This short story is about Ebetha Cob, an elderly lady who has, like her parents before her, avoided her more annoying relatives. She has lived a near-perfect life in her cottage beside the river, that is until a jobbing tramp named Mr Firebright arrives. Mr Firebright in his turn is followed by a troupe of imps, whose aims are to change Ebetha Cob's difficult relatives for the better. Yet these little helpers will do more for Ebetha Cob than either she or Mr Firebright might have imagined.
S.V. Cathens is a former bursary poet, who is these days a trained fine artist. He writes and paints and draws in Yorkshire in the U.K.