“Going to town?” asked Tom Biddle. But it sounded like a rhetorical question, as though he knew the answer already.
“Aye,” said Ezra. “Us’ll be back late, I shouldn’t wonder, shopping and that.”
“The children will want to see their grannie,” said Tom.
“Aye,” said Ezra.
“Pretty little dears!” said Tom, as the children and Absolom took their places in the cart. “Nice little dog that be.”
Absolom growled and the little dears, with the exception of Nan, glared in silence, and Nan’s smile, bestowed upon Tom Biddle because if he was wicked he was also old, was not as friendly as usual. Ezra said, “Come up, lad” to Rob-Roy, and they went off down the hill at a spanking pace.
“I was going to harness Rob-Roy,” said Robert crossly to Ezra. “And why did you bring him up the hill to the front door? We always start off from the yard.”
They crossed the bridge and were out of sight of the village and then suddenly Ezra turned off the road and swerved to the left along a cart track that led across the moor.
“This isn’t the way to town, Ezra,” said Robert.
“No need to teach your grandmother to suck eggs,”
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said Ezra. “We ain’t going to town. Us be going to Pizzleton.”
“But, Ezra, you told Uncle Ambrose we were going to town,” said Timothy, and he looked very grave because he had not thought that Ezra would tell a lie.
“Pizzleton means pixies’ town,” said Ezra. “And it weren’t only your Uncle Ambrose I were telling. What for did yee think I opened that window so wide?”
“So that Tom Biddle would hear,” said Nan. “Ezra, you’re very clever. They won’t be keeping watch at Lion Tor today. Are we going there?”
“Pizzleton is below Lion Tor on t’other side from High Barton,” said Ezra.
“I needn’t have put on my clean sailor suit,” said Timothy, who hated being clean.
“Nor I needn’t have put on me mustard weskit,” said Ezra. “But ’tis all in a good cause.”
The drive was long and bumpy but glorious. The heather and ling were beginning to color and the gorse smelled like peaches in the hot sun. They saw the moorland birds, falcons and snipe and curlews with their wonderful curved beaks, and heard the larks singing and sometimes the rush of a moorland stream. The way they followed circled around the great sweep of Linden Wood and they never lost sight of the towering mass of Lion Tor, though as they came around behind it they no longer saw the Lion but only the crags of the Castle Rock. Presently the track entered a lane which turned and twisted between windblown hawthorn trees until
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it brought them out into Pizzleton. It was a bigger village than theirs but it had the same cottages of cob and thatch grouped around another church on a hill, with a tower so tall that the cottages looked like mushrooms about its feet.
The shop was bigger than Emma Cobley’s and was kept by a very respectable-looking lady, apple-cheeked and wearing a blue print dress sprigged with roses. But even so the children had a good look through the window before they followed Ezra into the shop in case she kept a cat. All they could see was a canary, so they trooped in to give Ezra the benefit of their suggestions and advice. They were in the shop for half an hour and there wasn’t anything left of the money Uncle Ambrose had given Ezra by the time they’d finished, even though food was cheap in those days, and the big shopping basket was nearly overflowing with parcels. The respectable lady was looking very happy when they left the shop. After that they went to the forge where Daft Davie had worked when he was a boy. The man who had been cruel to him was of course dead long ago and the present blacksmith was a distant cousin of Ezra’s, a very charming man, Jake Barley by name. Rob- Roy had a shoe loose and Jake allowed Robert to help him put it on again. It was marvelous in the forge with the clang of iron, the roaring fire and the flying sparks. If they hadn’t had an adventure on their hands the children would have liked to stay there till bedtime.
“Come along now,” said Ezra, when Rob-Roy was
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shoed. “I brought the saddle along, and the rope bridle, so us’ll leave the cart here, and take Rob-Roy with us for the littl’un to ride when she’s tired. And we’ll leave our basket here too. Jake shall take it to his missus to mind and us’ll pick it up when us comes back. That right, Jake?”
