The Little White Horse (18 page)

Maria gathered her green cloak about her, knelt down upon the paving-stones, folded her hands and shut her eyes, and said a prayer. For this, she remembered, had been a holy place, and her wicked ancestor Sir Wrolf had taken it away from God to have it for himself. And now, they said, his ghost haunted this place and could not enter Paradise because of his sins.

‘O God,’ she prayed, ‘please forgive Sir Wrolf for being so greedy. And please show me how to give this place back to You. And then please let him go to Paradise.’

There was a queer clanging sound, almost like a horse’s iron hoofs slipping on stones, and she opened her eyes suddenly. But there was nothing unusual to be seen;
only a curtain of ivy hanging on the wall opposite her was swaying a little, as though someone had just passed by. She got up and went to it and pulled it aside, and there behind it was another low stone archway in the wall. But beyond this archway was not the hillside, but darkness, and a flight of steps leading down into the earth.

‘There must be a cellar or something down there,’ said Maria, and she would have gone in and explored had not her attention been caught by something else; a shepherd’s pipe lying on a flat stone beside the doorway . . . So she
had
heard someone playing a pipe, after all . . . With a beating heart she knelt down beside the pipe, and she would have picked it up, only quite suddenly the most alarming things began to happen.

The first thing that happened was that the baaing of the sheep outside on the hill changed its note, ceased to be contented and happy, and became a bleating of terror. And then there came a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder overhead.

‘Miss Heliotrope!’ thought Maria at once. ‘Miss Heliotrope! She’s terrified of a storm.’

She jumped up and ran back the way she had come, out on to the hillside, and there away in the distance she saw Periwinkle making for home as fast as she could, with the pony carriage leaping and jolting over the rough ground. ‘Good Periwinkle! Good Joy-of-the-ground!’ cried Maria. ‘She is looking after Miss Heliotrope, just as I told her.’

And then, looking about her, she saw the reason for the frightened baaing of the sheep, and saw also that Periwinkle was taking Miss Heliotrope away from something much worse than a thunderstorm. For scattered over the hillside were the figures of some half-dozen men dressed in black, shadowy, frightening figures that looked as though they might have dropped from the storm-clouds overhead. And they were stealing the lambs! Two of them were already making off down the hill with pathetic white woolly forms flung over their shoulders.

‘Wrolf! Wrolf!’ shouted Maria, but a deep roaring
sound from the other side of the hill told her that Wrolf was engaged with other Men from the Dark Woods whom she could not see. If she were going to rescue those lambs, Merryweather lambs,
her
lambs, she must do it herself.

Though she was absolutely terrified she did not hesitate. Gathering up her skirts in both hands she went dashing off down the hill, shouting as she had shouted when she rescued Serena: ‘Put those lambs down, I tell you! They’re
my
lambs. Put them down!’

But the men with the lambs went on while the other four came running towards Maria, brandishing their sticks and laughing; though their eyes were flashing in their dark faces in a very nasty way, a way that boded ill for Maria.

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she called to them, though she was so afraid that her tongue almost stuck to the roof of her mouth. ‘You dare hurt my lambs! You dare!’

After that it became most confusing. The thunder pealed and the lightning flashed and the rain came down like silver spears; and the Men from the Dark Woods were closing in upon her. To her right, through the rain, she dimly saw a slim figure dressed in brown, with a shepherd’s crook in his hand, running towards her, and on her left Wrolf was bounding to the rescue with Serena leaping along behind him . . . But they were not nearly as close as They were . . .

And then, through the noise of the thunder and the rain, she distinctly heard the hoofs of a galloping horse pounding upon the turf. As the horseman was behind her she could not herself see anything, but whoever he was the Men from the Dark Woods seemed to see him, for with faces blanched by terror they turned and fled. And then the two men carrying the lambs turned round, looked up, saw whatever it was the others had seen, dropped the lambs, and fled also. And the slim brown running figure came to her and took her hand . . . And he was Robin.

‘Quick!’ he cried. ‘There are lots more of Them about.
Quick! Run to the monastery and take shelter. Wrolf and I will round up the sheep. Run!’

