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Chapter V
DANGER TO THE JARS
Now my ears and eyes and tongue had been dealt with, and what remained
were the forehead and the chest. I could not guess what would come of
treating these with the ointment, but I thought I would try the forehead
first. There was still a day or two when the moon would be bright enough
for the trial. I hoped that perhaps the effect of these two last jars
might be to make me able to go on with my experiences—to keep in touch
with the new people I had come across—during the time when she—the
moon, I mean—was out of sight.
I had one anxiety. The precious box must be guarded from those who were
after it. About this I had a conviction, that if I could keep them off
until I had used each of the five jars, the box and I would be safe. Why
I felt sure of this I could not say, but my experience had led me to
trust these beliefs that came into my head, and I meant to trust this
one. It would be best, I thought, if I did not go far from the
house—perhaps even if I did not leave it at all till the time of danger
was past.
Several things happened in the course of the morning which confirmed me
in my belief. I took up a position at the table by the window of my
sitting-room. I had put the box in my suit-case, which I had locked, and
I now laid it beside me where I could keep an eye upon it. The view from
my window showed me, first, the garden of the cottage, with its lawn and
little flower beds, its hedge and back gate, and beyond that a path
leading down across a field. More fields, I knew, came after that one,
and sloped pretty sharply down to a stream in the valley, which I could
not see; but I could see the steep slope of fields, partly pasture, and
then clothed with green woods towards the top. There were no other
houses in sight: the road was behind me, passing the front of the
cottage, and my bedroom looked out that way. I had some writing and
reading to do, and I had not long finished breakfast before I settled
down to it, and heard the maid "doing out" the bedroom as usual,
accompanied every now and then by a slight mew from the cat, who (also
as usual) was watching her at work. These mews meant nothing in
particular, I may say; they were only intended to be met by an
encouraging remark, such as "There you are, then, ***," or "Don't get
in my way, now," or "All in good time." Finally I heard "Come along
then, and let's see what we've got for you downstairs," and the door was
shut. I mention this because of what happened about a quarter of an hour
later.
There was suddenly a fearful crash in the bedroom, a fall, a breaking
of glass and crockery and snapping of wood, and then, fainter, sobbings
and moans of pain. I started up.
"Goodness!" I thought, "she must have been dusting that heavy shelf high
up on the wall with all the china on it, and the whole thing has given
way. She must be badly hurt! But why doesn't her mistress come rushing
upstairs? and what was that rasping noise just beside me?"
I looked at my suit-case, which lay on the table just inside the open
window. Across the new smooth top of it there were three deep scratches
running towards the window, which had not been there before. I moved it
to the other side of me and sat down. There had been an attempt to decoy
me out of the room, and it had failed. Certainly there would be more.
I waited; but everything was quiet in the house: no more noise from the
bedroom and no one moving about, upstairs or downstairs; nothing but
the pump clanking in the scullery. I turned to my work again.
Half an hour must have gone by, and, though on the look-out, I was not
fidgety. Then I was aware of a confused noise from the field outside.
"Help! help! Keep off, you brute! Help, you there!" as well as I could
make out, again and again. Towards the far end of the field, which was a
pretty large one, a poor old man was trying to get to a gate in the
hedge at a staggering run, and striking now and then with his stick at a
great deer-hound which was leaping up at him with hollow barks. It
seemed as if nothing but the promptest dash to the spot could save him;
it seemed, too, as if he had caught sight of me at the window, for he
beckoned. How strange the cries sounded! It was as if someone was
shouting into an empty jug. My field-glasses were by me on the table,
and I thought I would take just _one_ look before I rushed out. I am
glad I did; for, do you know, when I had the glasses focused on the dog
and the man, all that I could see was a sort of fuzz of dancing vapour,
much as if the shimmering air that you see on the heath on a hot day had
been gathered up and rolled into a shape.
"Ha! ha!" I said, as I put down the glasses; and something in the air,
about four yards off, made a sharp hissing sound. No doubt there were
words, but I could not distinguish them. A second attempt had failed;
you may be sure I was well on the alert for the next.
I put away my books now, and sat looking out of the window, and
wondering as I watched whether there was anything out of the common to
be noticed. For one thing, I thought there were more little birds about
than I expected. At first I did not see them, for they were not hopping
about on the lawn; but as I stared at the hedge of the garden, and at
that of the field, I became aware that these were full of life. On
almost every twig that could hold a bird in shelter—not on the top of
the hedges—a bird was sitting, quite still, and they were all looking
towards the window, as if they were expecting something to happen there.
Occasionally one would flutter its wings a little and turn its head
towards its neighbour; but this was all they did.
I picked up my glasses and began to study the bottom of the hedges and
the bushes, where there was some quantity of dead leaves, and here, too,
I could see that there were spectators. A small bright eye or a bit of a
nose was visible almost wherever I looked; in short, the mice, and, I
don't doubt, some of the rats, hedgehogs, and toads as well, were
collected there and were as intently on the watch as the birds. "What a
chance for the cat, if only she knew!" I put my head cautiously out of
the window, and looking down on the sill of the window below, I could
see her head, with the ears pushed forward; she was looking earnestly
at the hedge, but she did not move. Only, at the slight noise I made,
she turned her face upwards and crowed to me in a modest but encouraging
manner.
Time passed on. Luncheon was laid—on another table—and was over,
before anything else happened.
The next thing was that I heard the maid saying sharply:
"What business 'ave you got going round to the back? We don't want none
of your rubbish here."
A hoarse voice answered inaudibly.
_Maid_: "No, nor the gentleman don't want none of your stuff neither;
and how do you know there's a gentleman here at all I should like to
know? What? Don't mean no offence? I dare say. That's more than I know.
Well, that's the last word I've got to say."
In a minute more there was a knock at my door, and at the same time a
step on the gravel path under my window, and a loud hiss from the cat.
As I said "Come in" to the knock, I hastily looked out of the window,
but saw nothing. It was the maid who had knocked. She had come to ask if
there was anything I should like from the village, or anything I should
want before tea-time, because the mistress was going out, and wanted her
to go over and fetch something from the shop. I said there was nothing
except the letters and perhaps a small parcel from the post office. She
lingered a moment before going, and finally said:
"You'll excuse me naming it, sir, but there seems to be some funny
people about the roads to-day, if you'd please to be what I mean to say
a bit on the look-out, if you're not a-going out yourself."
"Certainly," I said. "No, I don't mean to go out. By the way, who was it
came to the door just now?"
"Oh, it was one of these 'awking men, not one I've seen before, and he
must be a stranger in this part, I think, because he began going round
to the garden door, only I stopped him. He'd got these cheap rubbishing
'atpins and what not; leastways, if you understand me, what I thought to
myself I shouldn't like to be seen with 'em, whatever others might."
"Yes, I see," I answered; and she went, and I turned to my books once
more.
Within a very few minutes I began to suspect that I was getting sleepy.
Yes, it was undoubtedly so. What with the warmth of the day, and lunch,
and not having been out.... There was a curious smell in the room, too,
not exactly nasty, like something burning. What did it remind me of?
Wood smoke from a cottage fire, that one smells on an autumn evening as
one comes bicycling down the hill into a village? Not quite so nice as
that; something more like a chemist's shop. I wondered: and as I
wondered, my eyes closed and my head went forward.
