The Fourth Pig (20 page)

I fitted the snapdragons onto the knobs, very doubtfully. However, they did turn—and the whole thing might simply be a trap! I stepped inside, shut the door after me and listened. So far nothing
, only the narrow uncarpeted stone steps going up and round a corner, and from below the somber ticking of a clock. I went up. The staircase made four turns and came to a landing. Opposite me was one of Them sitting at a desk disguised as an aged and frowsty female caretaker in a shawl with a bunch of tickets and a pile of small illustrated guide-books. “Pay here, please,” she said, and smiled in the kind of way which might easily have turned very unpleasant indeed: They thought they'd got me nicely. Well, I knew it would be no good attempting to pay with Middle Earth currency, but I had the dropped fairy sixpence still, and handed it over with my sweetest smile back. She couldn't do anything but take it. “An illustrated guide-book?” she said, “or some nice post-cards of the torture chamber?” No thanks,” I said, lightly—I wasn't going to let her know this was my only valid coin—“I always buy my guide-books on the way
back
.” And I walked past her up the next bend of the stair.

On the next landing, which was obviously the important one, there was the usual choice of doors. I couldn't see anything through the key-holes and I was rather afraid that if I hung about the two suits of armour against the opposite wall might begin to walk in my direction. At that moment a mouse came out of the corner and hesitated in the middle of the floor. I had a corn ear in my pocket, collected some time ago and unused. I rubbed off a grain and dropped it and stood quite still. The mouse flickered nearer, picked up the grain and ran under one of the doors. Inside there was a squeal and a girl's voice: “Oh Princess—!” I opened the door and walked in.

It was in its way rather a beautiful room, with a hunting tapestry on all four walls—though I never very much like tapestry, for
one can't be sure what there mayn't be behind it. There were oak chests and benches and a large oak table with heavy iron candle-sticks at each end and a strip of needlework all along it, at which the Princess and her ladies were working. It would now have been quite simple to rescue the Princess, only, at the moment, presumably, when I had opened the door, the Princess and her ladies, making five in all, had turned into dolls and were all staring at me out of china eyes from the far side of the table. Again it would have been quite simple to rescue them all in a bundle if only they had been reasonable sized dolls, but they weren't; they were very slightly under life-size. So it was imperative to discover which was the Princess. They were all dressed more or less alike in long brocade dresses and little jewelled caps, and each of them had a pendant of precious stones—if they
were
precious—hung round her neck on a fine golden chain. Three had long flaxen hair and two had long raven-dark hair. You might think that the one in the middle was sure to be the Princess; but then, the one furthest on the right had a golden needle, and the one next the middle on the left was sitting on a slightly more elaborate chair. On the other hand, the one furthest to the left had a footstool, while the remaining one had hair a good two inches longer than the others.

I tried speaking to them, but it had no effect. I tried sprinkling them with drops of Water of Life. As the drops touched, each doll gave a wriggle and grin, but then went waxen again. It was all most difficult. Then I heard a rustling at the door; I had barred it, of course, but that was no obstacle to the snake which began wriggling through the key-hole. However, I hit the snake on the head with one of the iron candlesticks; that made a nasty mess,
but I was only thankful that the candlesticks had actually turned out solid—at any rate solid in regard to the snake. They might so easily have been cardboard!

The real test for princesses is, of course, the rumpled roseleaf, but I had none with me; besides it was inapplicable to the dolls. It then occurred to me that the fault might be in my own method of vision. Unfortunately I had lost the magic spectacles—I always do manage to lose my spectacles, there's nothing odd about that. The only thing to do was to put on the tarn-helm and hope for the best. It would certainly turn me into someone else, presumably with a different kind of vision and perhaps a better one for distinguishing princesses. I took it out of the hat-box and put it on. It was heavy and rather large for me; I suppose it had originally been made to fit young Germans with great mops of shaggy curls, like Siegfried. I also found it a little difficult to breathe in at first, but the moment I looked at those dolls I became quite certain which one I wanted: the left-hand of all. So I picked her up.

