VI
THE MAGIC SONG
About a month after Cuthbert had been lucky enough to save Beardy Ned's little girl, the weather grew so hot that all the people in the town became rather discontented. It is always easier for people in towns to become discontented than it is for other people, because instead of fields to walk on they have only pavements; and instead of hills to look at they have only chimneys; and instead of bean-flowers to smell they have only dust-bins and the stale air that trickles down the streets. So the men in the ironworks were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the ironworks didn't give them enough money; and the men in the cotton-mills were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the cotton-mills made them work too hard; and the girls in Mr Joseph's refreshment shops thought him a cruel old beast; and the policemen thought that nobody loved them.
Also, the men who owned the ironworks thought that their men were greedy; and the men who owned the cotton-mills were afraid of becoming poor; and Mr Joseph was feeling depressed; and the policemen still thought that nobody loved them. Even dear Miss Plum, the head of the school, had a frown on her forehead, and the French mistress slapped Doris so hard that she left a red mark on Doris's cheek. Of course Doris was very angry about it, and her little brothers wanted to know exactly where the mark was. But it had faded away by the time she arrived home, and her mother only said that it had probably served her right. Doris was rather fond, you see, of cheeking the French mistress, and asking her silly questions to make the other girls laugh; and since she had had her hair bobbed the week before, she was even cheekier than usual.
Doris, as you may remember, lived in John Street, which was the next street to Peter Street, where Marian and Cuthbert lived. But the houses in it were smaller than the houses in Peter Street, and most of the people in them were rather poor. Doris's mother was poor, because Doris's daddy was dead, and Doris had five little brothers—Teddy and George, who were the twins, and Jimmy and Jocko and Christopher Mark. They were much too poor to be able to have a maid, and so Doris's mother had to do most of the work. She had to be cook and housemaid and nurse and governess and Mummy darling all in one. Now that Doris was ten she was able to help her mother sometimes, and she used to take Christopher Mark out in his push-cart; and since she had been to the Arctic Circle with Cuthbert and Captain Jeremy her mother had begun to lean upon her a little more.
But oh, it was hot! The people in the streets lagged along with pale faces. They talked about the trouble in the ironworks, and the trouble in the cotton-mills, and what would Mr Joseph do if his girls went on strike, and didn't the policemen look ill-tempered? And Miss Plum couldn't make her accounts come right; and the French mistress went home to her boarding-house; and there she told everybody that she was going to be ill, and that the ham was tepid and the milk-pudding sour.
Even in John Street it was almost as bad, though it was a quiet street with a field at the other end of it. For the sun poured right into it, so that there wasn't any shade, and the stones of the pavement shone like martyrs, and the drains at Number Fifteen were out of order, and there was half a haddock lying in the middle of the road. So Doris went into the garden when they had all finished tea, but it was as hot in the garden as it was anywhere else; and the lady next door was grumbling to the lady beyond about one of her husband's collars that had been spoilt in the wash. Doris played about a bit and made Jocko cry, because he was silly and wanted to read a book; and then she went round to Peter Street to see Cuthbert and Marian, and found that they had gone into the country to see their Uncle Joe.
So she came back and teased the twins, and at last it was time to go to bed; and it was almost as hot after the sun had gone down as it had been in the middle of the day. She slept in the same room with Jimmy and Jocko, and they all turned and twisted and kicked off their bedclothes; and as the daylight faded the moonlight grew, so that it was past ten before they fell asleep. That was when their mother came and kissed them, and she was so tired that she could hardly stand; and then she went to bed and fell asleep too, and the church clock struck eleven times. Happy was Beardy Ned then, sleeping by the stream, with little Liz and his beautiful secret; and happy was Gwendolen in her farmhouse bedroom smelling of lavender and last year's apples. But sorrowful and sticky were the people of the town, and troubled were their slumbers.
Then Doris sat up suddenly, for out in the street was the biggest din that she had ever heard. She jumped from her bed and ran to the window, and there she saw nine of the strangest-looking people. There was a big sailor with a concertina, and a stout lady with a tambourine, and a soldier with a pair of cymbals, and an elderly greengrocer, who was very thin. They were standing in a row, and sitting on the ground behind them were five men, each with a drum. Doris leaned out, and when they saw her they all sang louder than ever; but the funny thing was that nobody else in the whole street seemed to hear them. The blinds were all down, the moonlight lay on the road, and there wasn't a head at anybody's window.
When Doris first listened they had been singing about the lady, but now they began to sing about the sailor, and the sailor stepped forward, playing his concertina, and singing the loudest of them all. He had a tenor voice with a great smack in it, like the smack of a wave against a jetty, and when he sang softly without taking a breath it was like water running through seaweed. The soldier sang bass, like a motor-lorry in a hurry to get home over a rough road, and the stout lady sang soprano, and the elderly greengrocer only squeaked. This is what they sang:
Here's a sailor come home from the Guineas,
His face is as black as a leaf,
His eyes are like forests of darkness,
His heart is a hotbed of grief,
His arms are like roots of the jungle,
He has ladies tattooed on his skin,
And his clothes smell of cinnamon—cardamom—tar.
Oh, mother, must I let him in?
Bang! Bang! [went the drums],
Oh, mother, must I let him in?
Then there was a chorus and the queerest sort of dance, and it all seemed somehow to be just wrong; and when they stopped and looked up at her window Doris really didn't know what to make of them. Then the sailor coughed, and scratched the back of his head, and said, "Beg pardon, miss, but are you ten years old?"