A sharp pain on the back of my hand, and a crash of glass! Up I jumped,
and which of three or four things I realized first I don't know now. But
I did realize in a second or two that my hand was bleeding from a
scratch all down the back of it, that a pane of the window was broken
and that the whole window was darkened with little birds that were
bumping their chests against it; that the cat was on the table gazing
into my face with intense expression, that a little smoke was drifting
into the room, and that my suit-case was on the point of slipping out
over the window-sill. A despairing dash at it I made, and managed to
clutch it; but for the life of me I could not pull it back. I could see
no string or cord, much less any hand that was dragging at it. I hardly
dared to take my hand from it to catch up something and hack at the
thief I could not see. Besides, there was nothing within reach.
Then I remembered the knife in my pocket. Could I get it out and open
it without losing hold? "They hate steel," I thought. Somehow—frantically
holding on with one hand—I got out the knife, and opened it, goodness
knows how, for it was horribly small and stiff, with my teeth, and
sheared and stabbed indiscriminately all round the farther end of the
suit-case. Thank goodness, the strain relaxed. I got the thing inside
the window, dropped it, and stood on it, craning over the garden path
and round the corner of the house. Of course there was nothing to be
seen. The birds were gone. The cat was still on the table saying "O you
owl! O you owl!" The sole and only clue to what had been happening was a
small earthenware saucer that lay on the path immediately below the
window, with a little heap of ashes in it, from which a thin column of
smoke was coming straight up and curling over when it reached the window
level. That, I could not doubt, was the cause of my sudden sleepiness.
I dropped a large book straight on to it, and had the satisfaction of
hearing it crush to bits and of seeing the smoke go four ways along the
ground and vanish.
I was perfectly awake now. I looked at the cat, and showed her the back
of my hand. She sat quite still and said:
"Well, what did you expect? I had to do something. I'll lick it if you
like, but I'd rather not. No particular ill-feeling, you understand; all
the same a hundred years hence."
I was not in a position to answer her, so I shook my head at her, wound
up my hand in a handkerchief, and then stroked her. She took it
agreeably, jumped off the table, and requested to be let out.
So the third attack had failed. I sat down and looked out. The hedges
were empty; not a bird, not a mouse was left. I took this to mean that
the dangerous time was past, and great was the relief. Soon I heard the
maid come back from her errands in the village, then the mistress's
chaise, then the clock striking five. I felt it would be all right for
me to go out after tea.
And so I did; first, however, concealing the suit-case in my
bedroom—not that I supposed hiding it would be of much use—and piling
upon it poker, tongs, knife, horseshoe, and anything else I could find
which I thought would keep off trespassers. I had, by the way, to
explain to the maid that a bird had flown against the window and broken
it, and when she said "Stupid, tiresome little things they are," I am
afraid I did not contradict her.
I went out by way of the garden and crossed the field, near the middle
of which stands a large old oak. I went up to this, for no particular
reason, and stood gazing at the trunk. As I did so I became aware that
my eyes were beginning to "see through," and behold! a family of owls
was inside. As it was near evening, they were getting wakeful,
stirring, smacking their beaks and opening their wings a little from
time to time. At last one of them said:
"Time's nearly up. Out and about! Out and about!"
"Anyone outside?" said another.
"No harm there," said the first.
This short way of talking, I believe, was due to the owls not being
properly awake and consequently sulky. As they brightened up and got
their eyes open, they began to be more easy in manner.
"Oop! Oop! Oop! I've had a very good day of it. You have, too, I hope?"
"Sound as a rock, I thank you, except when they were carrying on at the
cottage."
"Oh goodness! I forgot! They didn't bring it off, I hope."
"Not they; the watch was too well set, but it was wanted. I had a leaf
about it a few minutes after, and it seems they got him asleep."
"Well! I never heard anyone bring a leaf."
"I dare say not, but I was expecting it; pigeon dropped it. There it is,
on that child's back."
I saw the hen-owl stoop and examine a dead chestnut leaf which lay, as
the other had said, on an owlet's back.
"Fa-a-ther!" said this owlet suddenly, in a shrill voice, "mayn't I go
out to-night?"
But all that Father did was to clasp its head in his claw and push it to
and fro several times. When he let go, the owlet made no sound, but
crept away and hid its face in a corner, and heaved as if with sobs.
Father closed his eyes slowly and opened them slowly—amused, I thought.
The mother had been reading the leaf all the time.
"Dear me! _very_ interesting!" she said. "I suppose now the worst of it
is over."
"All's quiet for to-night, anyhow," said Father, "but I wish he could
see someone about to-morrow; that's their last chance, and they
_may_——" He ruffled up his feathers, lifted first one foot and then
the other. "The awkwardness is," he went on, "if I say too much and they
do get the jars, there's one risk; and if there's no warning and they
get them, there's another risk."
"But if there _is_ a warning and they _don't_ get them," said she, very
sensibly.
"Well, to be sure, that would be better, even though we don't know much
about him."
"But where do you suppose he is, and whom ought he to see?" (It was just
what I wanted to know, and I thanked her.)
"Why, as to the first, I suspect he's outside; there is someone there,
and why they should stop there all this time unless they're listening, I
don't know."
"Good gracious! listening to our private conversation! and me with my
feathers all anyhow!" She began to peck at herself vigorously; but this
was straying from the point, and annoyed me. However, Father went slowly
on:
"As to that, I don't much care whether he's listening or not. As to whom
he ought to see, that's rather more difficult. If he's got as far as
talking to any of the Right People (he said this as if they had capital
letters), they'd know, of course; and some of them down about the
village, they'd know; and the Old Mother knows, and——"
"What about the boys?" said she, pausing in the middle of her toilet and
poking her head up at him. He wholly disdained to answer, and merely
butted at her with his head, so that she slipped down off her ledge
several inches, with a great scrabbling. "Oh, _don't_!" she said
peevishly, as she climbed back. "I'm all untidy again."
"Well then, don't ask such ridiculous questions. I shall buffle you with
both wings next time. And now, as soon as the coast is clear, I shall be
out and about."
I took the hint and moved off, for I had learnt as much perhaps as I
could expect, even if all was not yet plain; and before I had gone many
paces I was aware of the pair both sailing smoothly off in the opposite
direction.
I was "seeing through" a good deal that evening; it is surprising what a
lot of coppers people drop, even on a field path; surprising, too, in
how many places there lie, unsuspected, bones of men. Some things I saw
which were ugly and sad, like that, but more that were amusing and even
exciting. There is one spot I could show where four gold cups stand
round what was once a book, but the book is no more than earth now.
That, however, I did not see on this particular evening.
What I remember best is a family of young rabbits huddled round their
parents in a burrow, and the mother telling a story: "And so then he
went a little farther and found a dandelion, and stopped and sat up and
began to eat it. And when he had eaten two large leaves and one little
one, he saw a fly on it—no, two flies; and then he thought he had had
enough of that dandelion, and he went a little farther and found another
dandelion...." And so it went on interminably, and entirely stupid, like
everything else I ever heard a rabbit say, for they have forgotten all
about their ancestor, Brer Rabbit. However, the children were absorbed
in the story, so much so that they never heard a stoat making its way
down the burrow. But I heard it, and by stamping and driving my stick in
I was able to make it turn tail and go off, cursing. All stoats,
weasels, ferrets, polecats, are of the wrong people, as you may imagine,
and so are most rats and bats.
At last I left off seeing through, by trying not to do so, and went back
to the house, where I found all safe and quiet.
I ought to say that I had not as yet tried speaking to any animal, even
to the cat when she scratched me, but I thought I would try it now. So
when she came in at dinner-time and circled about, with what I may call
pious aspirations about fish and other such things, I summoned up my
courage and said (using my voice in the way I described, or rather did
not describe, before):
"I used to be told, 'If you are hungry, you can eat dry bread.'"