It is very curious being someone else, even when one knows one is, as one does when wearing the tarn-helm. All sorts of things are slightly different, to which one is normally so accustomed that one doesn't notice them in oneself. For instance the rhythm of breathing, and the whole muscular tone of the body, not only in movement, but even in rest—including the muscles of the face and body wall—is altered. And if, for instance, one picks something up, the business of gripping and lifting and balancing—although one is doing it as simply and automatically as ever—is a complete surprise. I had no idea of who I was, but I threw the heavy princess-doll over one shoulder (normally I
should have tucked her under my arm) and walked out of the room.

As I passed the old imitation caretaker again, I picked up one of the catalogues saying cheerfully “Thanks,” and not paying. Then off down the stairs again. Going quickly round a corner I very nearly ran into two of the Other Side waiting quite quietly with a cage for me to walk into. There was nothing for it, then, but to jump out of the window, which was at least fifteen feet from the ground. Ordinarily I shouldn't have landed without a sprained ankle at best, but this other person I had become was fortunately much more athletic than I am and landed without any damage except for breaking the bottle of Lethe water. The stuff inside it smelt disgusting and I noticed that the grass which it splashed withered and turned black under my eyes.

It was obvious that the Other Side would be after me, so I put on the seven league boots (the ordinary shoes of swiftness had never been much use since being cleaned with fairy shoe-polish) and set off for Warning Crag, the most obvious landmark in the Debateable Land. It is not so easy as you would suppose, walking with seven league boots, as one can't see where one's next step will take one—very likely into a ditch or a bramble bush; it is quite hopeless to try to run in them and really one has to deliberate over every step. I knew, naturally, that the dragon's nest was somewhere near Warning Crag, but the creature was usually asleep and I hoped to get by safely. However, as luck would have it, my seven league boots landed me right on the dragon's tail and the wretched thing woke up and began snorting fire at me. I hadn't got the Lethe water for it, but I threw it the stolen hand-kerchief, telling it to blow its nose, and it was so surprised that it
stopped long enough for me to take another step on and out of its nasty, smelly nest.

After this it was all fairly plain sailing. Once I did miss my way rather badly, and several times I had to evade the Other Side by one stratagem or another. I never let go of the doll-princess, though I found her a great nuisance and became less and less ceremonious in the way I handled her. I kept on the tarn-helm the whole time and stayed as the person I had become, which gave me great physical advantages; I never discovered who the other person was, though often I found myself remembering things and people which are no part of my own memories. There are moments when I think she must have been a gym or games mistress at some school; some of the visual memories which I had were certainly not English, but might have been, say, American.

And then I came to the brick-walled passage leading out of the park past the villas. I walked along it, whistling (a thing I never do myself) and there I was in the street I had started from. And there was the frog. The frog said to me: “So you didn't get the Princess after all! You are a fool, aren't you?” “But—” I said, and looked round, for I knew I had hold of the doll. Then I saw that the doll had her feet on the ground, that the doll was definitely holding onto me, and that she had grown to life-size. “
Aren't
you the Princess?” I asked the doll. The frog, of course, answered. “No, she isn't—where are your eyes? Proper fool you'll look, taking
that
back to the palace!”

“But—” I said again.

Then the doll said, in a most un-princesslike voice: “I'm Joan. That's all. But don't worry. That nasty stuck-up little Princess
wouldn't want to get rescued by you—I know her! She said she wasn't going to let anyone under a prince with ten thousand a year rescue her, and there's sure to be one soon.”

“But—” I said.

“I didn't
ask
you to rescue me, did I?” said Joan, in rather a hurt, proud kind of voice, and stepped back, letting go my arm. When she did that I noticed that her long brocade dress shortened and smoothed out into a printed cotton and her long hair rolled itself up under the beret which the little jewelled cap had turned into. She added: “If you hadn't rescued me, no one would have. Girls like me don't get princes to rescue them.”

