The Runaways (17 page)

They looked among the trees and rocks and ferns and presently Robert gave a shout and Timothy and Absolom joined him. Well hidden in a clump of rowans there was another hole, not a chimney this time, but a slanting rocky tunnel like a ladder going down into the dark.

‘Let’s go down,’ said Timothy.

‘We don’t know what’s waiting for us at the bottom,’ said Robert. ‘Remember what happened when we tried to get into that other cave.’

‘Whatever is down at the bottom, it won’t be bad,’ said Timothy.

‘Why not?’ asked Robert.

‘Because the bees came from here and because of all these rowan trees.’ He looked at Robert. ‘Do you want to go back the way we came?’ he asked. ‘They will be waiting for us in the wood by that ditch that we had to jump over.’

‘They’ll go home to have their stings attended to,’ said Robert.

‘If they do,’ said Timothy, ‘William Lawson and his dog and Frederick aren’t the only ones. There’s still Emma Cobley and Tom Biddle and Eliza Lawson. And we don’t know how
many others are in the wood and coming here after us.’

‘We’ll go down,’ said Robert, adding with courage, ‘I’ll go first.’ He took Absolom under one arm and they went down carefully, feeling with their feet for each new foothold. Robert was not as sure as Timothy that this was a good place and at any moment he expected to feel his ankles gripped by a horrible hairy hand. But they were not and presently he said to Timothy, ‘I’ve got my feet on the rungs of a real ladder.’ After that it was easy going. They were soon at the bottom and, lifting the curtain of hide, they stepped out into Daft Davie’s cave.

He was not there. They looked round with beating hearts and then went outside and ran down the steps and found the work-bench, and went a little way down the valley, and looked back and saw the Lion’s splendid head and his extended paws, and they knew that the whole place was very good.

‘We were inside the Lion’s mouth,’ said Timothy
excitedly
. ‘Right inside!’

‘Let’s go back,’ said Robert, and they raced back up the steps and explored the cave afresh. They found the bed of bracken this time, the pots and pans beside the
fire and the bowls of apples and nuts. They walked round the walls pointing out the birds and beasts to each other and then they found the picture of the horsemen in the wood and looked at it for a long time.

‘It’s Lady Alicia’s picture,’ said Timothy.

‘Is it?’ said Robert.

‘Yes,’ insisted Timothy. ‘Not exactly, but like it.’

‘I wonder who lives here,’ said Robert, losing interest in the picture. ‘Do you think he’d mind if we ate his apples?’

‘No, he wouldn’t mind,’ said Timothy. ‘Whoever he is, he’s good.’

They ate the apples and they were so hungry that they did not notice how hard and dry they were. And they found a pitcher of water and had a drink, and they poured some water into a bowl and Absolom had a drink too, and then Timothy said, ‘I’m awfully tired.’

Robert remembered that Timothy was supposed not to be strong. ‘Lie down on the bed,’ he suggested.

So Timothy curled up on the springy bracken and he looked so comfortable that presently Robert began to yawn and lay down beside him. And then Absolom jumped up on top of them and curled himself round in the comfortable V-shape behind Robert’s bent knee, and in five minutes they were all three deeply asleep.

Robert woke up first and saw that the moon was shining through the cave’s mouth and making a pool of silver on the floor. He gazed at it stupidly for a few minutes and then he sat up and shook Timothy and Absolom awake. ‘Wake up!’ he said. ‘It’s night.’

Timothy sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
‘So it is,’ he said with awe. ‘Is it midnight?’

‘It might be,’ said Robert.

‘They’ll be anxious at home,’ said Timothy.

‘We must get home quick,’ said Robert.

Timothy looked piteous and Robert knew that he was thinking not so much of enemies as of the long walk over the tor and down through the wood in the dark. ‘We’ll go down that little valley,’ he said. ‘There must be a way out at the bottom and perhaps it will be a quick way home.’

