The Borrowers Afield (9 page)

Arrietty smiled, gazing out across the sun-lit field. The bedding was one piece of sock—poor Homily with practically no housework had little on which to vent her energy. Well, now she'd had Spiller and it had done her good—her eyes looked brighter and her cheeks pinker. Idly, Arrietty watched a small bird picking its way amongst the grasses—no, it was too steady for a bird. "Here comes Papa," she said after a moment.

They ran down to meet him. "Well?" cried Homily eagerly, but as they drew closer, she saw by his face that the news he brought was bad. "You didn't find it?" she asked in a disappointed voice.

"I found it all right," said Pod.

"What's the matter then? Why do you look so down? You mean—they weren't there? You mean—they've left?"

"They've left, all right. Or been eaten." Pod stared unhappily.

"What can you mean, Pod?" stammered Homily.

"It's full o' foxes," he told them ponderously, his eyes still round with shock. "Smells awful..." he added after a moment.

Chapter Eleven

"Misfortunes make us wise."
Sultan of Turkey deposed 1876

[Extract from Arrietty's Diary and
Proverb Book, August 30th]

H
OMILY
carried on a bit that evening: it was understandable—what were they faced with now? This kind of Robinson Crusoe existence for the rest of their lives? Raw food in the summer was bad enough but in the stark cold of winter, Homily protested, it could not sustain life. Not that they had the faintest chance of surviving the winter, anyway, without some form of heat. A bit of wax candle would not last for ever. Nor would their few wax matches. And supposing they made a fire of sticks, it would have to be colossal—an absolute conflagration it would appear to a borrower—to keep alight at all. And the smoke of this, she pointed out, would be seen for miles. No, she concluded gloomily, they were in for it now and no two ways about it, as Pod and Arrietty would see for themselves, poor things, when the first frosts came.

It was the sight of Spiller perhaps which had shaken Homily, confirming her worst premonitions—uncouth, unwashed, dishonest, and ill-bred, that's what she summed him up to be, everything she most detested and feared. And this was the level (as she had often warned them back home) to which borrowers must sink if ever, for their sins, they attempted to live out-of-doors.

To make matters worse, they were awakened that night by a strange sound—a prolonged and maniac bellow, it sounded to Arrietty, as she lay there trembling—breath held and heart racing. "What was it?" she whispered to Pod when at last she dare speak.

The boot creaked as Pod sat up in bed: "'Tis a donkey," he said, "but close." After a moment he added, "Funny—I ain't ever seen a donkey hereabouts."

"Nor I," whispered Arrietty. But she felt somehow relieved and was just preparing to settle down again when another sound, closer, caught her ear. "Listen!" she said sharply, sitting up.

"You don't want to lie awake listening," Pod grumbled, turning over and pulling after him an unfair share of the sock. "Not at night, you don't."

"It's in the annex," whispered Arrietty.

The boot creaked again as Pod sat up. "Keep quiet, Pod, do," grumbled Homily who had managed to doze off.

"Quiet yourself," said Pod, trying to concentrate. It was a small whirring sound he heard, very regular. "You're right," he breathed to Arrietty, "it's in the annex." He threw off the sock which Homily clutched at angrily, pulling it back about her shoulders. "I'm going out," he said.

"No, Pod, you don't!" implored Homily huskily. "We're all right here, laced up. Stay quiet...."

"No, Homily, I got to see." He felt his way along the ankle of the boot. "Stay quiet, the two of you. I won't be long."

"Oh, dear," exclaimed Homily in a scared voice. "Then take the hat pin," she implored nervously as she saw him begin to unthread the laces. Arrietty, watching, saw the boot fall open and her father's head and shoulders appear suddenly against the night sky: there was a scrabbling, a rustling and a skittering—and Pod's voice shouting, "Dang you ... dang you ... dang you!" Then there was silence.