Doris said that she was.
"And have you five brothers younger than yourself?"
Doris said that she had.
"And have you five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot?"
Doris laughed and said that they could come and count them if they didn't believe her word.
They looked at one another with a peculiar expression, while the five drummers stared at the ground; and then the stout lady asked her if she would come downstairs and let them count her eyelashes.
"Why do you want to count my eyelashes?" asked Doris.
"It's most important," said the greengrocer.
"If you'll come downstairs," said the soldier, "we shall be most happy to tell you why."
Doris pulled her head in and glanced round the bedroom. Jimmy and Jocko were still fast asleep. She put on her dressing-gown, but not her slippers, in case they should want to count her toes. Then she opened the door and ran softly downstairs, and drew back the bolts, and went into the street.
"Wouldn't it be better," said the stout lady, "if we went to a quieter place?"
"Well, there's a field," said Doris, "at the end of the street. Of course, we might go along there."
"You're sure you're not frightened?" asked the sailor.
The five drummers still stared at the ground.
"Not very much," said Doris. "You aren't going to hurt me, are you?"
"God forbid!" said the elderly greengrocer.
So they went up the street to the field at the end, and there they all crouched under the hedge; and the sailor, whose name was Lancelot, did most of the talking, because he was the biggest.
"You see, we've all lost something," he said, "so we went to see an old man as lives in the middle of Brazil. He's the wisest old geezer as ever lived, and we all of us told him what we had lost. This here lady has lost her husband and has been trying to find him for years and years; and this here soldier has lost his character and can't find a general to give him a job; and this here greengrocer has lost his appetite and is getting thinner and thinner; and as for me, I've lost my temper and can't find a ship to sail in."
"That's very sad," said Doris. "And what have these drummers lost?"
"Their senses," said Lancelot. "Each of these here drummers has been and lost one of his senses. The first can't see, and the second can't hear, and the third can't smell, and the fourth can't taste, and the fifth can't feel."
"I see," said Doris. "And what did the old man tell you?"
"Well," said Lancelot, "that's just what I'm coming to. He told us he'd thought of a magic song. There was four verses to it, and the words didn't matter, he said, so long as they was each sung by somebody as had lost something. After each verse there was a chorus, and in between the verses there was a dance. When we'd told him our troubles, he made up some words for us, and then he lent us these here drummers. But what you've got to find, he said, is a little girl as can play this here flute, for until you've found her you can sing as loud as you like, but you won't sing right, and nobody won't hear you. But when you've found her—that's what the old man said—she'll be able to blow this here flute, for this here flute can play by itself if you find the right little girl to blow it. Well, of course we was interested, so we asked him to go on, and he said that it would play for just about an hour, and by the end of that time, he said, it would have settled all our troubles and all the troubles of the people as heard it. Only, first of all, he said, you must find the right little girl, and the time must be midnight, and the moon must be full."
"Dear me!" said Doris, "that sounds rather odd."
"That's what we thought," said the stout lady.
"Well," said Lancelot, "naturally we asked him where this here girl was to be found. But he shook his head, and he said as he didn't know, and that all we could do was to go and look for her. You must travel about, he said, and sing this here music, but the only people as'll be able to hear you will be little girls twice five years old, with five brothers younger than theirselves, and with five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot. And of them, he says, the only little girl as'll be able to play this here flute must have a hundred and five eyelashes on her right upper eyelid."
He felt in his pocket and pulled out a magnifying glass.
"So that's why we want to count your eyelashes."
They looked at her anxiously, all except the drummers, and they were still looking at the ground.
"All right," said Doris, "count away. I'm sure I don't know how many I've got."
She closed her eyes, and they stared through the magnifying glass, and began to count her right upper eyelashes. She became quite excited as they went on.
"A hundred and three," they said, "a hundred and four, a hundred and five," and then they gave a great shout.
"You're the one," they cried, "you're the very one! You've exactly a hundred and five!"
She opened her eyes again and saw them dancing about.
"Where's the flute?" she asked.
The soldier gave it to her.
"And the moon's full," said the greengrocer, "and it's a quarter to twelve. Perhaps we shall soon find my appetite."
"And my character," said the soldier.
"And my husband," said the stout lady.
"And my temper," said Lancelot.
But the drummers had lost hope, and still stared at the ground.
"Now," said Lancelot, "we'd better go to the market-place. This here little girl will show us the way. And when the clocks have struck twelve we'll sing our song and see what happens."
So they went to the market-place, where the Town Hall was, and where all the tram-lines criss-crossed; and the policeman on duty outside the Bank stared at them sleepily, but didn't say anything. There were also two dustmen with a cart clearing up rubbish and bits of newspaper, and a water-man watering the asphalt, and some postmen outside the Post Office loading a mail-van. Then the deep bell in the old abbey tower began to toll the hour of midnight, and the moon looked down on them with her silver face, and they stood in a row and began their song.
Doris's hands were shaky, as you can imagine, when she lifted the flute to her lips. But when she began to blow, the flute began to play; and oh, the difference it made to the song! For it was now a song with the maddest and sweetest and most beguiling melody that anybody in the world had ever imagined, or ever imagined that anybody could imagine. It began very softly, like a boy whistling, and the cracking of sticks in a deep wood, and then it sounded like birds singing, and water falling, and ripe fruit dropping from trees. Then it grew louder, until it sounded like thunder and sea-waves shattering on the beach; and then it grew softer again, like leaves rustling, and crickets chirping in the grass.