She was certainly horribly startled. At first I thought she would have
dashed up the chimney or out of the window; but she recovered pretty
quickly and sat down, still looking at me with intense surprise.
"I suppose I might have guessed," she said; "but dear! what a turn you
did give me! I feel quite faint; and gracious! what a day it has been!
When I found you dozing off like a great—— Well, no one wants to be
rude, do they? but I can tell you I had more than half a mind to go at
your face."
"I am glad you didn't," I said; "and really, you know, it wasn't my
fault: it was that stuff they were burning on the path."
"I know that well enough," she said; "but to come back to the point, all
this anxiety has made me as empty in myself as a clean saucer."
"Just what I was saying; if you are hungry, you can——"
"Say that again, say it just once more," she said, and her eyes grew
narrow as she said it, "and I shall——"
"What shall you do?" I asked, for she stopped suddenly.
She calmed herself. "Oh, you know how it is when one's been all
excited-like and worked up; we all say more than we mean. But that about
dry bread! Well, there! I simply can't bear it. It's a wicked, cruel
untruth, that's what it is; and besides, you _can't_ be going to eat all
the whole of what she's put down for you." Excitement was coming on
again, and she ended with a loud ill-tempered mew.
Well, I gave her what she seemed to want, and shortly after, worn out
doubtless with the fatigues of the day, she went to sleep on a chair,
not even caring to follow the maid downstairs when things were cleared
away.
End of Chapter V
Chapter VI
THE CAT, WAG, SLIM AND OTHERS
I got out my precious casket. I sat by the window and watched. The moon
shone out, the lid of the box loosened in due course, and I touched my
forehead with the ointment. But neither at once nor for some little time
after did I notice any fresh power coming to me.
With the moon, up came also the little town, and no sooner were the
doors of the houses level with the grass than the boys were out of them
and running in some numbers towards my window; in fact, some slipped out
of their own windows, not waiting for the doors to be available. Wag was
the first. Slim, more sedate, came among the crowd that followed. These
were still the only two who felt no hesitation about talking to me. The
others were all fully occupied in exploring the room.
"To-morrow," I said (after some sort of how-do-you-do's had been
exchanged), "you'll be flying all over the place, I suppose."
"Yes," said Wag, shortly. "But I want to know—I say, Slim, what was it
we wanted first?"
"Wasn't there a message from your father?" said Slim.
"Oh, yes, of course. 'If they're about the house,' he said, 'give them
horseshoes; if there's a bat-ball, squirt at it': he thinks there's a
squirt in the tool-house—Oh, there's the cat; I must——" After
delivering all this in one sentence, he rushed to the edge of the table
and took a kind of header into the midst of the unfortunate animal, who,
however, only moaned or crowed without waking, and turned partly over on
her back.
Slim remained sitting on a book and gazing soberly at me.
"Well," I said, "it's very kind of Wag's father to send me a message,
but I must say I can't make much of it."
Slim nodded. "So he said, and he said you'd see when the time came; of
course I don't know, myself; I've never seen a bat-ball. Wag says he
has, but you never know with Wag."
"Well, I must do the best I can, I suppose; but look here, Slim, I wish
you could tell me one or two things. What _are_ you? What do they call
you?"
"They call me Slim: and the whole of us they call the Right People,"
said Slim; "but it's no good asking us much, because we don't know, and
besides, it isn't good for us."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, you see, our job is to keep the little things right, and if we do
more than that, or if we try to find out much more, then we burst."
"And is that the end of you?"
"Oh, no!" he said cheerfully, "but that's one of the things it's no good
asking."
"And if you don't do your job, what then?"
"Oh, then they get smaller and have no sense." (He said _they_, not
_we_, I noticed.)
"I see. Well now, you go to school, don't you?" He nodded. "What for?
Isn't that likely to be bad for you?" (I hardly liked to say "make you
burst.")
"No," he said; "you see, it's to learn our job. We have to be told what
used to go on, so as we can put things right, or keep them right. And
the owls, you see, they remember a long way back, but they don't know
any more than we do about the swell things."
I was very shy about putting the next question I had in mind, but I felt
I must. "Now do you know how old you are, or how long it takes you to
grow up, or how—how long you go on when you _are_ grown up!"
He pressed his hands to his head, and I was dreadfully afraid for the
moment that it might be swelling and would burst; but it was not so bad
as that. After a few seconds he looked up and said:
"I think it's seven times seven moons since I went to school and seven
times seven times seven moons before I grow up; and the rest is no good
asking. But it's all right"; upon which he smiled.
And this, I may say, was the most part of what I ventured to ask any of
them about themselves. But at other times I gathered that as long as
they "did their job" nothing could injure them; and they were regularly
measured—all of them—to see if they were getting smaller, and a
careful record kept. But if anyone lost as much as a quarter of his
height, he was doomed, and he crept off out of the settlement. Whether
such a one ever came back I could not be sure; most of the failures (and
they were not common) went and lived in hollow trees or by brooks, and
were happy enough, but in a feeble way, not remembering much, nor able
to make anything; and it was supposed that very slowly they shrunk to
the size of a pin's point, and probably to nothing. All the same, it was
believed that they _could_ recover. Many other things that _you_ would
have asked, I did not, being anxious to avoid giving trouble.
But this time, anyhow, I felt I had catechized Slim long enough, so I
broke off and said:
"What can Wag be doing all this while?"
"There's no knowing," said Slim. "But he's very quiet for him; either
he's doing something awful, or he's asleep."
"I saw him with the cat last," I said; "you might go and look at her."
He walked to the edge of the table, and said, "Why, he _is_ asleep!" And
so he was, with his head on the cat's chest, under her chin, which she
had turned up; and she had put her front paws together over the top of
his head. As for the others, I descried them sitting in a circle in a
corner of the room, also very quiet. (I imagine they were a little
afraid of doing much without Wag, and also of waking him.) But I could
not make out what they were doing, so I asked Slim.
"Racing earwigs, I should think," he said, with something of contempt.
"Well, I hope they won't leave them about when they go. I don't like
earwigs."
"Who does?" he said; "but they'll take them away all right; they're
prize ones, some of them."
I went over and looked at the racing for a little. The course was neatly
marked out with small lights sprouting out of the boards, and the circle
was at the winning-post, the starters being at the other end, some six
feet away. I watched one heat. The earwigs seemed to me neither very
speedy nor very intelligent, and all except one were apt to stop in
mid-course and engage in personal encounters with each other.
I was beginning to wonder how long this would go on, when Wag woke up.
Like most of us, he was not willing to allow that he had been asleep.
"I thought I'd just lie down a bit," he said, "and then I didn't want to
bustle your cat, so I stopped there. And now I want to know—Slim, I
say, what was it you were asking me?"
"Me asking you? I don't know."
"Oh, yes, you do; what he was doing the other time before we came in."
"I didn't ask you that; you asked me."
"Well, it doesn't matter who asked." (Turning to me): "What _were_ you
doing?"
"I don't know," I said. "Was it these things I was using" (taking up a
pack of cards), "or something like this?" (I held up a book.)
"Yes, that one. What were you doing with it? What's it for?"
"We call it reading a book," and I tried to explain what the idea was,
and read out a few lines; it happened to be _Pickwick_. They were
absorbed. Slim said, half to himself, "Something like a glass," which I
thought quite meaningless at the time. Then I showed them a picture in
another book. That they made out very quickly.