Arrietty crept along the ankle of the boot and put her head out into the air: their cave was filled with bright moonlight, and every object could be plainly seen. Arrietty stepped out and looked about her. A silvery Pod stood on the lip of the alcove, staring down at the moon-drenched field.

"What was it?" called Homily from the depths of the boot.

"Danged field mice," called Pod, "been at the corn."

And Arrietty saw in that pale, friendly light that the sandy floor of the annex was strewn with empty husks.

"Well, that's that," said Pod, turning back and kicking the scattered husks. "Better get the thistle," he added, "and sweep up the mess."

Arrietty did so, almost dancing. Enchanted, she felt, by this friendly radiance which lent an unfamiliar magic to even the most matter-of-fact objects such as Pod's bell-clapper hanging from its nail and the whitened stitching on the boot. When she had made three neat piles of husks, she joined Pod at the lip of the alcove and they sat silent for a while on the still warm sand, listening to the night.

An owl called from the spinney beside the brook—a fluting, musical note which was answered, at great distance, by a note as haunting in a slightly higher key: weaving a shuttle of sound back and forth across the sleeping pasture, linking the sea of moonlight and the velvet shadowed woods.

Whatever the danger, Arrietty thought, sitting there at peace beside her father, whatever the difficulty, I still am glad we came.

"What we need in this place," said Pod at last, breaking the long silence, "is some kind of tin."

"Tin?" repeated Arrietty vaguely, not sure she had understood.

"Or a couple of tins. A cocoa tin would do. Or one of them they use for 'baccy." He was silent awhile, and then he added, "That pit we dug weren't deep enough: bet them danged field mice have been at the nuts."

"Couldn't you learn to shoot a bow and arrow?" asked Arrietty after a moment.

"Whatever for?" asked Pod.

Arrietty hesitated. Then, all in a breath, she told him about Spiller; the well-sprung bow, the thorn-tipped, deadly arrows. And she described how Spiller had been watching them from the darkness when they played out their scene with the moth on the stage of the lighted alcove.

"I don't like that," said Pod after a moment's thought, "not neighbors watching, I don't like. Can't have that, you know. Not by night nor by day neither; it ain't healthy, if you get my meaning."

Arrietty did get his meaning. "What we want here is some kind of shutter or door. A piece of chicken wire might do. Or that cheese-grater, perhaps—the one we had at home. It would have to be something that lets the light in, I mean," she went on. "We can't go back to living in the dark."

"I got an idea," said Pod suddenly. He stood up and, turning about, craned his neck upwards to the overhang above. The slender sapling, silvery with moonlight, leaned above the bank. Pod stared a moment at the leaves against the sky as though calculating distances; then, looking down, he kicked about the sand with his feet.

"What is it?" whispered Arrietty, thinking he had lost something.

"Ah—" said Pod, in a pleased voice ¿nd went down on his knees. "This 'ould do." And he shoveled about with his hands, uncovering after a moment a snaking loop of tough root, seemingly endless. "Yes," he repeated. "This'll do fine."

"What for?" asked Arrietty, wildly curious.

"Get me the twine," said Pod. "There on that shelf, where the tools are—"

Arrietty, standing on tiptoe, reached her hand into the sandy recess and found the ball of twine.

"Give it here," said Pod, "and get me the bell-clapper."

Arrietty watched her father tie a length of twine on to the bell-clapper and, balancing a little perilously on the very edge of their terrace, take careful aim and, with a violent effort, fling the clapper up into the branches above: it caught hold, like an anchor, among a network of twigs.

"Now, come on," said Pod to Arrietty, breathing steadily. "Take hold and pull. Gently does it ... steady now. Gently ... gently..." And leaning together, their full weight on the twine, hand over hand they drew down the stooping branch. The alcove became dark suddenly with broken shadow, cut and trembling with filtered moonlight.