“Right,” said the blacksmith. “Where be going?”
“A picnic,” said Ezra.
“What about a picnic tea?” asked Robert.
“Take what you like from the basket.”
Robert took ham and ginger cookies from the basket and stowed them away in Ezra’s capacious pockets and they set off. Beyond the village a stony road climbed up toward the tor. It was creepy here on the north side of the great hill, dark and strange. The larks did not sing here and the cry of the curlews was sad and wild. It was such a long climb that Ezra made Nan and Timothy as well as Betsy take turns on Rob- Roy’s back. The pony picked his way up bravely and nimbly and so did Ezra on his wooden leg, with his crook to help him, and so did Absolom though his tongue hung out nearly to the ground. In the face of their perseverance Robert could not for very shame ask to take a turn on Rob-Roy’s back too, though he felt very sorry for himself until he suddenly remembered that he was leading his band of heroes to the summit of Everest, and then he strode ahead with no fatigue at all.
The road ended on a grassy plateau beneath the great pile of rocks and Ezra called a halt. They flung
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themselves down on the sweet-smelling turf, gazing out over the great and glorious view, and when they were rested they drank water from a stream and ate ham and ginger cookies, which contrary to what you might expect are excellent when eaten together. Then Ezra loosely hobbled Rob-Roy so that he could go on cropping the turf, and led the way up the rocks, up and around to the left, and very soon they were on the other side and could see the Lion’s head and Linden Wood down below them.
“Now where be this here cave?” asked Ezra.
It was so well hidden that it took a little while to End it, but presently they saw the big rock on which Frederick the cat had leapt. “You children stay here,” said Ezra. “When you hear me call 'Hi there!’ come and join me, but if I should yell like a screech owl then you take to your heels and run back to Rob-Roy and get along home as quick as you can.”
He left them standing together in an apprehensive bunch, climbed doggedly up to the big rock and disappeared around it. After a pause which seemed long to the children they heard a hail of “Hi there!” and scrambled up to join him.
There was the width of a doorstep between the rock and the narrow entrance to the cave, hardly more than a long crack through which a big man could squeeze with difficulty. Ezra was standing in the entrance. “All except one, come in,” he said. “But one of you must keep watch. You, Robert, for a start. Don’t yee climb
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to the top of the rock where you’d be seen. Stand at the side and look around and call out if you see anything you don’t like the looks of. Keep Absolom with yee. Don’t fret, lad, you shall take your turn inside later.”
Robert scowled a bit but he did what he was told and the others followed Ezra into the cave. It was not quite dark inside, for a crack in the roof let in some light, and when their eyes grew accustomed to the dimness they could see quite well. At first there seemed nothing to be seen; just rock and ferns, for rainwater came in through the roof and the cave was damp. But Ezra went nosing around like a dog after a rabbit, examining the rocks and feeling behind the clumps of ferns and presently he gave ah exclamation, took his jackknife from his pocket and opened it. “Hold up them ferns, Nan,” he commanded.
Nan lifted up the curtain of green that he had pointed out to her and he set to work with his k
nife on the rock behind it. Then he drew out a loose stone that had been shaped to fit, like the stopper of a bottle, into the hole behind, a roughly circular hole about the width of a man’s hand.
“Be careful, Ezra,” Nan said anxiously, “there might be snakes inside.”
“Must risk that, maid,” said Ezra with a grin and he plunged his hand and arm into the hole. “No snakes,” he assured her, “but plenty else. Quite a sizable little cupboard inside. I’ll hand ’em out to yee one by one,
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maid, and yee can put ’em down on that ledge of rock there.”
One by one he handed out a number of objects about the size of small dolls, queer knobbly little figures stuck with rusty pins. Nan put them down on a shelf of rock and they were just looking at them when Robert appeared at the mouth of the cave. “Come quick,” he said.
“Who is it, lad?” asked Ezra sharply.
“It isn’t a person,” said Robert, “it’s a thing.”
