The Stolen Lake (11 page)

Mr. Holystone looked very unhappy, but made no direct answer to the captain. "Pray give consideration to my request, sir," was all that he said.

"Well—I will think about it, and let you know my decision in the morning. Meanwhile, kindly see that child goes to bed—and that a watch is kept over her during the night."

"Yes, sir."

Dido's bedroom was even smaller than the captain's—a tiny slip of a room. On the bed was curled something that Dido, for one nervous moment, took, in the dim candlelight, for a large spider. She was still unsettled by the events of the river trip. But then, with much relief, she saw that the sleeping creature was a small cat, curled up in a tight ball.

"Hey, puss!" Dido said softly. "Come to keep me company, have you?"

She stroked the cat and found, as on the one at Tenby, a collar with a disc, this time bearing the name Tom Tildrum, and a packet consisting of a small scrap of folded paper.

"Hilloo, Mr. Holy!" she called in a whisper. He had made himself up a pallet outside the door, and came directly.

"Look what's here, Mr. Holy! Another of 'em."

They both studied the words on the small printed page, which said:

Chirurgeon. One that cures ailments, not by internal medicines, but outward applications. It is now generally pronounced, and by many written, surgeon.

Under this was written, in small, desperate dark-brown letters (could they be blood?):

Help! I am a prisoner in a cave on Arrabe. I do not have air for many more days.

"Why's she so skint on air?" demanded Dido. "That's one thing nobody bothers to sell, acos no one'd buy it—there's always plenty."

"Not in the mountains," said Mr. Holystone hoarsely. He had gone deathly pale; his high forehead gleamed with sweat. He muttered, "Up on the slopes of Catelonde one must carry enough air to breathe. There are flowers—night-blooming lilies—shepherds always carry them...."

"Oh, Mr. Holy! What can we
do
for this poor girl?"

But Mr. Holystone was past replying. He had slid to the floor in deep unconsciousness.

The rack railway train that was to carry the party from Bewdley up to a height of twelve thousand feet above sea level was such a strange-looking little conveyance that when they first set eyes on it Dido exclaimed, "Love a duck! That thing couldn't pull pussy across the parlor!"

Captain Hughes, equally glum and dubious, observed that it resembled a row of dominoes in process of falling down. The rolling stock of the little train did indeed have a curiously tilted appearance, since most of its journey would be spent going up the side of a slope like a church steeple; consequently, while on flat ground the whole thing leaned forward as if engaged in studying its own toenails. The tiny wood-burning engine carried a top-heavy smokestack with a fuel box and water tank behind. There were three wagons: a baggage-and-mail car, loaded with straw bales, goats, poultry, salt, and dried fish; a boxcar crammed to its thatched roof with standing passengers, all wrapped snugly in the local garb of ponchos and long cloaks, which they called ruanas; and a first-class car which, for the benefit of the foreigners, was supplied with a few narrow wooden benches.

The train ran on three rails, the center one having large cog teeth, which engaged with similar teeth on a set of wheels under the cars, so that, however steep the slope, the train could never slip backward. Gay red roses and green leaves had been painted along the sides of the wagons a long time ago. The paint, like everything else about the train, was old, dirty, and worn.

After considerable delay the engine started with a great snorting and straining and blowing of steam and a shriek so prolonged that it seemed to be protesting against its task.

Almost as soon as it had clanked away from Bewdley, the track stopped being level and began to climb. They rounded a corner of the Severn gorge, crept up a steep hillside, and were immediately presented with a view so magnificent that it made Dido gasp. A mile west of Bewdley the valley of the Severn was barred by a great semicircle of cliffs over which the river came racing in a huge horseshoe of boiling white water, full three quarters of a mile from side to side; white vapor rose from it like smoke, and the roar was loud enough to drown even the screeching and chugging of their engine.

"That's what I kept a-hearing last night. I thought it was lions roaring and tigers caterwauling," Dido said to Mr. Holystone, who whispered that the cascade was known as the Falls of Hypha, and formed the lowest in a series of seven, all equally majestic. "The others are Stheino, Euryte, Medusa, Minerva, Nemetone, and Rhiannon—the seven witches who guard the secret land of Upper Cumbria."