"But when's it going to move on?" said Slim.
"Never," I said. "Ours stop just like that always. Do yours move on?"
"Of course they do; look here." He lay down on the tablecloth and
pressed his forehead on it, but evidently could make nothing of it.
"It's all rough," he said. I gave him a sheet of paper. "That's better;"
and he lay down again in the same posture for a few seconds. Then he got
up and began rubbing the paper all over with the palms of his hands. As
he did so a coloured picture came out pretty quickly, and when it was
finished he drew aside to let me see, and said, somewhat bashfully, "I
don't think I've got it _quite_ right, but I meant it for what happened
the other evening." He had certainly not got it right as far as I was
concerned. It was a view of the window of the house, seen from outside
by moonlight, and there was a back view of a row of figures with their
elbows on the sill. So far, so good; but inside the open window was
standing a figure which was plainly—much too plainly, I thought—meant
for me; far too short and fat, far too red-faced, and with an owlish
expression which I am sure I never wear. This person was now seen to
move his hand—a very poor hand, with only about three fingers—to his
side, and pull, apparently, out of his body, a round object more or less
like a watch (at any rate it was white on one side with black marks, and
yellow on the other) and lay it down in front of him. At this the
figures at the window-sill threw up their arms in all directions and
fell or slid down like so many dolls. Then the picture began to get
fainter, and disappeared from the paper. Slim looked at me expectantly.
"Well," I said, "it's very interesting to see how you do it, but is that
the best likeness of me that you can make?"
"What's wrong with it?" said he. "Isn't it handsome enough or
something?"
I heard Wag throw himself down on the table, and, looking at him, I saw
that he had got both hands pressed over his mouth.
"May I ask what the joke is?" I said rather dryly (for it is surprising
how touchy one can be over one's personal appearance, even at my time of
life). He looked up for an instant at me, and then gasped and hid his
face again. Slim went up to him and kicked him in the ribs.
"Where's your manners?" he said in a loud whisper. Wag rolled over and
sat up, wiping his eyes.
"I'm very sorry," he said. "I'm sure I don't know what I was laughing
for." Slim whistled. "Well," said Wag, "what _was_ I?"
"Him, of course, and you know perfectly well!"
"Oh, was I? Well, perhaps you'll tell me what there is to laugh at about
him?" said Wag, rather basely, I thought; so, as Slim put his finger to
his lip and looked unhappy, I interrupted.
"Get up a minute, Wag," I said. "I want to see something."
"What?" said he, jumping up at once.
"Stand back to back with Slim, if you don't mind. That's it. Dear me! I
thought you were taller than that—you looked to me taller last night.
My mistake, I dare say. All right, thanks." But there they stood, gazing
at each other with horror, and I felt I had been trifling with a most
serious subject, so I laughed and said, "Don't disturb yourselves. I was
only chaffing you, Wag, because you seemed to be doing something of the
kind to me."
Slim understood, and heaved a sigh of relief. Wag sat down on a book and
looked reproachfully upon me. Neither said a word. I was very much
ashamed, and begged their pardon as nicely as I knew how. Luckily Wag
was soon convinced that I was not in earnest, and he recovered his
spirits directly.
"All _right_," he said, nodding at me; "did I hear you say you didn't
like earwigs? That's worth remembering, Slim."
This reduced me at once; I tried to point out that he had begun it, and
that it would be a mean revenge, and very *** the earwigs, if he
filled my room with them, for I should be obliged to kill all I could.
"Why," he said, "they needn't be real earwigs; my own tickle every bit
as much as real ones."
This was no better for me, and I tried to make more appeals to his
better feelings. He did not seem to be listening very attentively,
though his eyes were fixed on me.
"What's that on your neck?" he said suddenly, and at the same moment I
felt a procession of legs walking over my skin. I brushed at it hastily,
and something seemed to fall on the table. "No, the other side I mean,"
said he, and again I felt the same horrid tickling and went through the
same exercises, with a face, I've no doubt, contorted with terror.
Anyhow, it seemed to amuse them very much; Wag, in fact, was quite
unable to speak, and could only point. It was dull of me not to have
realized at once that these were "his" earwigs and not real ones. But
now I did, and though I still felt the tickling, I did not move, but sat
down and gazed severely at him. Soon he got the better of his mirth and
said, "I think we are quits now." Then, with sudden alarm, "I say,
what's become of the others? The bell hasn't gone, has it?"
"How should I know?" I said. "If you hadn't been making all this
disturbance, perhaps we might have heard it."
He took a flying leap—an extraordinary feat it was—from the edge of
the table to a chair in the window, scrambled up to the sill, and gazed
out. "It's all right," he said, in a faint voice of infinite relief; let
himself down limply to the floor, and climbed slowly up my leg to his
former place.
"Well," I said, "the bell hasn't gone, it seems, but where are the rest?
I've hardly seen anything of them."
"Oh, _you_ go and find 'em, Slim; I'm worn out with all these frights."
Slim went to the farther end of the table, prospected, and returned. He
reported them "all right, but they're having rather a slow time of it, I
think." I, too, got up, walked round, and looked; they were seated in a
solemn circle on the floor round the cat, who was now curled up and fast
asleep on a round footstool. Not a word was being said by anybody. I
thought I had better address them, so I said:
"Gentlemen, I'm afraid I've been very inattentive to you this evening.
Isn't there anything I can do to amuse you? Won't you come up on the
table? You're welcome to walk up my leg if you find that convenient."
I was almost sorry I had spoken the moment after, for they made but one
rush at my legs as I stood by the table, and the sensation was rather
like that, I imagine, of a swarm of rats climbing up one's trousers.
However, it was over in a few seconds, and all of them—over a
dozen—were with Wag and Slim on the table, except one, who, whether by
mistake or on purpose, went on climbing me by way of my waistcoat
buttons, rather deliberately, until he reached my shoulder. I didn't
object, of course, but I turned round (which made him catch at my ear)
and went back to my chair, seated in which I felt rather as if I was
presiding at a meeting. The one on my shoulder sat down and, I thought,
folded his arms and looked at his friends with some triumph. Wag
evidently took this to be a liberty.
"My word!" he said, "what do you mean by it, Wisp? Come off it!"
Wisp was a little daunted, as I judged by his fidgeting somewhat, but
put a bold face on it and said, "Why should I come off?"
I put in a word: "I don't mind his being here."
"I dare say not; that's not the point," said Wag. "Are you coming down?"
"No," said Wisp, "not for you." But his tone was rather blustering than
brave.
"Very well, don't then," said Wag; and I expected him to run up and pull
Wisp down by the legs, but he didn't do that. He took something out of
the breast of his tunic, put it in his mouth, lay down on his stomach,
and, with his eyes on Wisp, puffed out his cheeks. Two or three seconds
passed, during which I felt Wisp shifting about on his perch, and
breathing quickly. Then he gave a sharp shriek, which went right through
my head, slipped rapidly down my chest and legs and on to the floor,
where he continued to squeal and to run about like a mad thing, to the
great amusement of everyone on the table.
Then I saw what was the matter. All round his head were a multitude of
little sparks, which flew about him like a swarm of bees, every now and
then settling and coming off again, and, I suppose, burning him every
time; if he beat them off, they attacked his hands, so he was in a bad
way. After watching him for about a minute from the edge of the table,
Wag called out:
"Do you apologize?"
"Yes!" he screamed.