Before the stout lady had sung half the first verse, Doris could hardly stand still enough to play the flute. She could scarcely believe that it was possible for anybody in the world to feel so happy. She saw the policeman running toward them, and the postmen, and the man from the water-cart; and she saw the windows above the shops in the market-place thrown up, and people looking out. Then came the chorus, like the pealing of great bells, and the policeman and the postmen began to join in, and people in their nightdresses and pyjamas came running out of their front doors, singing at the tops of their voices.
Before the chorus was over there were nearly a hundred people singing and shouting and beating time, and the cymbals were clashing, and the concertina was groaning, and the five drummers were hitting like mad. But it was the flute, it was Doris's flute, that soared up and up and led the whole music; and when the dance came, it was the magic of Doris's flute that stole into the feet of all who heard it.
Most of them were bare feet, like Doris's own, but some were in slippers and some in boots, and soon they were all whirling and twisting and hopping, as the people that they belonged to danced and sang. The news had spread abroad now, and by the end of the second verse the whole of the market-place was simply crammed, and by the end of the third verse all the streets that led into it were bubbling over with people dancing. There were the ironworks men dancing with their employers, and Mr Joseph dancing with his girls, and the heads of the cotton-mills dancing in their pyjamas, arm-in-arm with the people that worked for them. And there was the French mistress dancing with the two dustmen, and there was Miss Plum dancing with the chimney-sweep, and there was the policeman trying to dance with everybody, and everybody trying to dance with him.
Then a little man with a carroty moustache pushed through the crowd and caught hold of the stout lady; and she nearly dropped her tambourine, because he was her long-lost husband. As for the greengrocer, he became so hungry that he danced into one of Mr Joseph's shops, and Mr Joseph gave him permission to eat everything that he could see. Funnily enough, too, both Uncle Joe and Captain Jeremy happened to be in town; and when Uncle Joe caught sight of the soldier he was so struck with his honest appearance that he gave him the names of three or four generals who would be only too glad to have him in their armies. It was the same, too, with Lancelot, for when Captain Jeremy spoke to him his face became so gentle that Captain Jeremy resolved at once to give him a job as bosun's mate.
Then the French mistress came and kissed Doris, and then everybody cheered everybody else; and the five drummers shouted with joy, because each of them had found the sense that he had lost. The blind one could see; and the deaf one could hear; and the one that couldn't feel felt somebody squeezing him; and the one that couldn't smell suddenly smelt somebody's tooth powder; and the one that couldn't taste had the biggest surprise of all. For one of Mr Joseph's girls gave him a box of chocolates, and it was the loveliest thing that had ever happened to him; and after that, when she gave him some almond rock, he asked her if she would marry him, and she said that she would.
For a whole hour Doris played her flute, and then it stopped, and everybody looked at everybody else; and everybody else looked so queer and funny that everybody began to shout with laughter. Even the moon laughed, and the end of it was that they all resolved to make up their quarrels, because after what had happened it seemed so silly to go on quarrelling about anything. But what the tune of the song was no one remembered; and next morning when Doris took the flute to school, none of the girls could make it play anything, not even Gwendolen, who had a flute at home.
"H'shh," said the man in the moon,
Full-faced and white,
And I listened,
I listened so hard that I heard through the night,
Faint through a crack
In the ice of the whiteness, I heard
Somebody whisper my name
With a magical word.
And the moon and the stars and the sky,
And the roofs of the street,
Fell in fragments of darkness and silver
That danced at my feet.
And we danced, and we danced, and we danced,
And oh! tired was I
When, full-faced and white, the cold moon
Shone again in the sky.
THE IMAGINARY BOY
VII
THE IMAGINARY BOY
Soon after Doris's adventure with the flute, Marian and Gwendolen made a most solemn vow. Marian pricked her finger with a needle and made a tiny drop of blood come, and then she rubbed it into the palm of Gwendolen's hand and promised to be faithful to her for ever. Then Gwendolen pricked her own finger and rubbed it into the palm of Marian's hand, and took her dying oath that Marian should always be her greatest friend. Then they washed their hands under the nursery tap and cleaned the needle and put it back in the workbox, and Marian was very pleased, and so was Gwendolen, and when they told Cuthbert he said that he didn't mind much.
Marian was pleased, because she knew that Gwendolen would ask her to tea pretty often at the old farmhouse; and Gwendolen was pleased, because that was the first time that she had ever had a greatest friend; and Cuthbert didn't mind much, because he had gone to a new school, where there was a boy called Edward Goldsmith, who was wonderfully strong, and could dive into the water backward from the top diving-board at the town baths. He was going to be a barrister like Mr Jenkins, who took the plate round at St Peter's Church, and after that he was going to be Lord Chief Justice, like the great Lord Barrington at Fairbarrow Park.
Gwendolen's aunt was pleased too, and so was Captain Jeremy when Gwendolen told him, and so were her father and mother, who were climbing the Himalaya Mountains and writing a book called Two Above the Snowline. But Gwendolen didn't know, of course, about her father and mother being glad till she got a letter from them; and by then she had become quite used to having Marian for her greatest friend.
This letter came during the first week of the holidays, while Marian was staying for a few days with Gwendolen. Both Gwendolen's aunt and Captain Jeremy were away on a short voyage, and Marian and Gwendolen had the house to themselves, except for Mrs Robertson, the cook, Amy and Agnes, the two maids, and Percy, the boot-and-garden boy.