"Ain't there
no
way to Upper Cumbria but by this railway?" asked Dido.

"Not from the sea. Before the rail track was cut, men thought the precipices too high to scale."

"Then," said Dido skeptically, "how did the first lot ever get there? The ones who came over after the Battle of Dyrham?"

"They had landed farther down the coast and traveled north through the mountains and the valley of Lake Arianrod."

"Come in by the back way, I see."

"That way, too, leads in through a very narrow pass; it wants but one great rock to fall, which hangs poised on the lip of Mount Catelonde, and the way would be blocked, and Upper Cumbria would be sealed off."

"Only if the railway stopped running," Dido pointed out. "What a lot you know about it all, Mr. Holy!"

"I have always—always been interested in ancient history...." His weak voice died away in a great yawn, and his head nodded forward. He roused up again, however, to say to Captain Hughes, "Sir, do not forget—that when we reach Bath Regis—which is thirteen thousand feet above sea level—all the party must be careful to avoid undue exertion at first—the air is so thin that—the least effort causes palpitations of the heart. You will—ache all over—headaches and nosebleeds are not uncommon—"

He toppled over on his side; he had been sitting on the wagon floor, propped against the wall. Dido, kneeling by him worriedly, saw that he was in a kind of half-sleep, half-swoon. His fainting fit last night had occasioned a great deal of concern. He had recovered only after a great many restoratives had been administered, and Captain Hughes had said firmly there could be no question of his returning to the coast by himself, or of his remaining in the small and primitive inn at Bewdley. He must accompany the party to Bath, where there were sure to be doctors and he could be properly cared for. Poor Mr. Holystone had been too weak to protest, although he seemed wretched in his spirits, as if the whole atmosphere of Cumbria oppressed him and made him ill. In the morning he had to be carried on board the train.

"Best leave him to sleep," said Captain Hughes. "Poor devil, maybe it is merely the altitude that is affecting him, and he will recover in due course."

Dido felt sure that it was more than that. She had not informed Captain Hughes about the messages in the cats' collars—she could just imagine the scorn with which he would dismiss such idle nonsense—but she herself felt certain that they had something to do with Mr. Holystone's infirmity.

As the train zigzagged its way upward, she occupied herself by looking out of the dirty window at the scenery, which was certainly very astonishing. Day wore slowly on as they climbed higher and higher, curving over mountainsides and through narrow passes, creeping along narrow rocky valleys, and yet again up and up, following the course of the river Severn, now transformed to a boulderstrewn torrent. They passed many more waterfalls, some plunging from thousand-foot crags into vapor-filled gorges, others pouncing down hillsides step by step.

At last Dido became bored with her own company—for Noah Gusset was curled up asleep, Mr. Multiple and the lieutenant were playing chess, and Plum, a silent man at all times, was knitting himself a sock, while Captain Hughes, having written up his log, was deep, as usual, in aerostatics.

Seizing the chance when the train stopped at a wayside halt to take on more wood and water and allow a customs official to inspect the foreigners' credentials, Dido slipped out of the first-class car onto the rock platform beside the track.

"Hey, young 'un! Where are you off to?" demanded Lieutenant Windward, sticking his fair head out.

"I'm a-going in the boxcar for a bit," said Dido. "I'll be all rug; don't you fret your fur."

She was startled at the bitter cold of the mountain air, high up here between Ambage and Arryke; she made haste to scramble into the second-class car, where the atmosphere was as warm as a nesting box. There were no seats at all in here, and the passengers—who were mostly sunburned peasants, bringing their goods to the city—all squatted on the floor. They wore sandals, ponchos, goatskin trousers, and a dozen hats apiece, and the floor was littered with melon seeds, pineapple tassels, and plantain rinds. However, the human climate was a great deal more cordial than in the first-class accommodation; Dido was greeted cheerfully enough, and offered cherries from a basket, a bite of a delicious fruit called chirimoya, and a mugful of chicha, a drink not unlike cider. She learned, partly by sign language, since the peasants mostly spoke Latin, that they came not from Tenby, but from small clearings in the forest, and that they were coming to sell their hats in Bath. She herself was bombarded with questions.

"Why is the gringo captain coming to Bath? Why is he permitted to do so? Why does he leave his ship?"

