The Whispering Mountain (6 page)

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Authors: Joan Aiken

BOOK: The Whispering Mountain
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The two men went on with their discussion.
“Why not send the letter straight to my lord, then?” Prigman suggested.
“He'd
pay up and plenty. Special if he thought some other cove might get his fambles on the bandore first.”
“By gar, I have it, my bully-cove!” Bilk gave a shout of laughter; it came oddly from his bad-tempered face. “We'll send letters to
all
the worships—ay, to his highness the Prince of Wales, too! Old Morgan at the bousing-ken said his highness is a-coming to stay with his lordship at Malyn for to hunt the wild grunters. Then the first of 'em to pass over his thousand mint clinkers gets the bandore.”
“Whoa! That's none so bad,” Prigman said admiringly. He began to count on his fingers. “A letter for Prince David—and a letter for the whiskered sir at the jumble-ken,” —Owen supposed that by this he meant Mr.
Hughes—“and a letter for old Stigmatical, that's three, and t'other lordship is four. Can you scribe four letters, boy?”
Owen had not the least intention of writing any letters demanding money for the harp, particularly if they purported to come from him, but Prigman gave him a warning kick, so he nodded cautiously.
“Odds chitlings, then,” Bilk said, “let's be on our way to the stalling-ken. There's no ink or paper hereabouts. Then, when the young sprig's done the scribing, we can slit his weasand and drop him over Devil's Leap.”
They bolted their last bits of bread and bacon, untied the ponies, remounted, and continued on their journey, taking a circuitous route through more and yet more uninhabited valleys.
By now the day was well advanced, and presently the sun dropped behind a craggy hill ahead of them which bore, as they proceeded, a strong resemblance to a man wearing a large, flat hat. There could be no doubt that it was Fig-hat Ben, the Whispering Mountain. Owen had once accompanied his grandfather to Nant Agerddau in order to help him carry home some volumes of sermons for the museum library, and had been greatly struck by this unusual peak.
By now they had abandoned the valleys and were crossing a wide, barren, shelving upland, covered with loose stones. Ahead of them the great summit showed black against a pale yellow sky.
“In all my born days I never did glim such a dismal, frampold part o' the country,” Prigman muttered with a shiver. “They say old Bogey-Boo lives up here in this
nook-shotten place—well, I say, if he does, he's welcome to it.”
Bilk, on the faster pony, and carrying less weight, had again drawn some distance ahead, so Owen risked another question.
“What part do you come from then?”
“Bless your nab, me and my cully comes from London town, where the streets is paved with mint sauce and the birds has diamond plumes! And shan't I be joyful when I'm a-posting back there,” Prigman said in heartfelt tones. “Mind you I
knows
this country, oh yes, I knows it; time was, I was a kitchen boy at Castle Malyn, scouring the pots and basting the cracklers, till I got turned off for prigging a gold chafer and sent to the queer-ken.”
Prison, Owen guessed.
“But then, why did you come down here again? It's a long way from London.”
“Hang me, it is! But a certain worshipful gent bespoke me and my cully to do a bit o' work for him, said he'd line our pockets with white money.”
“Lord Malyn?”
“Ah, never mind, my clever young co! There's others besides his ludship, remember.”
For the first time Owen remembered the odd conversation he had held through the peephole. What had the foreign gentleman called himself? The Bey, the Dey, No, the Seljuk, that was it.
“The Seljuk of Rum,” he said to himself.
“You hold your whids, my twiggy young cull, and don't be so free with your prattle.” Prigman advised him. “If my
mate was to hear you going on so, he'd tickle your ribs for sure.”
As Bilk was now waiting for them, Owen fell silent again, pondering over what information he had. He was fairly certain that the man in the carriage who had asked about the museum must have been Lord Malyn himself, who had presumably then summoned Mr. Hughes for an interview. The Marquess had asked about Bilk and Prigman too. So was he Prigman's “worshipful gent”—or was he merely trying to discover if the two men were working for the Seljuk? Would Lord Malyn be likely to employ a man who had stolen a gold dish from his own kitchen?