And Maria ran, and as she ran she looked about her for the horseman on the galloping horse. But there was nothing to be seen; only the rain and the old beeches up above her on the top of the hill. She made for these as for the shelter of home, ran beneath them, and did not stop running until she reached the little paved court and the holy well. There it was still and quiet, and the interlaced branches overhead kept off most of the rain. She dropped down panting beside the spring and knew that she was safe. She could hear Wrolf roaring as he herded the sheep, and Robin’s clear voice calling to them in comfort and reassurance.

And soon, led by Serena, they all came trooping in around her, the big woolly mothers and the little lambs with their black faces and wagging tails and long ungainly legs. Merryweather lambs. Her lambs. She held out her hands to them and made comforting noises, and they and their mothers crowded round her. They bent their heads to drink from the cool spring, and she stroked their heads and talked to them as though they were her children. The rain stopped, and a shaft of pale sunlight shone down into the little court and turned the bubbling water to silver and the sheep’s wool to cloth of gold. Then she looked up and Robin was standing by her, and Wrolf was there too, shaking himself vigorously to get the wet off his fur.

‘We are safe here,’ said Robin. ‘This is a holy place, and the Men from the Dark Woods are wicked and They never come here. They are afraid of it.’

Maria looked up at him. He was looking unusually serious and very wet, and the raindrops were dripping off the end of the feather in his hat.

‘So you are the shepherd boy,’ said Maria.

‘I am Sir Benjamin’s shepherd boy and garden boy and general odd-jobber,’ said Robin. ‘Didn’t you know? I was playing my pipe here when suddenly I felt that something was wrong. And I went out and saw Them
coming up the other side of the hill. But I could never have chased Them off if it hadn’t been for you and Wrolf helping me.’

‘And that man on horseback,’ said Maria.

‘What man on horseback?’ asked Robin.

‘I heard a man on horseback galloping behind me,’ said Maria. ‘It was just after I had called “Wrolf! Wrolf!” that I heard him. I didn’t see him, but They did. It’s funny that you didn’t see him.’

‘No, I didn’t see him,’ said Robin, and he spoke very soberly indeed, and the water went drip drip off the end of his draggled feather.

‘You
are
wet, Robin,’ said Maria.

‘So are you,’ said Robin.

Wrolf, who had shaken all the water off himself and wasn’t wet any more, now walked to the low archway behind the ivy, where Robin’s pipe still lay upon the stone, and then walked back again, giving utterance to a low deep rumble in the throat as he came.

‘He’s right,’ said Robin to Maria. ‘You’ll catch cold if you don’t get your wet clothes off.’

He held out his hand to her and helped her up. ‘Come back with me to my house, and my mother will give you dry things. Wrolf will stay here with the sheep until he’s quite certain there are no more Men from the Dark Woods stalking around. Once the sun sets, the sheep will be quite safe. The Men from the Dark Woods don’t dare even to come to the hill after sunset. No one does. They are afraid.’

‘Of the ghost of Sir Wrolf?’ asked Maria.

‘So they say,’ said Robin.

‘Is your home far, Robin?’ asked Maria. She was, she suddenly discovered, very tired as well as very wet. She felt she could scarcely walk another step. And if Wrolf was staying here with the sheep, she would not be able to ride upon his back as she had done when she came up the hill.

‘My home is just here,’ said Robin. ‘There are
rather a lot of steps, but it’s down-hill all the way. Goodbye, Wrolf.’

‘Goodbye, Wrolf,’ said Maria, caressing the great shaggy head. ‘Goodbye, sheep.’ Then she looked about her. ‘But where is Serena?’ she asked anxiously. ‘She was here a minute ago.’

‘Don’t worry about Serena,’ said Robin. ‘She must have gone off somewhere to do something. I don’t know what, but whatever it is it’s sure to be something useful. Hares are very wise.’ Then he took Maria’s hand and led her across the court to the archway in the wall behind the ivy.

‘Is
this
your house?’ she asked in surprise.

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘This is Paradise Door. We have three doors — Front Door, Back Door, and Paradise Door.’

‘And you keep a mother down there?’ asked Maria, peering rather apprehensively down into the darkness.

‘The nicest mother in the world,’ said Robin, and then putting his hand into an alcove in the wall he took out a lantern, took flint and tinder from his pocket, and lit it. ‘I’ll go first, and you follow, with your dress held well up because it’s dusty.’

Maria had thought she was tired, but curiosity soon made her forget all about that, as Robin led her down a stone staircase, right down into the depths of the earth. At least it could be called a staircase only by courtesy, for the steps had been cut very roughly out of what seemed a natural tunnel in the rock.