The frog croaked: “Listen to her, the hussy! And you ought to have rescued the Princess, you know you ought. You were told to.”

“Who told me, anyway?” I asked. I was rather cross.

“Well, I told you, for one!” said the frog; “and now, suppose you take off that tarn-helm and give it me back. Lost most of the rest, haven't you, proper fool—”

“You shut up!” I said, and I took off the tarn-helm and dropped it on the frog. It clanged on the pavement and disappeared, and so did the frog. I only hope he took it back to wherever it belongs. At the same moment a taxi drew up and I knew I had to be getting along back to Middle Earth. “Can't I give you a lift, Joan?” I said. “I'm awfully glad it was you, not the Princess!”

Joan said: “I know you now, with that silly old hat off. I've got to get off to work—I'm a mill-hand on Middle Earth—but we'll meet again. I did find out that much in the Tower.”

“When?” I asked, one foot on the step of the taxi.

“First of May, I think,” she said.

“But what year?”

“Well, it ought to be next, by rights,” she said, “but you never know, the way time gets messed about these days. Well, so long and thank you.”

“Till then—” I called after her as the taxi started, and the lines of the notice began ticking over on the clock face:

“In the Debateable Land

That lies between here and Fairy Land ….”

MAIRI MACLEAN AND THE FAIRY MAN

I

Oh maybe 'tis my rock

And maybe 'tis my reel,

And whiles it is the cradle

And whiles it is the creel.

I should be redding my house,

But oh, I'm stepping away

To hear high up in the fern

The tune that the fairies play.

Oh my bonny stone house

With the meal ark full to the brim!

But my fairy man's in the fern

And I must away to him.

And it's Mairi, Mairi MacLean,

Ach, Mairi MacLean, come ben!

But I am stepping away

Adown to the hazelly glen.

Oh folks may look upon Jura,

And he may be rich who can,

But all the Isles of the Sea

Are for me and my fairy man!

Oh I've made songs at the shearing

Till the tears and the laughter ran,

But a bonnier song than mine

Is sung by my fairy man!

Oh I was milking my ewes,

And it tinkled fine in the can,

But all the flocks in the world

Are for me and my fairy man!

Oh I was weaving a plaid,

And asking myself for whom?

When I spied my fairy man

And I left the clicketting loom.

And maybe 'tis my bairn

Who cries her dinner is slow,

But she sees her mammy's in love

So she lets her mammy go!

And maybe 'tis my rock

And maybe 'tis my reel,

And times it is the heckling combs

And times it is the wheel …

II

Scarba is purple glass; the ruffling waves grow dim.

Wild deer of Scarba, swim to me over the sound,

Ach, Corryvrechan pulls you, but swim to me strongly, swim!

There is no stag of you all that runs as lightly as him,

Stepping on my quick shadow, pinning it to the ground.

Luing is low on the sea, a dark and a gentle land.

Blackbirds of Luing, rise high in your airy throngs,

From the tall red fuchsias of Luing, fly low, fly across to my hand!

Blackbirds, hark to his singing, for well you should understand

The way that a grown woman gets caught in a net of songs.

All night the Paps of Jura are standing against the stars.

Oh paps of the Jura Woman that dreams of her lover's breast!

My breasts are remembering Uistean across all fairy bars;

Though I, too, am a mother, freckled with suckling scars,

Yet I would that his head were lying here on my heart's nest.

III

Though you should bid me keep still, keep still,

And set my body to yours in kindness,

Though I should smile in a magicked blindness

On hands that strangle and eyes that kill,

Though for your sake I turn thoughtless, mindless,

You shall not possess me, nor no man will:

For I am the woman who writes the songs

So I cannot stay in the Fairy Hill.

IV

Oh wha's this couching at my breist bane?

Is it a sick bairn or a foul black stane,

Or naught but my ain fetch weeping by her lee-lane?

Oh my puir fetch-thing, weep not sae sair!