“Cut out the canting now,” grunted Bilk as they came up with him, “We don't want any row or we'll start the whole hill a-sliding.”
Very slowly and gingerly the ponies made their cautious way down a little narrow slippery path which crossed a whole hillside of loose scree. As they descended, high shoulders of hill rose about them; at length a winding track by a stream led them into a narrow, gorge-like valley, so deep that it was almost dark at the bottom, although high overhead and in front the last pink rays of the sun still gilded the crown of Fig-hat Ben.
There was a drear, dank feel about the glen; yet it was not cold but unnaturally, steamily warm, and became warmer as they made their way along it, following a tolerably well-surfaced track.
Far ahead of them some lights twinkled in the gloom.
“It's a drodsome place, if you ask me,” Prigman muttered, “I'd as soon live in a cameleopard's den.”
Even the ponies seemed subdued by the atmosphere of
the gorge; they snorted and twitched their skins, and set their hoofs down with exaggerated care.
Owen did not dare ask Prigman if the lights were those of Nant Agerddau, though he felt certain they must be. A dazzling thought had just flown, like a comet, into his mind: somewhere, not too far away, Arabis and Tom Dando would be established in their wagon, cutting hair and selling herbal remedies, for they had planned to stay in Nant Agerddau during the week of the fair. If only, somehow, he could get in touch with them!
“‘Tis a doomid outistical sort o' place to hold a fair, by my way o' thinking,” Prigman muttered.
“Where is the fair held?” Owen asked hopefully.
“Up at the top end o' the town; we shan't pass up that-ways, cully, so it's not a bit o' use you readying yourself to roar out for help,” Prigman replied. “Our stalling-ken is just here-along.”
In fact almost at once the ponies turned aside towards a little dark row of five houses, set right underneath a great overhang of cliff that shelved out above them, cutting a black wedge against the twilit sky.
Not a light showed in any of the windows, not a thread of smoke issued from any chimney. It was plain that the whole row had been deserted, though the houses seemed in reasonably good repair; what could be the matter with them? Owen puzzled vaguely over this but could not arrive at the reason; stupid with weariness after a day and most of a night in the saddle, all he really wanted was to throw himself on the ground and go to sleep.
“Right,” said Bilk. “You take the young co into the ken and hobble him up good and tight; I'll go on and get some
ink and paper. Shan't be long; back afore darkmans.”
“Get a bit o' prog while you're at it,” Prigman called after him softly as he rode away, “And a drop o' bouse!”
Then he propelled Owen before him towards the middle house of the row, gave the front door, which was not fastened, a kick to open it, and entered a dark room which smelt strongly of hens. Owen stumbled on the rough dirt floor and was kept from falling only by Prigman's grip on his bound hands.
“Through here,” said Prigman, who appeared familiar with the house, and guided Owen into what seemed to be a back kitchen. “Us doesn't want anybody a-spotting our glim. Now, you stall there while I make things trig.” He dealt Owen a sharp clip on the ear, taking him by surprise and knocking him over. While he struggled in vain to get up, Prigman calmly struck a light, revealing a small empty room in which generations of hens had certainly roosted. Its furniture consisted of two beams crossing the room at knee-height, which had evidently served as perches. A piece of sacking hung over the one small window. There was a pile of straw against the back wall.
“Snug, eh?” Prigman said cheerfully. “No one won't live here nowadays, acos there was a bit of a landfall last Michaelmas and they reckon some day the rest o' the mountain will come ploudering down on the roof, but I say that won't happen till Turpentine Sunday, and meanwhile it makes a famous ken, dunnit?” Intercepting Owen's longing glance at the straw he added, “Tired, are you, cully?” Owen nodded. “Well, soon's you done scribing those papers for us you can snooze all you've a mind to.”
Owen summoned all his resolution.
“Mr. Prigman,” he said firmly, “I'm not going to write any letters for you.”