They ran down the steps and down the valley. It was almost as bright as day, for all the clouds had cleared away now and in the month of June daylight lingers long enough to make love to the moonlight. When they reached the precipice they paused, wondering which of the Lion’s paws they should climb over. The one to the right looked brambly and the one to the left easy as a flight of steps. ‘That’s the way,’ said Robert and they climbed over and found themselves on the path up which Nan had climbed. They went down a little way and then Absolom growled and Timothy, who was in front, stopped and said, ‘Look!’

Down below them a terrifying figure was climbing slowly up the path. He looked very big, but he wasn’t the black-bearded giant who had pursued them on the hill above, he looked all white like a ghost and he seemed hunch-backed. He raised his head and they saw his terrible white face with great pits for eyes. He saw them and leapt upwards, making extraordinary noises. How could they know that it was much earlier in the evening than they thought it was, and this was only
Daft Davie coming home, his head and beard blanched by the moonlight and his clothes whitened by the sack of flour he carried on his shoulders? They had never heard of Daft Davie and they fled back in terror, over the Lion’s paw, jumped the stream and ran across the little valley and up over the other paw, fighting their way through the thick brambles. Then they plunged down into the wood on the other side, where they struggled on and on through the undergrowth until at last they all three dropped down out of breath in a ferny dell. They listened, but there was no sound.

‘But a ghost wouldn’t make a sound,’ said Timothy.

‘Where are the rowan branches?’ asked Robert.

‘We left them behind in the cave,’ said Timothy.

‘Then we’ve lost our swords,’ said Robert. ‘And we don’t know where we are or which way to turn to get home.’

‘Listen!’ said Timothy.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Robert.

‘I can,’ said Timothy, and he listened intently. He could only just hear it, unearthly and far away, music like a bird, but not a bird. Absolom listened too, his head on one side, his ears cocked, the tip of his feathery tail trembling. Though the music was so faint it was irresistible, and Timothy and Absolom did not try to resist it. They ran after it, Absolom going first but Timothy not far behind him. Robert could hear nothing and he thought they must have gone crazy, but he followed them, and though the way may have been long it did not seem so. They felt no fatigue while they followed and they trod lightly, even Robert who did not hear what Timothy and Absolom heard. But it
was Robert who realised that they had come back to familiar ground.

‘There’s the beech tree!’ he said. ‘What’s the matter, Tim?’

For Timothy had stopped dead and so had Absolom and they were trembling. ‘Look!’ whispered Timothy. ‘Under the tree!’ The great tree stood full in the beams of the moon, so strong and glorious and yet so pale and unearthly in the strange light, that Robert
trembled
too, and for just a moment he thought he saw something under the tree, a man, strong and pale like the tree, but only a man to the waist. He blinked and saw only the moonbeams under the tree. But Timothy saw more. He saw the bent head and the noble bearded face, and the hand raised that they might listen to the echoes of the music. He heard the echoes fading away and when they vanished so had the man. Yet the three of them stood trembling for a full five minutes, looking at the place where he had been.

‘Who was he?’ whispered Robert at last.

‘He was Pan,’ said Timothy.

‘Who?’ asked Robert.

‘Pan. The man from the garden of the fountain,’ and began to cry.

‘What are you crying about?’ asked Robert.

‘He’s gone!’ sobbed Timothy.

‘Cry-baby!’ mocked Robert. ‘And the man from the garden of the fountain is only a statue. It was just moonbeams we saw.’

Timothy did not remind him of the music they had followed because he was swallowing his tears and could not speak. He turned blindly away and Robert took
his hand, not unkindly. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We know where we are now. We’re nearly home.’

They went slowly down the path, so tired that they could scarcely drag one foot after the other, and because they were tired they felt very dejected, and because they were dejected they ceased to be wary. If it had not been for Absolom’s warning growl they would have fallen into the trap, but when he growled they looked up and stopped still in a sort of despair, for down below them in the lane that ran under the Manor house wall were Emma Cobley, Tom Biddle, and the cat Frederick, coming to meet them.

‘And we haven’t got our swords!’ whispered Timothy.

‘Let’s get away into the wood,’ said Robert.