"Hold on," panted Pod, guiding the twine to the loop of root, "while I make her fast." He gave a grunt. "There," he said and stood up, rubbing the strain out of his hands (he was flecked all over, Arrietty noticed, with blobs of silver). "Get me the half scissor. Dang it, I forgot—the fret-saw will do."

It was hard to lay hands on the fret-saw in this sudden darkness, but at last she found it and Pod cut his halliard. "There," he said again in a satisfied voice. "She's fast—and we're covered. How's that for an idea? You can let her up or down, depending on what goes on, wind, weather and all the rest of it...."

He removed the bell-clapper and made the twine fast to the main branch. "Won't keep the field mice out, nor them kind of cattle—but," he gave a satisfied laugh, "there won't be no more watching."

"It's wonderful," said Arrietty, her face among the leaves, "—and we can still see out."

"That's the idea," said Pod. "Come on now: time we got back to bed!"

As they felt their way toward the mouth of the boot, Pod tripped against a pile of wheat husks and stumbled, coughing, into their dusty scatter. As he stood up and brushed himself down, he remarked thoughtfully, "Spiller—you said his name was?" He was silent a moment and then added thoughtfully, "There's a lot worse food, when you come to think of it, than a piping-hot, savory stew made of corn-fed field mouse."

Chapter Twelve

"Better suffer ill, than do ill."
Disastrous Earthquake at Charleston, U. S., 1866

[Extract from Arrietty's Diary and
Proverb Book, August 31st]

H
OMILY
was in a worried mood next morning. "What's all this?" she grumbled when, a little tousled, she crept out of the boot and saw that the alcove was filled with a greenish, underwater light.

"Oh, Mother," exclaimed Arrietty reproachfully. "It's lovely!" A faint breeze stirred the clustered leaves which, parting and closing, let pass bright spears and arrows of dancing light—a delightful blend of mystery and gaiety (or so it seemed to Arrietty). "Don't you see," she went on as its inventor preserved a proud silence, "Papa made it: it's quick cover—lets in the light but keeps out the rain; and we can see out but they can't see in."

"Who's they?" asked Homily.

"Anything ... anybody passing. Spiller," she added on a gleam of inspiration.

Homily relented. "H'mm," she vouchsafed in a noncommittal tone but she examined the uncovered root in the floor, noted the clove-hitch, and ran a thoughtful finger down the taut twine.

"The thing to remember," Pod explained earnestly, aware of her tardy approval, "is—when you let her go—keep hold of the halliard: you don't want this here halliard ever to leave the root. See what I mean?"

Homily saw. "But you don't want to waste the sunshine," she pointed out, "not while it's summer, you don't. Soon it will be—" she shuddered slightly and tightened her lips, unable to say the word.

"Well, winter ain't here yet," exclaimed Pod lightly. "Sufficient unto the day, as they say—" He was busy with the halliard. "Here you are—up she goes!" and, as the twine ran squeaking under the root, the leaves flew up out of sight and the alcove leaped into light.

"See what I mean?" said Pod again, in a satisfied voice.

During breakfast the donkey brayed again, loud and long, and was answered almost at once by the neigh of a horse.

"I don't like it," said Homily suddenly, setting down her half hazel shell of honey and water. Even as she spoke, a dog yelped—too close for comfort. Homily started—and over went the honey and water, a dark stain on the sandy floor. "Me nerves is all pieces—" Homily wailed, then clapped her hands to her temples and looked from side to side with wild eyes.

"It's nothing, Mother," Arrietty explained, irritated. "There's a lane just below the spinney: I saw it from the top of the hedge. It's people passing, that's all. They're bound to pass sometimes...."

"That's right," agreed Pod. "You don't want to worry. You eat up your grain—"

Homily stared distasefully at the bitten-into grain of corn (dry and hard as a breakfast roll three days after a picnic). "Me teeth ain't up to it," she said unhappily.