Ezra swept up the little figures, put them in his pockets and followed Robert, the other children at his heels.
As they rounded the rock they shivered, for in the short time they had been inside the cave the weather had suddenly changed. The Lion, facing south, was still in full sunshine, and he looked warm and peaceful and good, but when they turned and faced the other way the sunlit moor had vanished in a moving pall of gloom. There was no wind but the air that touched their faces was clammy and cold.
“The sea is coming in over the moor!” gasped Nan.
“And there are devils on horseback riding over the waves,” said Timothy. He spoke calmly but with a sort of despair, as well he might, for the sight was truly frightening. The waves that were rolling in were the high gray waves of storm but they made no sound and the terrible tossing riders made no sound either. It
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would have been less terrifying if they could have heard the crash of the waves or the neighing of the horses.
“Don’t yee be feared, children,” said Ezra. “ ’Tis naught but mist rolling in over Weepin’ Marsh. It can come very sudden and take queer forms. But us’d best be going and quick too. Us have a long ways to get home. Come on now.”
They scrambled back to Rob-Roy, unhobbled him and put Betsy on his back, and they got down the steep way to Pizzleton in double-quick time. Jake Barley and his wife were looking out for them and no time was wasted in conversation. Rob-Roy was put into the cart, the basket was stowed inside and they were off, going quickly down through the village and along the lane beyond with the mist at their heels. Facing the sunlit south, and with the cheerful rattling of the cart in their ears, the children forgot to feel afraid.
“I never saw the inside of the cave,” said Robert, aggrieved.
“We’ll tell you about it when we get home,” Nan consoled him.
“If we’d been half an hour later climbing up the tor the mist would have got there first and we wouldn’t have found the cave,” said Timothy.
“Nearly got us,” growled Ezra. He was looking very grim and Nan thought he spoke as though the mist were a savage beast that had been set on them by somebody. Weeping Marsh, she thought, was where the little boy was lost. She began to shiver and pulled Betsy closer to
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her, for it was growing colder, and Ezra took the old torn rug and a couple of sacks from under the seat and made the children wrap themselves up. The sun was veiled now, as though a bonfire had been lit below the horizon and was sending up smoke across its face. Presently they left the lane for the track across the moor and they could now see only a few yards in front of them.
“Don’t be afeared,” said Ezra. “Us’ve but to follow the track, and if presently us can’t see it Rob-Roy will take us home.”
Rob-Roy neighed and tossed his head in confident pleasure and when later they found themselves traveling blind, thickly wrapped in cotton wool and unable to see a yard in any direction, Ezra let the reins go slack and the pony went slowly but steadily forward on his own. All the same it was rather alarming traveling in this strange chilly no-man’s-land of nothingness, and Ezra struck up Moses’ song of the wind and the sea and the bees and they all sang the chorus. When they paused for breath Timothy asked, “Ezra, did you make up the tune, or Moses?”
“Moses,” said Ezra. “ ’Tis his song but I makes up fresh verses to it to suit meself.”
“What words were you singing that first night?” asked Nan. “We hummed and stamped in the chorus but we didn’t catch the words.”
The children could not see Ezra’s face but they fancied he was looking a little sheepish. “I weren’t what
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you would call dead sober that night/’ he said. “Mind you, I weren’t drunk but I weren’t dead sober.”
“Come on, Ezra,” said Robert. “Tell us what you sang. Come on!”
“I sang a drinking song and now I don’t drink no more it ain’t suitable as I should sing it,” said Ezra obstinately.
“Why don’t you drink anymore?” asked Timothy.
“The Master said I had to set an example to you youngsters,” said Ezra gloomily. “Aye, it were a black day when you come to the house.”
Though they could not see his face they knew he was smiling and they laughed and said, “Come on, Ezra! Sing us the song.”
“Only this once, mind,” said Ezra, “for it puts such a thirst on me as yee wouldn’t believe.” And he lifted up his voice and sang.