They turned to the right and there in the moonlight was a big fat woman, Eliza Lawson, getting sticks, and the bulldog was with her. They looked to the left and there was William Lawson with his face bandaged up, as though he had been very badly stung indeed. He saw them and shouted and brandished his knobbly stick, and then pandemonium broke out. Eliza with the bulldog came from one side of the wood and William Lawson from the other, and from below came Frederick, Emma, and Tom Biddle, and it was surprising how quickly these five old people moved, even Tom Biddle on his sticks.

‘The beech tree!’ gasped Timothy.

It was not far behind them and they ran back to it. They climbed over the great tree roots and scrambled up to the first low-growing branch, Robert handing Absolom up to Timothy. Then they climbed higher until they were well beyond a tall man’s reach. And
then they stopped, clinging to the trunk of the tree like limpets to a rock. They had been only just in time. When they leapt in among the tree roots the bulldog’s teeth had been only six inches from Robert’s heels.

Looking down, they knew they were safe. Their enemies were all round the tree, but they could not get beyond the outer circle of the tree roots. The bulldog and Frederick kept leaping up and down furiously, but it was as though they leapt against some invisible wall which every time threw them back, growling and yowling with fury and frustration. The four humans went round and round and tried from every side, but they could not get through either.

‘You young varmints,’ shouted William Lawson, shaking his stick at them. ‘Once let me get me ’ands on ee, an’ I’ll give ee such an ’iding as ee won’t forget in an ’urry! Settin’ them bees on me!’

Robert was feeling so brave that he shouted back, ‘And what were you doing, William Lawson, making that booby-trap in the woods?’

‘That weren’t no booby-trap,’ shouted William Lawson, ‘that’s Devil’s Ditch, what’s been there as long as the wood itself.’

‘Not hidden with leaves and with sharp stones and slimy things down at the bottom,’ Robert shouted back. They had to shout to be heard above the noise the animals were making, yet when Emma Cobley now spoke, her quiet voice pierced through the din like a sharp knitting-needle through paper, and the dogs and Frederick were suddenly silent. She had been standing with bent head, moving the point of the stick she carried thoughtfully here and there
in the beech mast, but now she looked round. ‘Shame on you, Will, to scare little children,’ she said, and then she looked up at them. ‘Come down, pretty dears. We mean you no harm. ’Tis time you were in bed. Come down and Emma Cobley will show you the way home.’

‘We are very comfortable where we are, thank you,’ said Robert with dignity.

‘We can’t stay all night, Emma,’ muttered Eliza Lawson. ‘What’s round this tree?’

‘Power,’ said Emma briefly.

‘Ain’t you got power, Emma?’ asked Tom Biddle.

‘Wait,’ said Emma, and she went on moving her stick in the beech mast. She was making triangles and circles with the point of her stick, weaving them in and out of each other in an invisible pattern.

‘She’s making a magic,’ whispered Robert, but his whisper was caught short by a yawn. Timothy was yawning too and rubbing his eyes. ‘Let’s get down,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s go to bed.’ And suddenly Absolom, half asleep, slipped, and would have fallen out of the tree if Robert had not grabbed him.

‘Hold on!’ Robert whispered urgently to Timothy. ‘Don’t go to sleep. Hold on.’

They held on, but their heads were rocking on their shoulders, and whether the power of the tree would have proved stronger than Emma Cobley’s magic, or whether Emma have would won, there is no knowing, for suddenly there was a shrill cry of, ‘Tuwhit tuwhoo!’ and a shout from the woods below. The boys’ heads jerked up, and down on the path they saw Uncle Ambrose, with Hector on his shoulder, and Ezra with his shepherd’s crook.

‘Ah-h-h-h!’ roared Ezra, like an angry lion when he saw the boys and their plight, and he stumped up the hill at a great pace, brandishing his crook. Hector took off from Uncle Ambrose’s shoulder with a great whirring of wings and flapping down like an avenging angel upon the heads of the enemy. Uncle Ambrose neither shouted nor flapped, but his stride lengthened and his face was very grim. ‘Ah-h-h-h!’ roared Ezra again, laying about the legs of the enemy with his crook, while they ducked and cringed to avoid Hector’s great flapping wings and terrible beak.