"All right," said Wag; "stand still! stand still, you bat! How can I get
'em back if you don't?" Wag was back to me and I couldn't see what he
did, but Wisp sat down on the carpet free of sparks, and wiped his face
and neck with his handkerchief for some time, while the rest gradually
recovered from their laughter. "You can come up again now," said Wag;
and so he did, though he was slow and shy about it.
"Why didn't he send sparks at Wag?" said I to Slim.
"He hasn't got 'em to send," was the answer. "It's only the Captain of
the moon."
"Well now, what about a little peace and quiet?" I said. "And, you know,
I've never been introduced to you all properly. Wouldn't it be a good
idea to do that, before the bell goes?"
"Very well," said Wag. "We'll _do_ it properly. You bring 'em up one at
a time, Slim, and" (to me) "you put your sun-hand out on the table."
(_I_: "Sun-hand?"
_Wag_: "Yes, sun-hand; don't you know?" He held up his right hand, then
his left: "Sun-hand, Moon-hand, Day-hand, Night-hand, Star-hand,
Cloud-hand, and so on."
_I_: "Thank you.")
This was done, and meanwhile Slim formed the troop into a queue and
beckoned them up one by one. Wag stood on a book on the right and
proclaimed the name of each. First he had made me arrange my right hand
edgeways on the table, with the forefinger out. Then "Gold!" said Wag.
Gold stepped forward and made a lovely bow, which I returned with an
inclination of my head, then took as much of my forefinger top joint in
his right hand as he could manage, bent over it and shook it or tried
to, and then took up a position on the left and watched the next comer.
The ceremony was the same for everyone, but not all the bows were
equally elegant; some of the boys were jocular, and shook my finger with
both hands and a great display of effort. These were frowned upon by
Wag. The names (I need not set them all down now) were all of the same
kind as you have heard; there was Red, Wise, Dart, Sprat, and so on.
After Wisp, who came last and was rather humble, Wag called out Slim,
and, after him, descended and presented himself in the same form.
"And now," he said, "perhaps you'll tell us _your_ name."
I did so (one is always a little shamefaced about it, I don't know why)
in full. He whistled.
"Too much," he said; "what's the easiest you can do?"
After some thought I said, "What about M or N?"
"Much better! If M's all right for you, it'll do for us." So M was
agreed upon.
I was still rather afraid that the rank and file had been passing a dull
evening and would not come again, and I tried to express as much to
them. But they said:
"Dull? Oh no, M; why we've found out all sorts of things!"
"Really? What sort of things?"
"Well, inside the wall in that corner there's the biggest spider I've
ever seen, for one thing."
"Good gracious!" I said. "I hate 'em. I hope it can't get out?"
"It would have to-night if we hadn't stopped up the hole. Something's
been helping it to gnaw through."
"Has it?" said Wag. "My word! that looks bad. What was it made the
hole?"
Some called out, "A bat," and some "A rat."
"It doesn't matter much for that," said Slim, "so long as it's safe now.
Where is it?"
"Gone down to the bottom and saying awful things," Red answered.
"Well, I _am_ obliged to you," I said. "Anything else?"
"There's a lot of this stuff under the floor," said Dart, pointing with
his foot at a half-crown which lay on the table.
"Is there? Whereabouts?" said I. "Oh, but I was forgetting; I can look
after that myself."
"Yes, of course you can," they said; "and lots of things happened here
before you came. We were watching. The old man and the woman, they were
the worst, weren't they, Red?"
"Do you mean you've been here before?" I asked.
"No, no, but to-night we were looking at them, like we do at school."
This was beyond me, and I thought it would be of no use to ask for more
explanations. Besides, just at this moment we heard the bell. They all
clambered down either me or the chairs or the tablecloth. Slim lingered
a moment to say, "You'll look out, won't you?" and then followed the
rest on to the window-sill, where, taking the time from Captain Wag,
they all stood in a row, bowed with their caps off, straightened up
again, each sang one note, which combined into a wonderful chord, faced
round and disappeared. I followed them to the window and saw the
inhabitants of the house separating and going to their homes with the
young ones capering round them. One or two of the elders—Wag's father
in particular—looked up at me, paused in their walk, and bowed gravely,
which courtesy I returned. I went on gazing until the lawn was a blank
once more, and then, closing and fastening the sitting-room window, I
betook myself to the bedroom.
End of Chapter VI
Chapter VII
THE BAT-BALL
It had certainly been an eventful day and evening, and I felt that my
adventures could not be quite at an end yet, for I had still to find out
what new power or sense the Fourth Jar had brought me. I stood and
thought, and tried quite vainly to detect some difference in myself. And
then I went to the window and drew the curtain aside and looked out on
the road, and within a few minutes I began to understand.
There came walking rapidly along the road a young man, and he turned in
at the garden gate and came straight up the path to the house door. I
began to be surprised, not at his coming, for it was not so very late,
but at the look of him. He was young, as I said, rather red-faced, but
not bad-looking; of the class of a farmer, I thought. He wore biggish
brown whiskers—which is not common nowadays—and his hair was rather
long at the back—which also is not common with young men who want to
look smart—but his hat, and his clothes generally, were the really odd
part of him. The hat was a sort of low top-hat, with a curved brim; it
spread out at the top and it was brushed rough instead of smooth. His
coat was a blue swallow-tail with brass buttons. He had a broad tie
wound round and round his neck, and a Gladstone collar. His trousers
were tight all the way down and had straps under his feet. To put it in
the dullest, shortest way, he was "dressed in the fashion of eighty or
ninety years ago," as we read in the ghost stories. Evidently he knew
his way about very well. He came straight up to the front door and, as
far as I could tell, into the house, but I did not hear the door open
or shut or any steps on the stairs. He must, I thought, be in my
landlady's parlour downstairs.
I turned away from the window, and there was the next surprise. It was
as if there was no wall between me and the sitting-room. I saw straight
into it. There was a fire in the grate, and by it were sitting face to
face an old man and an old woman. I thought at once of what one of the
boys had said, and I looked curiously at them. They were, you would have
said, as fine specimens of an old-fashioned yeoman and his wife as
anyone could wish to see. The man was hale and red-faced, with grey
whiskers, smiling as he sat bolt upright in his arm-chair. The old lady
was rosy and smiling too, with a smart silk dress and a smart cap, and
tidy ringlets on each side of her face—a regular picture of wholesome
old age; and yet I hated them both. The young man, their son, I suppose,
was in the room standing at the door with his hat in his hand, looking
timidly at them. The old man turned half round in his chair, looked at
him, turned down the corners of his mouth, looked across at the old
lady, and they both smiled as if they were amused. The son came farther
into the room, put his hat down, leaned with both hands on the table,
and began to speak (though nothing could be heard) with an earnestness
that was painful to see, because I could be certain his pleading would
be of no use; sometimes he spread out his hands and shook them, every
now and again he brushed his eyes. He was very much moved, and so was I,
merely watching him. The old people were not; they leaned forward a
little in their chairs and sometimes smiled at each other—again as if
they were amused. At last he had done, and stood with his hands before
him, quivering all over. His father and mother leaned back in their
chairs and looked at each other. I think they said not a single word.
The son caught up his hat, turned round, and went quickly out of the
room. Then the old man threw back his head and laughed, and the old lady
laughed too, not so boisterously.
I turned back to the window. It was as I expected. Outside the garden
gate, in the road, a young slight girl in a large poke-bonnet and shawl
and rather short-skirted dress was waiting, in great anxiety, as I could
see by the way she held to the railings. Her face I could not see. The
young man came out; she clasped her hands, he shook his head; they went
off together slowly up the road, he with bowed shoulders, supporting
her, she, I dare say, crying. Again I looked round to the sitting-room.