“Glory for the foamin’, brimmin’ tankard,
Good ale an’ beer,
Champagne in the polished crystal glasses Sparklin’ an’ clear.
Glory glory alleluja!
“Glory for the rich an’ purple vintage,
Grapes in the sun.
Glory for the red wine freely flowin’
When summer’s done.
Glory glory alleluja.
“Glory for the juice 0’ cider apples At autumn’s end.
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Glory for the stirrup cup 0’ winter Quaffed with a friend.
Glory glory alleluja.
“Glory for the punch that’s drunk at yuletide Spiced, strong an’ hot,
Glory for plum puddin’ soaked in brandy,
Thanks for the lot.
Glory glory alleluja.”
The children sang too. They were roaring out the last chorus when Rob-Roy suddenly swung left into the stableyard and they found they were at home.
They stabled Rob-Roy and groped their way up the steps to the garden, Ezra carrying the basket. The lamp was already lit in the library and they could see Uncle Ambrose pacing up and down the terrace with his hands behind his back, his tall figure sometimes blocking out the light and sometimes revealing it again, like a cloud passing backward and forward over the moon. They gave a shout and saw him straighten himself with relief. Then he came down the terrace steps and caught Betsy up into his arms. He appeared to be extremely annoyed but they remembered that Father had always lost his temper when he had been anxious about them and then suddenly wasn’t, and they were not alarmed.
“This child is chilled to the bone,” he said angrily. Actually it was only Betsy’s face and hands that felt cold, because she had been well wrapped up, but she put on the shivering act she had learned from Absolom and
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vibrated in Uncle Ambrose’s arms for all she was worth, leaning her head against his shoulder. Absolom shivered against Uncle Ambrose’s leg and Timothy produced a perfectly genuine sneeze.
“I’ll poke up the kitchen fire and give ’em supper round it, sir,” said Ezra. “Mutton broth and baked apples and a hot posset each when they’re in bed, and then there won’t no harm come to ’em. I’m sorry, sir, if you’ve been worrited.”
“Worrited? Who said
I was worrited?” snapped Uncle Ambrose. “Had you gone across the moor I might have suffered some slight anxiety but on the main road from town you were in perfect safety.”
They trooped indoors and he drew the curtains, shutting out the mist. “It came up with remarkable suddenness,” he said.
“Took me by surprise, sir,” said Ezra. “Never known it come up quite like this afore.”
“Where were you when it caught you?” asked Uncle Ambrose.
“Looking the other way, sir,” said Ezra. “If you’ll excuse me I’ll see to that fire. And the children had better come with me.” He glanced at the pages of manuscript littering the library table. “You’re at work, sir, I see. Come on, children, don’t disturb your uncle.”
Some while later, with Betsy already in bed and asleep, Ezra, Nan, Robert and Timothy sat on the settle by the kitchen fire, with the lamp burning on the
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mantelpiece, and Nan had the book of spells on her lap.
“Now then/’ said Ezra. “There ain’t no time to be lost.”
“It seems a shame to be doing this without Betsy/' said Robert.
“She’s young yet,” said Ezra. “Might be scared. It’s best it should be just the four of us.”
His coat was hanging over the back of a chair and he took from the pockets the little figures they had found in the cave and put them in a row on the kitchen table. “They be carved from mandrake roots,” he said. “Well carved, too. I will say for Emma, she can get a good likeness. Mandrake be an evil root. It’s likely to bring bad luck to folk by itself, let alone having pins stuck into
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you.
“But they aren’t real people,” said Robert. “They’re just little figures.”
“They be figures of real people, lad,” said Ezra. “And what Emma did to these figures she did to the people. She has the power. It be all in the mind, lad, the mind and the will, and Emma she’s strong-minded and strong- willed. Now, maid, you read out of that book the spell for binding the tongue.”
Nan found the place and read it out and Ezra picked up one of the little images and brought it to the light. Held in his hands it seemed almost to take on life. It was of a little boy about eight years old and he had his tongue out.
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