"He is coming to visit your queen," Dido said.

"Wants to see Her Mercy, do he? Why, in the name of Grandmother Sul?"

"No," said Dido, "
she
wants to see
him.
She wants him to do summat for her."

This was received with puzzlement and wonder.

"What could the gringo captain do for Her Mercy that her couldn't do for herself? A powerful wise woman she be!"

"Pick up the Cheesewring with her bare hands and sling it into the middle of Dozmary Pool, her could!" Dido gathered that these were local names for Mount Catelonde and Lake Arianrod. "Make old Damyake Hill blow sparks into King Mabon's beard. She's a powerful one, she be. Could turn Severn Water back'ards through Pulteney Bridge. Ar, she'm a rare 'un, old Queen Ginnyvere."

"Why doesn't she have a king?" Dido asked. "In England we have both."

They were all amazed at her ignorance.

"Course there be a king! Didn't you know that? Lives in his own place, top o' Beechen Hill—in the Wen Pendragon. But he don't come out. Wounded, he were, in the wars."

"What wars?"

"Long-ago wars. Old, old wars. He won't get no better till the red rain do fall. Then the great gates'll open, and he'll go home again."

"What red rain?"

Nobody was certain about that. "He'll get better in his own time, maidy. Simmingly."

"Maybe that's what the queen wants," said Dido. "Maybe she wants Cap'n Hughes to recommend a doctor from England."

This precipitated a great discussion among the peasants, some saying that the queen could do anything, and consequently needed no help from outsiders, others pointing out that she must have had
some
reason for summoning the gringo captain.

In the middle of this, Dido was greatly startled to see the tall, thin, black-clad figure of Bran the storyteller unfold himself from a corner where he had been dozing unnoticed and move into the middle of the car. He had his white bird on his shoulder, and greeted Dido with a friendly nod.

"Oh!" cried Dido, delighted, "now you can finish the story about the man and the stick."

But the word
story
instantly aroused a commotion among the other passengers.

"A story—a story! Your Excellency—Your Venerable—Your Squireship—Your Knowingness—do'ee now, kindly, tell us a story!"

"Very well," said the man called Bran. "If you will all be so good as to keep quiet, so that I can make myself heard." Instantly a dead silence prevailed, apart from the spitting of melon seeds.

Bran thought for a moment, cleared his throat, and began.

"Once a man called Juan applied for a post as night-watchman at a warehouse. He had been promised the job. But when he got there, the overseer said to him, 'That job has been given to someone else.' 'To whom?' furiously demanded Juan. 'To that man who just left.' Looking out of the door, Juan was amazed to see that the other man exactly resembled himself. 'Stop, you impostor!' shouted Juan, chasing him along the street. 'You have stolen my job.' But the other man turned a corner, and Juan could not find him.

"Then Juan fell in love with a beautiful girl. But when he asked her to marry him, she said, 'I am already promised to that man on the other side of the marketplace.' And he looked across, and there was his double again. 'Now I shall catch you, you wretch!' he bawled, and he rushed across the square. But when he reached the other side, his rival had gone. And many times this happened; if it was the last loaf on a baker's counter, or the last place on the ferry, it was always the double who got there first.

"Then, one day, as Juan was going down the hill toward the river, he saw his double not far ahead.
Now
I shall catch him, thought Juan, and he began to run. But as the other man walked out on the bridge, a great flood came roaring down the riverbed and washed the bridge away. And Juan wept and raged and would not be comforted. 'For,' he said, 'now I have lost my enemy forever.'"

"Is that the end?" asked Dido.

"That you must decide for yourself," said Bran.

Dido reflected.

"Well, I think he was a looby, to carry on so," she said. "If
I'd
been him, I'd never—"

But Bran was briskly going round among the peasants, collecting small copper coins in a wooden cup. Then he sang a song, accompanying himself on his harp:

"
I can hardly bear it
Waiting for tomorrow to come
Joy I want to share it
Waiting for tomorrow to come

Love I must declare it
Waiting for tomorrow to come
For that's the day
When she, when she, when she, when she, when she
Will come
My way.

Time seems to creep
Waiting for tomorrow to come
Clock has gone to sleep,
Waiting for tomorrow to come
Patiently I keep...
"