Here are the quotations for the coming weel (December 12th to 18th):

 

1. '..."You'll be seein' Mr Godsoe soon ? …Well then, tell him from me that I expect to be through with my little trouble by the twenty-first of next month, an' I'm dyin' to see him as soon as possible after that date." '

'What sort of trouble was it?' …

'She'd 'ad a bit of a gatherin' in 'er breast, I believe. But she never talked of 'er body much to anyone.' …

2. '…Come spring , I 'ad something else to rage for. I'd growed a nasty little weepin' boil, like, on me shin, just above the boot-top, that wouldn't heal no shape. It made me sick to look at it, for I'm clean-fleshed by nature. Chop me all over with a spade an' I'd heal like turf…I've gone the better part of a year onct or twice with na'un more to show than the little weepin' core of it, like. All s'rinked up an' dried off. Then he'd inflame up - for a warnin' - an' I'd suffer it…'

3. …He went down the road, collected his little knot of listeners, and began the Song of the Girl. In the middle of his singing he felt the cold touch of the Crab's claw on the apple of his throat. He lifted his hand, choked, and stopped for an instant…when his song was ended, he felt the grip on his throat tighten…

The sources of this week's extracts (December 5th to 11th) are as follows:

 

1. ( ...she turned her broad black bows to the westering light, and lifted us high upon hills that we might see and rejoice with her.)  This is from "Steam Tactics" in Traffics and Discoveries.

2.  (...I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches...)  This is from " 'They' " in Traffics and Discoveries.

 

3.  (...The mustard-coloured scouts of the Automobile Association; their natural enemies, the unjust police; our natural enemies...)  This is from "The Vortex" in A Diversity of Creatures.