The wall hid it now.
It sounds a dull ordinary scene enough, but I can assure you it was
horribly disturbing to watch, and the cruel calm way in which the father
and mother, who looked so nice and worthy and were so abominable,
treated their son, was like nothing I had ever seen.
Of course I know now what the effect of the Fourth Jar was; it made me
able to see what had happened in any place. I did not yet know how far
back the memories would go, or whether I was obliged to see them if I
did not want to. But it was clear to me that the boys were sometimes
taught in this way. "We were watching them like we do at school," one of
them said, and though the grammar was poor, the meaning was plain, and I
would ask Slim about it when we next met. Meanwhile I must say I hoped
the gift would not go on working instead of letting me go to sleep. It
did not.
Next day I met my landlady employing herself in the garden, and asked
her about the people who had formerly lived in the house.
"Oh yes," said she. "I can tell you about them, for my father he
remembered old Mr. and Mrs. Eld quite well when he was a slip of a lad.
They wasn't liked in the place, neither of them, partly through bein' so
hard-like to their workpeople, and partly from them treating their only
son so bad—I mean to say turning him right off because he married
without asking permission. Well, no doubt, that's what he shouldn't have
done, but my father said it was a very nice respectable young girl he
married, and it do seem hard for them never to say a word of kindness
all those years and leave every penny away from the young people. What
become of them, do you say, sir? Why, I believe they emigrated away to
the United States of America and never was heard of again, but the old
people they lived on here, and I never heard but what they was easy in
their minds right up to the day of their death. Nice-looking old people
they was too, my father used to say; seemed as if butter wouldn't melt
in their mouths, as the saying is. Now I don't know when I've thought
of them last, but I recollect my father speaking of them as well, and
the way they're spoke of on their stone that lays just to the right-hand
side as you go up the churchyard path—well, you'd think there never was
such people. But I believe that was put up by them that got the
property; now what was that name again?"
But about that time I thought I must be getting on. I also thought (as
before) that it would be well for me not to go very far away from the
house.
As I strolled up the road I pondered over the message which Wag's father
had been so good as to send me. "If they're about the house, give them
horseshoes; if there's a bat-ball, squirt at it. I think there's a
squirt in the tool-house." All very well, no doubt. I had one horseshoe,
but that was not much, and I could explore the tool-house and borrow the
garden squirt. But more horseshoes?
At that moment I heard a squeak and a rustle in the hedge, and could not
help poking my stick into it to see what had made the noise. The stick
clinked against something with its iron ferrule. An old
horseshoe!—evidently shown to me on purpose by a friendly creature. I
picked it up, and, not to make a long story of it, I was helped by much
the same devices to increase my collection to four. And now I felt it
would be wise to turn back.
As I turned into the back garden and came in sight of the little
potting-shed or tool-house or whatever it was, I started. Someone was
just coming out of it. I gave a loud cough. The party turned round
hastily; it was an old man in a sleeved waistcoat, made up, I thought,
to look like an "odd man." He touched his hat civilly enough, and showed
no surprise; but, oh, horror! he held in his hand the garden squirt.
"Morning," I said; "going to do a bit of watering?" He grinned. "Just
stepped up to borrer this off the lady; there's a lot of fly gets on the
plants this weather."
"I dare say there is. By the way, what a lot of horseshoes you people
leave about. How many do you think I picked up this morning just along
the road? Look here!" and I held one out to him, and his hand came
slowly out to meet it, as though he could not keep it back.
His face wrinkled up into a horrible scowl, and what he was going to say
I don't know, but just then his hand clutched the horseshoe and he gave
a shout of pain, dropped the squirt and the horseshoe, whipped round as
quick as any young man could, and was off round the corner of the shed
before I had really taken in what was happening. Before I tried to see
what had become of him, I snatched up the squirt and the horseshoe, and
almost dropped them again. Both were pretty hot—the squirt much the
hotter of the two; but both of them cooled down in a few seconds. By
that time my old man was completely out of sight. And I should not
wonder if he was away some time; for perhaps you know, and perhaps you
don't know, the effect of an old horseshoe on that sort of people. Not
only is it of iron, which they can't abide, but when they see or, still
more, touch the shoe, they have to go over all the ground that the shoe
went over since it was last in the blacksmith's hands. Only I doubt if
the same shoe will work for more than one witch or wizard. Anyway, I put
that one aside when I went indoors. And then I sat and wondered what
would come next, and how I could best prepare for it. It occurred to me
that it would do no harm to put one of the shoes where it couldn't be
seen at once, and it also struck me that under the rug just inside the
bedroom door would not be a bad place. So there I put it, and then fell
to smoking and reading.
A knock at the door.
"Come in," said I, a little curious; but no, it was only the maid. As
she passed me (which she did quickly) I heard her mutter something about
"'ankerchieves for the wash," and I thought there was something not
quite usual about the voice. So I looked round. She was back to me, but
the dress and the height and the hair was what I was accustomed to see.
Into the bedroom she hurried, and the next thing was a scream like that
of at least two cats in agony! I could just see her leap into the air,
come down again on the rug, scream again, and then bundle, hopping,
limping—I don't know what—out of the room and down the stairs. I did
catch sight of her feet, though; they were bare, they were greenish, and
they were webbed, and I think there were some large white blisters on
the soles of them. You would have thought that the commotion would have
brought the household about my ears; but it did not, and I can only
suppose that they heard no more of it than they did of the things which
the birds and so on say to each other.
"Next, please!" said I, as I lighted a pipe; but if you will believe it,
there was no next. Lunch, the afternoon, tea, all passed by, and I was
completely undisturbed. "They must be saving up for the bat-ball," I
thought. "What in the world can it be?"
As candle-time came on, and the moon began to make herself felt, I took
up my old position at the window, with the garden squirt at hand and two
full jugs of water on the floor—plenty more to be got from the bathroom
if wanted. The leaden box of the Five Jars was in the right place for
the moonbeams to fall on it.... But no moonbeams would touch it
to-night! Why was this? There were no clouds. Yet, between the orb of
the moon and my box, there was some obstruction. High up in the sky was
a dancing film, thick enough to cast a shadow on the area of the window;
and ever, as the moon rode higher in the heavens, this obstruction
became more solid. It seemed gradually to get its bearings and settle
into the place where it would shut off the light from the box most
completely. I began to guess. It was the bat-ball; neither more nor less
than a dense cloud of bats, gradually forming itself into a solid ball,
and coming lower, and nearer to my window. Soon they were only about
thirty feet off, and I felt that the moment was come.
I have never much liked bats or desired their company, and now, as I
studied them through the glass, and saw their horrid little wicked faces
and winking wings, I felt justified in trying to make things as
unpleasant for them as I could. I charged the squirt and let fly, and
again, and again, as quick as I could fill it. The water spread a bit
before it reached the ball, but not too much to spoil the effect; and
the effect was almost alarming. Some hundreds of bats all shrieking out
at once, and shrieking with rage and fear (not merely from the
excitement of chasing flies, as they generally do). Dozens of them
dropping away, with wings too soaked to fly, some on to the grass, where
they hopped and fluttered and rolled in ecstasies of passion, some into
bushes, one or two plumb on to the path, where they lay motionless; that
was the first tableau. Then came a new feature. From both sides there
darted into the heart of the ball two squadrons of figures flying at
great speed (though without wings) and perfectly horizontal, with arms
joined and straight out in front of them, and almost at the same instant
seven or eight more plunged into the ball from above, as if taking
headers. The boys were out.