Percy was the boy that used to open the door when Gwendolen's aunt lived in Bellington Square, and his father was a gamekeeper, called Mr Williams, who worked for Lord Barrington at Fairbarrow Park. Percy was sixteen, and was going to marry Agnes as soon as he had saved enough money, and though he was rather proud, Marian and Gwendolen liked him, but not so much as they liked his father.
They liked Mr Williams, because he knew all about rabbits, and used to take them through places marked Private; and they liked Mrs Williams, because she gave them peppermints and never minded how many questions they asked. Mr Williams was tall, with a grey moustache, and his clothes smelt of tobacco, and he wore gaiters; and Mrs Williams was short, and her arms smelt of soap, and she was always popping upstairs to change her apron. They lived in a little cottage near the Park gates, and they had six children besides Percy, but Mr Williams was nearly always out, setting traps or counting the young partridges.
Fairbarrow Park was about three miles round, and was half-way to Fairbarrow Down; and in the middle of it was Lord Barrington's house, with its thirty bedrooms and all its gardens. There was an Italian garden and a Dutch garden and a rose-garden and a water-garden; and there were lawns as smooth as a ballroom floor, over which the peacocks cried and strutted. But besides all these, and the Park in which they nestled, most of the country round belonged to Lord Barrington; and it was in the woods and fields which he let to different farmers that the pheasants and partridges made their homes.
When they had finished reading Gwendolen's letter, which came just after their middle-day dinner, Marian and Gwendolen thought that they would go and see Mr Williams, and watch the young partridges that he was bringing up by hand. So they set off, and presently they found him just at the farther edge of Lord Barrington's estate, where there was a little wood climbing up the side of Fairbarrow Down. There was a sort of grassy hollow near the wood, and here Mr Williams had placed half a dozen hen-coops; and in front of these he had built a little mound, made of lumps of turf dug from the Down. In among these lumps of turf there were thousands of ants and several ants' nests full of eggs; and a score of young partridges were scrambling over them, finding their afternoon meal.
Usually Mr Williams was glad to see the girls, and to let them play with the young partridges, but this afternoon he only nodded to them and went on smoking in silence. They were a little surprised, because it was such a lovely afternoon, with the sky bluer than any ocean, and the fields all glittering with the leaves of the root crops, or hidden away under the golden wheat. Here and there the reapers were already at work cutting the first of the oats and barley, and about a mile away they could see the chimneys of the great house shining in groups between the tree-tops.
The only dark spot was the thick and tangled pinewood, known as the Haunted Wood, into which Lord Barrington never allowed anybody besides himself to go. It was inside the Park, and round two sides of it ran the Park wall, with sharp iron spikes on the top; and round the other two sides there was a barbed-wire fence, with a small gate in it, heavily padlocked. For twenty years it had never been touched. When a tree fell over, it lay where it had fallen; between the trunks of the trees there had grown a jungle of undergrowth; and only Lord Barrington had the key of the gate.
Mr Williams was still sitting down, staring moodily in front of him, when Marian asked him what was the matter, and was he angry with them for coming?
"No, no, it's not that," he said, "but I've just got the push. His lordship has given me a month's notice. I'm got to quit and find a new job, after forty-two years here, man and boy."
Marian and Gwendolen stared at him in astonishment.
"Why, whatever have you been doing?" Gwendolen asked.
He took his pipe from his mouth and pointed to the Haunted Wood.
"See that wood there," he said, "the Haunted Wood? Well, last night one of these here dogs, he bolted into it, and I couldn't get him out, so I went in to hunt for him. I was only in there for about five minutes, but just as I was coming out I met his lordship. He stared at me as if I was a criminal in the dock, and give me a month's notice to leave his service.
"'You know my rules,' he says, 'and you've broken them. It's no good arguing,' he says, 'you've got to go.'"
Marian and Gwendolen felt very angry, angrier than they had ever felt before.
"What a beast!" they said. "But p'raps he'll think better of it."
Mr Williams shook his head.
"Not he," he said. "I've seen him this morning. 'I'll give you a pension,' he says, 'and I'll give you a good character. But that wood's forbidden ground,' he says, 'and I'll have nobody going into it.'"
Mr Williams rose and began to collect the young partridges, and put them away into the various hen-coops.
"Well, I must be getting along," he said, "and next month you'll have to make friends with a new keeper."
After he had gone, Marian and Gwendolen sat thinking of all the good times that they had had with him, and of poor Mrs Williams, who would have to turn out of her cottage—the gay little cottage that she was so proud of. Their cheeks were quite red, and there was a hot sort of prickly feeling at the backs of their noses, and they felt as if they would like to go to the great house and shoot Lord Barrington dead.
"Dog in the manger," said Gwendolen, "that's what he is, with that great big house and no wife or children. And he's always going into his old wood himself. I know he is, because Percy told me."
"Yes, I know," said Marian, "and half his time he never lives at the Park at all. He's judging people and sending them to prison, or travelling about and enjoying himself."
"P'raps he doesn't know," said Gwendolen, "what a nice man Mr Williams really is."
Then she suddenly thought of something.
"Suppose we go and find him," she said, "and ask him to let Mr Williams off."