"According to Arrietty," explained Pod, holding up the spread fingers of his left hand and knocking each back in turn, "between us and that lane we got five barriers—the stream down at the corner—one; them posts with rusty wire across the stream—two; a fair-sized wood—three; another hedge—four; and a bit o' rough grazing ground—five." He turned to Arrietty. "Ain't that right, lass? You been up the hedge?"

Arrietty agreed. "But that bit of grazing ground belongs to the lane—a kind of grass verge."

"There you are then," exclaimed Pod triumphantly, slapping Homily on the back. "Common land! And someone's tethered a donkey there. What's wrong with that? Donkeys don't eat you—no more don't horses."

"A dog might," said Homily. "I heard a dog."

"And what of it?" exclaimed Pod. "It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. When I was a lad, down at the big house, the place was awash with setters, as you might say. Dogs is all right: you can talk to dogs."

Homily was silent a moment, rolling the wheat grain backwards and forwards on the flat piece of slate which they used as a table.

"It's no good," she said at last.

"What's no good?" asked Pod, dismayed.

"Going on like this," said Homily. "We got to do something before winter."

"Well, we are doing something, aren't we?" said Pod. He nodded toward Arrietty. "Like it says in her book-Rome weren't built in a day."

"Find some kind of human habitation," went on Homily, "that's what we've got to do—where there's fires and pickings and proper sort of cover." She hesitated. "Or," she went on in a set determined voice, "we got to go back home."

There was a stunned silence. "We got to do what?" asked Pod weakly, when he could find his voice; and Arrietty deeply upset, breathed, "Oh, Mother—"

"You heard me, Pod," said Homily. "All these hips and haws and watercress and dogs barking and foxes in the badger's set and creeping in the night and stealing and rain coming up and nothing to cook on. You see what I mean? Back home, in the big house, it wouldn't take us no time to put a few partitions up and get kind of straight again under the kitchen. We did it once, that time the boiler burst: we can do it again."

Pod stared across at her and when he spoke he spoke with the utmost gravity. "You don't know what you're saying, Homily. It's not just that they'll be waiting for us; that they've got the cat; set traps; laid down poison and all that caper. It's just that you don't
go back,
Homily, not once you've come out, you don't. And we ain't
got
a home. That's all over and done with. Like it or not, we got to go on now. See what I mean?" When Homily did not reply, he turned his grave face to Arrietty.

"I'm not saying we're not up against it; we are—right up against it. More than I like to let on. And if we don't stick together, we're finished—see? And it will be the end—like you once said, Arrietty—the end of our race! Never let me hear another word from either one of you, you or your mother, about"—with great solemnity he slightly raised his voice, stressing each word—"going back anywhere—let alone under the floor!"

They were very impressed; they both stared back at him unable, for the moment, to speak.

"Understand?" asked Pod sternly.

"Yes, Papa," whispered Arrietty; and Homily swallowed, nodding her head.

"That's right," Pod told them more gently. "Like it says in your book, Arrietty, 'A Word is enough to the Wise.'"

"Now get me the horse hair," he went on more jovially. "It's a nice day. And while you two clear breakfast, I'll start on the fish net. How's that?" Homily nodded again. She did not even ask him, as on any other occasion she would have immediately, how, when they had caught the fish, he proposed that they should cook it. "There's a nice lot of dry bark about. Do fine," said Pod, "for floats."

But Pod, though good at knots, had quite a bit of trouble with the horse hair: the long tail-strands were springy and would slide from the eye of the needle. When the chores; were done, however, and Arrietty sent off to the brook with two borrowing-bags—the waxed one for water and the other for bark—Homily came to Pod's rescue and, working together, they evolved a close mesh on the spider-web principle, based on Homily's knowledge of tatting.

"What about this Spiller?" Pod asked uneasily after a while, as he sat beside Homily, watching her fingers.

Homily snorted, busy with her knots. "Don't talk to me of that one—" she said after a moment.

"Is he a borrower or what?" asked Pod.