“Ah, now, mate, don't you be so twitty,” Prigman said earnestly. “Acos I tell you straight, my cully Bilk can't abide to be crossed. If you cuts up rusty, it'll be the last thing you ever does.”
Owen felt he hardly cared. His eyes were closing, all he longed for was sleep. Death seemed just as harmless.
“Hey! roust there, cully!” Prigman said sharply. “You'd best get up on your stamps; no shut-eye for you till the scribing's done.” He drew his knife and prodded Owen with it to make him stagger to his feet, helping him with a jerk of the arm.
“Right; you hold up like that against the wall—here, by the beam—and I'll lay old Biter up against your ribs
so
—she's mortal sharp, ain't she?—and you just keep your glaziers open till Bilk gets back!”
Nobody wants a knife between the ribs. Owen dragged his eyes open and stood as straight as he could, leaning away from the point of Biter, back against the wall. Prigman, always keeping the knife steady with one hand, contrived with the other hand to drape a truss of straw across the beam and sat on it at his ease facing Owen. He then observed that he couldn't abide the smell of cackling-cheats, which Owen took to be hens.
An hour went by. Several times Owen nearly toppled forward and Prigman roused him by a sharp cuff or a jab with the point of Biter. Meanwhile he kept up a stream of talk to which Owen hardly listened—something about Lord Malyn's house in London where even the door-knobs were made of gold—something about his highness the
Prince of Wales who was mortal fond of hunting the wild boar—something about the Ottoman gentleman who had travelled all the way from the Costa Fraucasus to Pennygaff—why? what could he want in such an out-of-the-way little place?—something about old Mr. Hughes, stubborn and foolhardy in refusing to hand over an object that was no possible use to him.
At last the door flew open and Bilk lurched in, accompanied by a strong odour of metheglin.
“You been in the bousing-ken!” Prigman said indignantly. “And never brought me a dram, I'll lay a barred cinque-deuce.”
“I have, then.” Bilk produced a leather bottle.
“And the scribing-gear?”
“Ay. But see here, we ain't staying in this ken. Why, the whole miching, impasted hillside's due to come col-loping down any day now. They was on about it in the ale-house.”
“Old stuff!” Prigman said scornfully. “We knowed that afore. Don't ferret your head about it.”
“No, but they reckon it'll be any cockcrow now—the whole cliff's been diddering and doddering hereabouts and great nuggins of rock keeps a-tumbling down. That's why no one won't even keep their grunters and cackling-cheats in these houses now. Hark!”
In fact, even as Bilk spoke, they could hear a rumbling fall of rock not far away, and several stones bounced on the slates overhead.
“I'm gasted,” Bilk said. He was pale and sweating. “Let's get out o' here.”
“Ay, tol-lol, all in good time,” said Prigman, less convinced
of danger. “Let's make the young woodcock do his scribing first. That won't take but a wag of a lamb's tail.”
“Why?” Bilk was itching to be off.
“Why, you abram, then we can leave him here, it'll save dropping him off Devil's Leap. The cliff'll come down and that's the end of him, no fault of ourn.”
Bilk nodded once or twice in acknowledgement of this. “Ah, that's probal. So, let's press on then. Does he hear us? He seems half aswame.”
“Wake up, drumble-head!” Prigman said, poking Owen with Biter. “Fetch a board, Bilk, for him to scribe on, while I unties his fambles.” He took the cloth bindings from Owen's wrists and tied them instead round his ankles.
Owen, so weary by this time that he was only half conscious of what was happening, found a pen thrust into his hand and a paper presented to him.
“Now, scribe what we say or I'll slit your gorge,” Bilk ordered, pressing a knife against his throat.
“No!” Owen said faintly. The knife pressed deeper and he felt a trickle of blood start down his neck.
“Easy, mate; don't go at it too skimble-skamble and mar all! Try him with a drop o' bouse,” Prigman suggested hastily. “He's still dozey as a dormouse.”

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