Marian was a little frightened. She had never seen Lord Barrington, but she had once seen his picture in a magazine; and she remembered the grim look of his eyes and his high-bridged, hawk-like nose. But the thought of Mr Williams and his sad face soon gave her fresh courage; and as they drew near the Park wall she was much too excited to feel afraid.
Gwendolen was excited too, but they both knew how important it was to keep cool; and before they climbed the wall they looked carefully round to see that nobody was watching them. Then they found a couple of niches to put their toes in, and they hoisted themselves up till they could see over the wall; and there they stopped for a moment, holding on to the spikes, and studying the lie of the land. Just to their right was the corner of the Haunted Wood, but spreading in front of them was the open park-land, with its great trees casting their blue shadows, and the delicate-limbed deer nibbling the grass tips. Beyond these were the gardens, and the broad terrace in front of the house; and the only person in sight was a distant gardener with a watering-can.
Then they almost fell down, for round the corner of the wood came the tall figure of Lord Barrington himself. Marian recognized him at once, though he was not wearing a wig as he had been in the magazine picture, and was dressed in a grey flannel suit, carefully pressed, and russet-brown boots. Luckily he didn't see them, and they crouched behind the wall, holding on to the edge with their finger-tips; and when they next peeped over they could see him unlocking the padlock of the little gate that led into the wood. He went inside and locked it again behind him, and they saw him begin to push his way between the branches of the trees.
"Come along," whispered Gwendolen, "let's follow him"; so they climbed over the wall and dropped into the park. Then they ran across the grass to the little gate, where they stooped down for a moment and listened. They could hear Lord Barrington still moving through the wood. And then very quietly they squeezed through the fence. They both tore their frocks on the barbed wire, and Marian scratched her arm, but she didn't mind. And then they began to glide, as softly as possible, deeper and deeper into the forbidden wood.
Soon it was so dark, owing to the thick-spreading branches and the overgrown weeds and bushes, that they found themselves creeping through a sort of twilight, smelling of pine-resin and crushed herbage. But always, just in front of them, they could hear Lord Barrington's footsteps, and sometimes they caught a glimpse of his side or back. Tripping over roots, and stung by nettles, they followed in the track that he had beaten down; and presently the brushwood began to grow thinner and the trunks of the trees farther apart.
He was walking more quickly now, and in another three or four minutes they saw him come out into a sort of clearing, where the ground was smooth, with a thin growth of grass, and the sun pouring down upon it as upon a little circus. Here he stopped, and they bent down, each behind the trunk of a great pine tree; and then, to their surprise, they saw him take his coat off and fold it carefully and put it on the ground. Then from under a bush he drew out three wickets, and set them up on the other side of the clearing, and put the bails on them, and laid down a bat beside them, and came back tossing a cricket-ball. They could see his face, still rather stern-looking, but not so stern as it had been before; and then they heard him say "Ready?" and saw him bowl the ball, which bounced over the wickets and hit a tree behind. They crept nearer, until they were almost on the edge of the clearing.
"You ought to have stopped that one," they heard him say; and still the bat lay in front of the wickets, and there wasn't a sound but the murmur of the trees.
For a long time—almost ten minutes, they thought—he went on bowling and fetching back the ball; and every now and then he spoke a few words as if there were somebody really batting. And then a strange thing happened, for slowly, as they watched, they saw the bat rise from the ground; and then they saw the figure of a little boy taking guard with it in front of the wickets.
He was about fourteen, with short fair hair, and he was dressed in a flannel shirt and trousers; and the shirt was unbuttoned, showing the upper part of his chest, and its sleeves were rolled back over his sturdy arms. They looked at the judge and saw that his whole face had altered, as if the sun had come down and were shining through it; and the boy smiled at him, and then tucked his lips in, as the judge bowled him a difficult ball.
"Well played," said the judge, and they saw the boy look up and begin to colour a little at the words of praise; and then Gwendolen got a cramp in her foot and couldn't help moving and making a sound.
Lord Barrington turned sharply toward her.
"Who's there?" he asked in a terrible voice.
Gwendolen stood up, and so did Marian. It was no good hiding. They were both too frightened to speak.
When he saw them, he stood quite still. A wood-pigeon flew across the clearing. The little boy was no longer there.
"Come here," he said, and they had to obey him.
He stood looking at them. His face was like marble, and his eyes searched them through and through.
"Well," he said, "what have you got to say for yourselves?"
They hung their heads and said nothing.
Then Marian tried to speak, though her voice sounded funny.
"Please, sir," she said, "we wanted to ask you something, but you were playing with the boy."
"The boy?" he said: "did you see the boy?"
They lifted their eyes to him.
"Why, of course," they answered.
For a moment he was silent. Then his voice changed a little.
"Come and sit down," he said, "and tell me what you saw."
When they had told him, he just nodded, and sat, as Mr Williams had done, staring in front of him.
"Well, now you know," he said, "why this wood is private, and why I never allow anybody to come into it."
"Because of the boy?" asked Marian.
"Because of the boy," he said. "I'll try to explain to you, but I doubt if you'll understand. You see, I had a notion that if we human beings could only imagine anything hard enough, the thing that we imagined might become actually real, if only just for a minute or two."
He moved his hand, with its heavy gold signet-ring.
"This is the place," he said, "where I come to imagine."
"I see," said Marian. "But why do you imagine the boy?"
He reached for his coat and took something out of a pocket-book.
"This is his photograph," he said. "He was my only son."
The two children looked at it, and then gave it back to him.
"He was fond of cricket," he said. "He died at school."