I stopped squirting, for I did not know whether the water would fell
them as it felled the bats; but a shrill cry rose from below:
"Go on, M! go on, M!"
So I aimed again, and it was time, for a knot of bats just then detached
itself from the main body and flew full-face towards me. My shot caught
the middle one on the snout, and as I swung the squirt to left and
right, it disabled four or five others, and discouraged the rest.
Meanwhile the ball was cloven again and again by the arms of the flying
squadrons, which shot through it from side to side and from top to
bottom (though never, as appeared later, quite through the middle), and
though it kept closing up again, it was plainly growing smaller as more
and more of the bats outside, which were exposed to the squirt, dropped
away.
I suddenly felt something alight on my shoulder, and a voice said in my
ear, "Wag says if you _could_ throw a shoe into the middle now, he
believes it would finish them. Can you?" It was, I think, Dart who had
been sent with the message.
"Horseshoes, I suppose he means," I said. "I'll try."
"Wait till we're out of the way," said Dart, and was off.
In a moment more I heard—not what I was rather expecting, a horn of
Elf-land, but two strokes on the bell. I saw the figures of the boys
shoot up and away to left and right, leaving the bat-ball clear, and the
bats shrieked aloud, I dare say in triumph at the enemy's retreat.
There were two horseshoes left. I had no idea how they would fly, and I
had not much confidence in my power of aiming; but it must be tried, and
I threw them edgeways, like quoits. The first skimmed the top of the
ball, the second went straight through the middle. Something which the
bats in the very centre were holding—something soft—was pierced by it,
and burst. I think it must have been a globe of jelly-like stuff in a
thin skin. The contents spurted out on to some of the bats, and seemed
to scald the fur off them in an instant and singe up all the membranes
of their wings. They fell down at once, with broken screams. The rest
darted off in every direction, and the ball was gone.
"Now don't be long," said a voice from the window-sill.
I thought I knew what was meant, and looked to the leaden casket. As if
to make up for lost time, the moonbeam had already made an opening all
round the part on which it shone, and I had but to turn the other side
towards it—not even very slowly—to get the whole lid free. After
cleansing my hands in the water, I made trial of the Fifth Jar, and, as
I replaced it, a chorus of applause and cheering came up from below.
The Jars were mine.
End of Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
WAG AT HOME
There was no scrambling up to the window-sill this time. My visitors
shot in like so many arrows, and "brought up" on their hands on the
tablecloth, or lit on their feet on the top rail of a chair-back or on
my shoulder, as the fancy took them. It would be tedious to go through
all the congratulations and thanks which I offered, and indeed received,
for it was important to them that the Jars should not get into wrong
hands.
"Father says," said Wag, who was sitting on a book, as usual—"Oh, what
fun it is to be able to fly again!" And he darted straight and level and
butted head first into the back of—Sprat, was it?—who was standing
near the edge of the table. Sprat was merely propelled into the air a
foot or two off, and remained standing, but, of course, turned round and
told Wag what he thought of him. Wag returned contentedly to his book.
"Father says," he resumed, "he hopes you'll come and see us now. He says
you did all right, and he's very glad the stuff got spilt, because
they'll take moons and moons to get as much of it together again. He
says they meant to squirt some of it on you when they got near enough,
and while you were trying to get it off they'd have got hold of——" He
pointed to the box of jars; there was a shyness about mentioning it.
"Your father's very kind," I said, "and I hope you'll thank him from me;
but I don't quite see how I'm to get into your house."
"Fancy you not knowing that!" said Wag. "I'll tell him you'll come." And
he was out of the window. As usual, I had recourse to Slim.
"Why, you did put some on your chest, didn't you?" was Slim's question.
"Yes, but nothing came of it."
"Well, I believe you can go pretty well anywhere with that, if you think
you can."
"Can I fly, then?"
"No, I should say not; I mean, if you couldn't fly before, you can't
now."
"How do you fly? I don't see any wings."
"No, we never have wings, and I'm rather glad we don't; the things that
have them are always going wrong somehow. We just work it in the proper
way with our backs, and there you are; like this." He made a slight
movement of his shoulders, and was standing in the air an inch off the
table. "You never tried that, I suppose?" he went on.
"No," I said, "only in dreams," which evidently meant nothing to him.
"Well now," I said, "do you tell me that if I went to Wag's house now,
I could get inside it? Look at the size I am!"
"It doesn't look as if you could," he agreed, "but my father said just
the same as Wag's father about it."
Here Wag shot on to my shoulder. "Are you coming?"
"Yes, if I knew how."
"Well, come and try, anyhow."
"Very well, as you please; anything to oblige."
I picked up a hat and went downstairs. All the rest followed, if you can
call it following, when there was at least as much flying up steps and
in and out of banisters as going down. When we were out on the path, Wag
said with more seriousness than usual:
"Now you do mean to come into our house, don't you?"
"Certainly I do, if you wish me to."
"Then that's all right. This way. There's Father."
We were on the grass now, and very long it was, and nice and wet I
thought I should be with all the dew. As I looked up to see the elder
Wag I very nearly fell over a large log which it was very careless of
anyone to have left about. But here was Mr. Wag within a yard of me, and
to my extreme surprise he was quite a sizeable man of middle height,
with a sensible, good-humoured face, in which I could see a strong
likeness to his son. We both bowed, and then shook hands, and Mr. Wag
was very complimentary and pleasant about the occurrences of the
evening.
"We've pretty well got the mess cleared up, you see. Yes, don't be
alarmed," he went on, and took hold of my elbow, for he had, no doubt,
seen a bewildered look in my eyes. The fact was, as I suppose you have
made out, not that he had grown to my size, but that I had come down to
his. "Things right themselves; you'll have no difficulty about getting
back when the time comes. But come in, won't you?"
You will expect me to describe the house and the furniture. I shall not,
further than to say that it seemed to me to be of a piece with the
fashion in which the boys were dressed; that is, it was like my idea of
a good citizen's house in Queen Elizabeth's time; and I shall not
describe Mrs. Wag's costume. She did not wear a ruff, anyhow.
Wag, who had been darting about in the air while we walked to his home,
followed us in on foot. He now reached up to my shoulder. Slim, who came
in too, was shorter.
"Haven't you got any sisters?" I took occasion to say to Wag.
"Of course," said he; "don't you see 'em? Oh! I forgot. Come out, you
sillies!"
Upon which there came forward three nice little girls, each of whom was
putting away something into a kind of locket which she wore round her
neck. No, it is no use asking me what _their_ dresses were like; none
at all. All I know is that they curtsied to me very nicely, and that
when we all sat down the youngest came and put herself on my knee as if
it was a matter of course.
"Why didn't I see you before?" I asked her.
"I suppose because the flowers were in our hair."
"Show him what you mean, my dear," said her father. "He doesn't know our
ways yet."
Accordingly she opened her locket and took out of it a small blue
flower, looking as if it was made of enamel, and stuck it in her hair
over her forehead. As she did so she vanished, but I could still feel
the weight of her on my knee. When she took it out again (as no doubt
she did) she became visible, put it back in the locket, and smiled
agreeably at me. Naturally, I had a good many questions to ask about
this, but you will hardly expect me to put them all down. Becoming
invisible in this way was a privilege which the girls always had till
they were grown up, and I suppose I may say "came out." Of course, if
they presumed on it, the lockets were taken away for the time
being—just in the same way as the boys were sometimes stopped from
flying, as we have seen. But their own families could always see them,
or at any rate the flowers in their hair, and they could always see each
other.