‘My mother says that once upon a time there must have been a stream running down here,’ said Robin. ‘And the stream made the tunnel. And then the monks made the steps, so as to have a quick way of getting down to the village in bad weather. These hills are full of tunnels and caves, you know. Our house must once have been a cave. Or at least several caves. Our house is great fun. Mother thinks that the monks must have made it for a school or hospital for the village people.’

They went on and on, and quite suddenly the tunnel came to an end, before a small, low, rounded archway fitted with an oak door just big enough to admit a child or someone very small and slim. There was a knocker on the door and it was a little silver horseshoe.

‘Robin,’ whispered Maria, ‘the door is small like my door, and the horseshoe knocker is just like mine.’

‘They say,’ said Robin, ‘that the people who lived centuries ago were most of them smaller than we are now. So that must be why the monks made such a small door. I don’t know who put the knocker here. It was here when Mother and I discovered this door, and we believe that no one knows about this passage and door except us. They say
your
knocker was put there by the first Moon Princess.’

He pushed open the door, blew out his lantern, and then stood aside courteously for Maria to go in first.

Inside was a funny little cave, very much the shape of Maria’s room at the manor, only smaller. It had only one window, high up in the wall, and through it there was nothing to be seen except a patch of sky. The little room was very bare. There was just a low wooden bed covered by a patchwork quilt, a carved chest and a shelf for books. Upon the farther side of the room was another little archway, with no door this time. Maria would have liked to linger here a little and see what books Robin had on his shelf, but he wouldn’t let her.

‘Come straight to Mother and get dry,’ he commanded, and led the way to the second little archway. Maria followed him and found herself on a very narrow flight of steps, leading downward into Loveday Minette’s bedroom.

‘Robin!’ she cried in delight and astonishment. ‘Robin! Is Loveday Minette your mother?’

‘Of course,’ said Robin matter-of-factly.

‘And I thought Loveday must have a fairy husband,’ said Maria, ‘because of these narrow steps. But it’s
you
she must have been talking about when she said “he”.’

‘My father wasn’t a fairy,’ said Robin. ‘He was a mortal man, a lawyer. He wasn’t a valley man. He and my mother lived in the market-town right away on the other side of Paradise Hill. He died when I was only four years old, and then my mother came back to live in the Moonacre Valley. Because, you see, she had lived in this valley before she married, and people who have once lived here can never be happy anywhere else.’

They had reached Loveday’s bedroom now, and he called down the stairs to the room below, ‘Mother, are you there? Maria is here, and she’s very wet.’

‘Coming,’ called Loveday’s silvery voice, and in a moment she was with them, trim and lovely and looking ridiculously young to be Robin’s mother.

‘Go downstairs, Robin,’ she said, ‘and put on the dry clothes that are airing for you in front of the fire.’

Robin obeyed, and Loveday and Maria were left alone in Loveday’s lovely bedroom.

‘Take off your wet things at once, Maria,’ Loveday commanded in bustling motherly tones. ‘I have a dress that will fit you exactly. It has never been worn. It is not shabby like that old riding-habit of mine that you wear.’

Maria, in the middle of taking off her wet green dress, stopped and peeped through its folds at Loveday on her knees before the oak chest, rummaging in its depths for the dress that had never been worn.

‘
Now
I know,’ she said. ‘You come to the manor-house in the mornings, don’t you, Loveday, while I am still asleep, and lay out my clothes for me? And my prayer-book is yours. And you made those lovely things for my dear Miss Heliotrope. Oh, Loveday, what makes you so good to me?’

‘That night you arrived,’ said Loveday, ‘I opened the big door under the stone archway and let you in. You didn’t see me but I saw you, and I loved you as though you were my own daughter.’

‘And the moment I saw
you
,’ said Maria, ‘I loved you
as though you were my mother. Oh, Loveday, why don’t you wake me up and kiss me when you come to my room in the early mornings?’

‘I will, now,’ said Loveday. ‘You see, I came secretly. I wanted no one to know that I came. Sir Benjamin and Marmaduke Scarlet cannot bear a woman about the place. Until you arrived it was their boast that no female had ever set foot in the manor-house for twenty years. You must not tell them that I come, Maria.’