Then he rose to his feet, and they followed him out of the wood.
"Well, what was it," he said, "that you wanted to ask me?"
They told him, and his face became stern again.
"But he knew the rule," he said, "and he was older than you; and rules are made to be kept, you know. I can't have them broken."
They were silent for a moment, and then Gwendolen had a rather awful and irreverent idea.
"But p'raps if God hadn't broken one of His rules," she said, "you might never have seen the boy."
He stood looking at her for a long time, or at least it seemed long, though it was only twelve seconds. Then he glanced at his watch.
"What are your names?" he asked.
They told him their names, and he held out his hand.
"Well, good-bye, Marian and Gwendolen," he said; "and you can tell Mr Williams that I've changed my mind."
Deep within the wood I know,
There's a place where mourners go,
Just as, in the twilight cool,
Crept they to Siloam's pool.
There, with one accord, they bring
Sorrows for a healing wing;
And each hushed and stooping leaf
Lays its hand on their heart's grief.
THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED
VIII
THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED
Cuthbert's friend, Edward Goldsmith, was six months older than Cuthbert, but they were in the same form, which was the lowest but one, in Mr Pendring's school. Most of the other boys thought him conceited, and so did Cuthbert, and so he was. But Cuthbert had once been conceited himself, and so he was able to sympathize with him. Besides being strong too, and able to dive backward, Edward had given Cuthbert his second-best pocket-knife; and that was why Cuthbert resolved at last to introduce him to Tod the Gipsy.
That was rather a special thing to do, because Tod was rather a special sort of gipsy; and Cuthbert had never introduced him to anybody, not even to Doris, although she had asked him to. It was in the hospital, just before he had had his tonsils out, that Cuthbert had first met Tod; and Tod had told him not to be frightened, because there was no need to be, and it wouldn't do any good. Tod himself was often in hospital, because he had consumption and had lost one of his lungs; and besides that he was always getting knocked down or run over, through being absent-minded. He was tall and thin, with a lot of black hair that kept tumbling over his eyes, and his eyes were brown, like a dog's eyes, only they were brighter and always laughing.
When Cuthbert next met Tod, he had been living in his little tent on the other side of Fairbarrow Down; and Cuthbert had stayed there all night with him, and Tod had told him the names of the stars. Very early in the morning, when Cuthbert woke up, he had seen Tod kneeling in the dew, and a couple of wild rabbits nestling in his arms and smelling his clothes, just as if they had been tame ones.
Then Tod had beckoned him with his head and whistled a peculiar sweet whistle, and a hare near by had pricked up her ears and come through the grass to have her back stroked. That whistle was one of Tod's secrets, and he knew lots more, and was always learning new ones; and when Cuthbert had told him about In-between Land he said that he had been there too, by another way.
So it was rather a great thing for Cuthbert to promise Edward that he would introduce him to Tod the Gipsy; and Edward was naturally rather impatient to go and find him, and talk to him. But the difficulty was that Tod was always travelling about, and Cuthbert never knew where he was likely to be; and it wasn't until tea-time on the third Monday of October that at last they found him, quite by accident.
Owing to one of Mr Pendring's boys having won a medal for helping to save somebody's life, the whole school had been given an extra half-holiday, and Cuthbert and Edward had gone for a country walk. Already in the town most of the leaves had fallen, and were lying in dirty heaps by the roadside, and the scraps of gardens in front of the houses were sodden and empty of flowers. But out in the country, where the harvest was stacked, and men were drilling seed into the moist-smelling earth, the oaks and elms were still glowing with coppery or rusty-red leaves. The cottage gardens, too, were full of flowers—clumps of starry Michaelmas daisies, and sheaves of dark-eyed golden sunflowers, like bumble-bees on fire. But there were real fires about also, as there always are when summer is over—fires of weeds at the ends of the plough-furrows, and fires of potato stems in the kitchen-gardens; and it was over a little fire of sticks and dead leaves that they suddenly came upon Tod the Gipsy.
They were now about six miles from home, at the foot of the long range of hills, of which Fairbarrow Down, with its close-cropped turf, was the nearest to the town. Behind this the ground dipped a little, and then became a hill called Simon's Nob, and behind Simon's Nob rose the highest hill of all, known as Cæsar's Camp. From Cæsar's Camp, on a very clear day, it was just possible to see the sea; and battles had been fought on all these hills hundreds and thousands of years before. Sometimes they had been held by the ancient Britons when they were fighting against each other; and sometimes they had been held by the ancient Britons when they were fighting against the Romans. Sometimes the Romans had held them when they were attacked by the Britons, and once the Britons had held them against the Saxons; and then in their turn the Saxons had held them when they had been attacked by the Danes. After that they had slept for hundreds of years, with only the sheep to nibble their grass, and an occasional shepherd shouting across them to his shaggy and wise-eyed sheep-dog.
The fiercest battle of all had been fought on Cæsar's Camp, from which the Romans had driven away the Britons, and there was a great mound on it, covered with grass, in which the dead soldiers had been buried. But that was nearly two thousand years ago, and it had never looked more peaceful than on this autumn afternoon, with the baby moon peeping above it and growing brighter as the daylight faded. It was a steep climb to the top of Cæsar's Camp, and the hill was guarded at the bottom by a fringe of elm trees; and in front of these elm trees there was a belt of bracken, reddening with decay, and reaching to the boys' shoulders. It had been rather fun to push their way through it, startling the rabbits, and listening to the rooks; and it was in a little quarry among the elms that Tod the Gipsy had made his fire.
