, although in your case, Miss Spruce, I can imagine why that would not appeal. Miss Jumper, who we had before her, would even scrub floors with sand, white sand! She chased dirt like a terrier chasing a fox!’
The nurse opened her mouth to speak, but Tiffany didn’t allow the words any space. ‘The cook has told me that you are a very religious woman, always on your knees, and that is fine by me, absolutely fine, but didn’t it ever occur to you to take a mop and bucket down there with you? People don’t need prayers, Miss Spruce; they need you to do the job in front of you, Miss Spruce. And I have had enough of you, Miss Spruce, and especially of your lovely white coat. I think Roland was very impressed by your
wonderful white coat, but I am not, Miss Spruce, because you never do anything that will get it dirty.’

They sat in silence for a while. Then her father looked down at the sleeping girl. ‘What have you done for her?’ he asked.
‘Everything I can,’ said Tiffany.
‘And you did that taking-away-pain thingy you do?’
She sighed. ‘Yes, but that’s not all I shall have to take away. I need to borrow a shovel, Dad. I’ll bury the poor little thing down in the woods, where no one will know.’
He looked away. ‘I wish it wasn’t you doing this, Tiff. You’re not sixteen yet and I see you running around nursing people and bandaging people and who knows what chores. You shouldn’t have to be doing all of that.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Tiffany.
‘Why? ’ he asked again.
‘Because other people don’t, or won’t, or can’t, that’s why.’
‘But it’s not your business, is it?’
‘I make it my business. I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business,’ Tiffany said quickly.
‘Yes, but we all thought it was going to be about whizzing around on brooms and suchlike, not cutting old ladies’ toenails for them.’
‘But people don’t understand what’s needed,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s not that they are bad; it’s just that they don’t think. Take old Mrs Stocking, who’s got nothing in the world except her cat and a whole lot of arthritis. People were getting her a bite to eat often enough, that is true, but no one was noticing that her toenails were so long they were tangling up inside her boots and so she’d not been able to take them off for a year! People around here are OK when it comes to food and the occasional bunch of flowers, but they are not around when things get a little on the messy side. Witches notice these things. Oh, there’s a certain amount of whizzing about, that’s true enough, but mostly it’s only to get quickly to somewhere there is a mess.’
Her father shook his head. ‘And you like doing this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Tiffany had to think about this, her father’s eyes never leaving her face. ‘Well, Dad, you know how Granny Aching always used to say, “Feed them as is hungry, clothe them as is naked, and speak up for them as has no voices”? Well, I reckon there is room in there for “Grasp for them as can’t bend, reach for them as can’t stretch, wipe for them as can’t twist”, don’t you? And because sometimes you get a good day that makes up for all the bad days and, just for a moment, you hear the world turning,’ said Tiffany. ‘I can’t put it any other way.’
Her father looked at her with a kind of proud puzzlement. ‘And you think that’s worth it, do you?’
‘Yes, Dad!’
‘Then I am proud of you, jiggit, you are doing a man’s job!’
He’d used the pet name only the family knew, and so she kissed him politely and did not tell him that he was unlikely to see a man doing the job that she did.