"I don't know what he is," cried Homily, "and what's more, I don't care neither. Threw a beetle at me, that's all I know. And stole the pin and our nail scissor."

"You know that for sure?" asked Pod, on a rising note.

"Sure as I'm sitting here," said Homily. "You ain't seen him."

Pod was silent a moment. "I'd like to meet him," he said after a while, staring out across the sunlit field.

The net grew apace and the time went by almost without their noticing. Once when, each taking an end, they held the work out for inspection, a grasshopper sprang from the bank below, bullet-like, into the meshes; and it was only after—with infinite care for the net—they had freed the struggling creature that Homily thought of luncheon.

"Goodness," she cried, staring across the field, "look at them shadows! Must be after two. What can have happened to Arrietty?"

"Playing down there with the water, I shouldn't wonder," said Pod.

"Didn't you tell her 'there and back and no dawdling'?"

"She knows not to dawdle," said Pod.

"That's where you're wrong, Pod, with Arrietty. With Arrietty you got to say it every time!"

"She's going on for fourteen now," said Pod.

"No matter," Homily told him, rising to her feet. "She's young for her age. You always got to tell her, else she'll make excuses."

Homily folded up the net, brushed herself down and bustled across the annex to the shelf above the tool rack.

"You hungry, Pod?" It was a rhetorical question: they were always hungry, all of them, every hour of the day. Even after meals, they were hungry.

"What is there?" he asked.

"There's a bunch of haws, a couple of nuts and a mildewed blackberry."

Pod sighed. "All right," he said.

"But which?" asked Homily.

"The nut's more filling," said Pod.

"But what can I do, Pod?" cried Homily unhappily. "Any suggestions? Do you want to go and pick us a couple of wild strawberries?"

"That's an idea," said Pod, and he moved toward the bank.

"But you got to look careful," Homily told him. "They've got a bit scarce now. Something's been at them. Birds maybe. Or," she added bitterly, "more likely that Spiller."

"Listen!" cried Pod, raising a warning hand. He stood quite still at the edge of their cave, staring away to his left.

"What was it?" whispered Homily, after a moment.

"Voices," said Pod.

"What kind of voices?"

"Human," said Pod.

"Oh, my—" whispered Homily fearfully.

"Quiet," said Pod.

They stood quite still, ears attuned. There was a faint hum of insects from the grasses below and the buzzing of a fly which had blundered into the alcove. It flew jerkily about between them and settled greedily at last on the sandy floor where at breakfast Homily had spilled the honey. Then suddenly, uncomfortably close, they heard a different sound, a sound which drove the color from their cheeks and which filled their hearts with dread—and it was, on the face of it, a cheerful sort of sound: the sound of a human laugh.

Neither moved: frozen, they stood—pale and tense with listening. There was a pause and, nearer now, a man's voice cursed—one short, sharp word and, immediately after, they heard the yelp of a dog.

Pod stooped; swiftly with a jerk of the wrist, he released the halliard and, hand over steady hand, he pulled on the swaying tree: this time, he used extra strength, drawing the branches lower and closer until he had stuffed the mouth of their cave with a close-knit network of twigs.

"There," he gasped, breathing hard. "Take some getting through, that will."

Homily, bewildered by the dappled half-light, could not make out his expression, but somehow she sensed his calm. "Will it look all right from outside?" she asked evenly, matching her tone to his.

"Should do," said Pod. He went up to the leaves and peered out between them, and with steady hands and sure grip tried the set of the branches. "Now," he said, stepping back and drawing a deep breath, "hand me that other hat pin."

Then it was that a strange thing happened: Pod put out his hand—and there at once was the hat pin, but it had been put in his grasp too quietly and too immediately to have been put there by Homily: a shadowy third shared their dim-lit cavern, a dun-colored creature of invisible stillness. And the hat pin was the hat pin they had lost.

"Spiller!" gasped Homily hoarsely.