Close to the fire he had spread some branches and a heap of bracken to make a mattress, and over this he had thrown his blanket and the little tarpaulin that made his tent. When they first caught sight of him, he was humming a song and beating an accompaniment to himself on an empty biscuit-box:
Where do the gipsies come from?
The gipsies come from Egypt.
The fiery sun begot them,
Their dam was the desert dry.
She lay there stripped and basking,
And gave them suck for the asking,
And an emperor's bone to play with,
Whenever she heard them cry.
Cuthbert introduced him to Edward Goldsmith, and Tod held out a bony hand.
"Glad to meet you," he said. "You're just in time for tea. You'll have to share a mug, but there's lots of bread and jam."
He was thinner than ever, but he had the same old trick of tossing his hair back from his eyes; and his eyes were as bright and gay and piercing as if they had just come back from some magic wash. While they were eating, he sipped his tea and filled his pipe and went on singing:
What did the gipsies do there?
They built a tomb for Pharaoh,
They built a tomb for Pharaoh,
So tall it touched the sky.
They buried him deep inside it,
Then let what would betide it,
They saddled their lean-ribbed ponies
And left him there to die.
He nodded his head toward the sides of the quarry, the overhanging trees, and the hill beyond.
"And this is where they've left me," he said.
Cuthbert stared at him.
"But you're not going to die, are you?"
"Pretty soon," said Tod. He tapped his chest. "There's not much left, you know, in this old box of mine."
"Well, you don't seem to mind much," said Edward.
"I don't," said Tod, "and I'll tell you why. I've just found out something that I've been looking for very nearly all my life."
He lit his pipe and leaned forward, with the fire shining in his eyes. The days were so short now that the dusk had already come, and the firelight cast strange shadows over the little quarry. The boys drew closer to him, and he took from his waistcoat pocket a small box, with a pinch of red powder in it.
"For twenty years," he said, "I've been trying to make this powder; and at last I've succeeded—just in time."
They bent over his hand and examined the powder. It was as light as thistle-down, and smelt like cloves.
"Now look," he said.
He threw some on the fire. But the boys could see nothing except the crumbling leaves.
Tod laughed.
"Look a little higher," he said; and then, in the smoke, they suddenly saw a bird hovering, and then another bird and another, and a couple of nests hanging faintly in the air.
"Now listen," said Tod; and above the whisper of the flames they could hear the soft sharpening of tiny beaks, and the sound of wings, and the ghosts of cheepings and chirpings, as if they had been hundreds of miles away. Then they faded, and Tod leaned back, looking triumphantly at the two boys.
"But what were they?" said Cuthbert.
"They were memories," said Tod. "They were the memories of those dead leaves."
"But do leaves remember?" asked Edward.
"Everything remembers," said Tod, "only nobody's been able to prove it. The ground we're sitting on, the fields you've come across, the hills above us, they're crammed with memories. And when they die, if they ever do die, these memories come crowding back to them, just like they do to a dying man; and it's this powder that makes them visible."
He rose to his feet and looked about him.
"Of course, those leaves," he said, "were only a year old, and all that they remembered was just those birds. But look at this,"—he picked up a piece of wood—"this is the core of an old tree. This was a sapling three hundred years ago." He sprinkled the rest of the powder on it and threw it on the fire.
For a minute or two nothing happened, and then, high up, they saw some more birds hovering; but presently, as they looked, they saw the figure of a man, with his hair in ringlets hanging down over his shoulders. He wore a plumed hat, and his sleeves were frilled, and there was a sword at his belt, and he wore knee-breeches and stockings and jewelled buckles upon his shoes. He stood in mid-air, looking about him, and then he was joined by the figure of a girl. He took her in his arms, and then they faded away; and there instead was a peasant in a smock.
They saw him lean forward and carve something in the air, as though he were cutting somebody's name upon a tree-trunk; and then he too was gone, and there were two children playing hide-and-seek in the wreathing smoke. One was a little girl, and she wore a mob cap and a long skirt dropping almost to her ankles; and the other was a boy with a very short jacket and trousers that looked as if they had shrunk.
Then they saw a fox, with his ears pricked, and one of his front paws lifted; and then there was nothing again but the sides of the quarry and the deepening shadows of the elms.
"That's all," said Tod, "because I've no more powder. All the rest's up there."
He jerked his thumb toward the top of the hill, hidden away from them by the trees.
"Why is it up there?" asked Cuthbert.
Tod stared at them as if he were trying to read their hearts.
"Have you courage?" he asked.
It was a difficult question. They told him that they hoped so, but that they weren't quite sure.
"Well, if you have," he said, "and you'd like to come back here to-night, just about half-past twelve, you'll be able to see something that nobody alive has ever seen or will see again."
Cuthbert and Edward looked at one another. It would be a six-mile walk, and they would have to start about eleven o'clock, and they would have to go to bed first and creep out of their houses without anybody knowing. The moon would have sunk, too, so that it would be quite dark. They both felt a little queer inside. But they promised to come, and agreed to meet at eleven o'clock near St Peter's Church.