But dear me! how much am I to tell of the conversation of that evening?
One part at least: I remembered to ask about the pictures of the things
that had happened in former times in places where I chanced to be. Was I
obliged to see them, whether they were pleasant or horrible? "Oh no,"
they said; if you shut your eyes from below—that meant pushing up the
lower eyelids—you would be rid of them; and you would only begin
seeing them, either if you wanted to, or else if you left your mind
quite blank, and were thinking of nothing in particular. Then they would
begin to come, and there was no knowing how old they might be; that
depended on how angry or excited or happy or sad the people had been to
whom they happened.
And that reminds me of another thing. Wag had got rather fidgety while
we were talking, and was flying up to the ceiling and down again, and
walking on his hands, and so forth, when his mother said:
"Dear, do be quiet. Why don't you take a glass and amuse yourself with
it? Here's the key of the cupboard."
She threw it to him and he caught it and ran to a tall bureau opposite
and unlocked it. After humming and flitting about in front of it for a
little time, he pulled a thing like a slate off a shelf where there were
a large number of them.
"What have you got?" said his mother.
"The one I didn't get to the end of yesterday, about the dragon."
"Oh, that's a very good one," said she. "I used to be very fond of
that."
"I liked it awfully as far as I got," he said, and was betaking himself
to a settle on the other side of the room when I asked if I might see
it, and he brought it to me.
It was just like a small looking-glass in a frame, and the frame had one
or two buttons or little knobs on it. Wag put it into my hand and then
got behind me and put his chin on my shoulder.
"That's where I'd got to," he said; "he's just going out through the
forest."
I thought at the first glance that I was looking at a very good copy of
a picture. It was a knight on horseback, in plate-armour, and the armour
looked as if it had really seen service. The horse was a massive white
beast, rather of the cart-horse type, but not so "hairy in the hoof";
the background was a wood, chiefly of oak-trees; but the undergrowth
was wonderfully painted. I felt that if I looked into it I should see
every blade of grass and every bramble-leaf.
"Ready?" said Wag, and reached over and moved one of the knobs. The
knight shook his rein, and the horse began to move at a foot-pace.
"Well, but he can't _hear_ anything, Wag," said his father.
"I thought you wanted to be quiet," said Wag, "but we'll have it aloud
if you like."
He slid aside another ***, and I began to hear the tread of the horse
and the creaking of the saddle and the *** of the armour, as well as a
rising breeze which now came sighing through the wood. Like a cinema,
you will say, of course. Well, it was; but there was colour and sound,
and you could hold it in your hand, and it wasn't a photograph, but the
live thing which you could stop at pleasure, and look into every detail
of it.
Well, I went on reading, as you may say, this glass. In a theatre, you
know, if you saw a knight riding through a forest, the effect would be
managed by making the scenery slide backwards past him; and in a cinema
it could all be shortened up by increasing the pace or leaving out part
of the film. Here it was not like that; we seemed to be keeping pace and
going along with the knight. Presently he began to sing. He had a loud
voice and uttered his words crisply, so that I had no difficulty in
making out the song. It was about a lady who was very proud and haughty
to him and would have nothing to say to his suit, and it declared that
the only thing left for him was to lay himself down under a tree. But he
seemed quite cheerful about it, and indeed neither his complexion nor
the glance of his eye gave any sign that he was suffering the pangs of
hopeless love.
Suddenly his horse stopped short and snorted uneasily. The knight left
off singing in the middle of a verse, looked earnestly into the wood at
the back of the picture, and then out towards us, and then behind him.
He patted his horse's neck, and then, humming to himself, put on his
gauntlets, which were hanging at his saddle bow, managed somehow to
latch or bolt the fastenings of them, slipped down his visor, and took
the hilt of his sword in one hand and the sheath in the other and
loosened the blade in the sheath. He had hardly done this when the horse
shied violently and reared; and out of the thicket on the near side of
the road (I suppose) something shot up in front of him on the saddle. We
all drew in our breath.
"Don't be frightened, dear," said Mrs. Wag to the youngest girl, who had
given a sort of jump. "He's quite safe this time."
I must say it did not look like it. The beast that had leapt on to the
saddle was tearing with its claws, drawing back its head and driving it
forward again with horrid force against the visor, and was at such
close quarters that the knight could not possibly either draw or use his
sword. It was a horrible beast, too; evidently a young dragon. As it sat
on the saddle-bow, its head was just about on a level with the knight's.
It had four short legs with long toes and claws. It clung to the saddle
with the hind feet and tore with the fore feet, as I said. Its head was
rather long, and had two pointed ears and two small sharp horns.
Besides, it had bat wings, with which it buffeted the knight, but its
tail was short. I don't know whether it had been bitten or cut off in
some previous fight. It was all of a mustard-yellow colour. The knight
was for the moment having a bad time of it, for the horse was plunging
and the dragon doing its very worst. The crisis was not long, though.
The knight took hold of the right wing with both hands and tore the
membrane upwards to the root, like parchment. It bled yellow blood, and
the dragon gave a grating scream. Then he clutched it hard by the neck
and managed to wrench it away from its hold on the saddle; and when it
was in the air, he whirled its body, heavy as it was, first over his
back and then forwards again, and its neck-bone, I suppose, broke, for
it was quite limp when he cast it down. He looked down at it for a
little, and seeing it stir, he got off, with the rein over his arm, drew
his sword, cut the head off, and kicked it away some yards. The next
thing he did was to push up his visor, look upward, mutter something I
could not well hear, and cross himself; after which he said aloud,
"Where man finds one of a brood, he may look for more," mounted, turned
his horse's head and galloped off the way he had come.
We had not followed him far through the wood when—
"Bother!" said Wag, "there's the bell"; and he reached over and slid
back the knobs in the frame, and the knight stopped.
I was full of questions, but there was no time to put them. Good-nights
had to be said quickly, and Father Wag saw me out of the front door.
I set out on what seemed a considerable walk across the rough grass
towards the enormous building in which I lived. I suppose I did not
really take many minutes about getting to the path; and as I stepped on
to it—rather carefully, for it was a longish way down—why, without any
shock or any odd feeling, I was my own size again. And I went to bed
pondering much upon the events of the day.
* * * * *
Well, I began this communication by saying that I was going to explain
to you how it was that I "heard something from the owls," and I think I
have explained how it is that I am able to say that I have done so.
Exactly what it was that you and I were talking about when I mentioned
the owls, I dare say neither of us remembers. As you can see, I have
had more exciting experiences than merely conversing with
them—interesting, and, I think, unusual as that is. I have not, of
course, told you nearly all there is to tell, but perhaps I have said
enough for the present. More, if you should wish it, another time.
As to present conditions. To-day there is a slight coolness between Wisp
and the cat. He made his way into a mouse-hole which she was watching,
and enticed her close up to it by scratchings and other sounds, and
then, when she came quite near (taking great trouble, of course, to make
no noise whatever), he put his head out and blew in her face, which
affronted her very much. However, I believe I have persuaded her that he
meant no harm.
The room is rather full of them to-night. Wag and most of the rest are
rehearsing a play which they mean to present before I go. Slim, who
happens not to be wanted for a time, is manoeuvring on the table,
facing me, and is trying to produce a portrait of me which shall be a
little less libellous than his first effort. He has just now shown me
the final production, with which he is greatly pleased. I am not.
Farewell. I am, with the usual expressions of regard,
Yours,
End of Chapter 8 And the end of The Five Jars
by M. R. James
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