Cuthbert was there first, just before the clock struck. Everybody was in bed, and he had slipped out unnoticed. But his heart sank a little as he ran down the empty street and saw no Edward at the corner waiting for him. But Edward came just as the clock struck, and the night seemed less dark now that there were two of them, and soon they were out of the town and running close together between the hedges of the country road. Once a motor-car came travelling toward them, almost blinding them with the glare of its head-lamps; but after they had left the road and struck across the fields the night was so still that they could almost have heard a star drop.
It was so still that they spoke in whispers, and so dark that they sometimes tripped; and once when they stopped for a moment to take breath, a star did drop, and they almost heard it. Presently, when their eyes became used to the darkness, they could see the dim outline of the hills, and the faint ribbon of the Milky Way rising like smoke from Cæsar's Camp. At the edge of the bracken they found Tod waiting for them.
"Come along," he said, "only don't go too fast," and they began to climb through the belt of trees out on to the hillside beyond. The grass was short here and slippery with dew, with glimmers of chalk beneath it where the turf was broken; and it was so steep that half-way up Tod stopped to fight for his breath.
"It's all right," he said. "I'll be better in a moment," and as they stood waiting for him and looking back, the country behind them seemed to have vanished into a lake of darkness. Then they began to climb again, their boots slipping, and suddenly as they climbed they smelt a new smell—a strange sort of acrid, sweet smell, as of turf-fires burning above them.
"Yes," said Tod. "I was up there an hour ago. I've lit half a dozen fires."
At the top of the hill he dropped down for a moment close to a large white stone. He lit a match and looked at his watch.
"Ten minutes to one," he said. "We're just in time."
They were now in a sort of trench or grassy moat that encircled the great mound, and they had climbed into this over a smaller mound that had once been a barricade. In this trench Tod had dug half a dozen holes, and in each of these holes there was a turf-fire smouldering; and now he turned and lifted the white stone, and took from under it a little bag.
"This is the rest of the powder," he said, "all there is, and all there ever will be, for the secret will die with me."
He rose to his feet and began to sprinkle it thickly over the burning turf in each of the little holes. Then he came back and spoke to the two boys.
"There are great memories," he said, "stored in this hill, but they are fierce ones, and you'll need all your courage."
Then he moved away from them toward the farthest of the fires, and Cuthbert felt a sort of change coming over the hill. He could see nothing, but it felt different, as if it were surrounded by a different sort of country—a savage country, with no railways in it, or roads, or parliaments, or policemen. Even the stars seemed to have grown younger, and nearer the earth, and more lawless; and then he heard voices filling the air about him, and a man shouting hoarse commands.
He turned with a start and found himself among a crowd of naked and half-naked men—small men, with hair hanging over their shoulders, and bearded chins, and glittering eyes. Some of them were painted with curious patterns, shining in dull colours from their skins; and they were all pointing toward the darkness that lay like a sea round the sides of the hill. Then some of them spoke to him and asked him who he was, and he found that he understood them and could answer them; and the man who had been shouting, and who seemed to be their leader, came and looked into his eyes. He laid his hands on Cuthbert's shoulders.
"Son of my sons," he said, "are you ready to fight with us?" And Cuthbert suddenly felt himself burning with anger, because he knew that they were going to be attacked.
"Of course I am," he said, and then there was a great shout, and everybody rushed to the barricade; and there all round them, pricking out of the darkness, they could see helmets and the rims of shields.
Cuthbert somehow knew that these belonged to the Romans, and that he hated them for invading his country; and he was so excited that he had forgotten to notice what had happened to Edward Goldsmith. He only knew that he had disappeared.
As for Edward, he had forgotten all about Cuthbert. For he had suddenly noticed that there were now trees growing half-way up the hillside, and he had jumped over the barricade and run down to explore them. When he got there, he had found himself among an army of men marching up the hill behind locked shields, and a young centurion with merry eyes had stooped and gripped him by the arm.
"Hullo!" he said; "son of my sons, are you going to fight with us against these barbarians?" And Edward tingled all over with pride, and said, "Rather, you bet I am." Then a great stone from the top of the barricade came leaping down the hillside and crushed one of the men in the front rank, but the others closed together and never stopped marching.
When Cuthbert saw them he was blind with anger, but he knew in his heart that they were bound to win; and next moment they were over the parapet like a wave of hot and breathing iron. He heard groans and cries and the shouts of the British chief, and his eyes were full of tears as he beat at the Roman shields; and then he saw Edward and hit him in the face, and made his nose bleed, and knocked out two of his teeth. Edward struck back, and gave Cuthbert a black eye, and the night was full of hewings and the flashings of swords; and then everything was still again, and the hill was empty, and the stars were the same stars that they had always known.
Squatting on the barricade, with his arms round his knees, they saw Tod the Gipsy laughing at them; and Cuthbert rubbed his eye, and Edward sniffed hard to try and stop the blood running from his nose. Tod rose and stretched himself.
"Well, you've had it out," he said, "and so has the hill, and now you'd better be off home."
So they said good-bye to him, and they never saw him again; and next morning when Edward came down to breakfast, his father scolded him for explaining that an ancient Briton had hit him on the nose. But Cuthbert's daddy only stroked his chin when he heard that the Romans had given Cuthbert a black eye, because that was just the sort of thing, he said, that the Romans sometimes did, though they had many good qualities.
Down the dead centurions' way,
Tod the Gipsy drives his shay.
Roman, Briton, Saxon, Dane,
Tod the Gipsy hears them plain.
Faint beneath the noonday chalk,
Tod can overhear them talk.
Fiercer than the stars at night,
Chin to chin, he sees them fight.