Marian and Gwendolen felt very angry, angrier than they had ever feltbefore.
"What a beast!" they said. "But p'raps he'll think better of it."
Mr Williams shook his head.
"Not he," he said. "I've seen him this morning. 'I'll give you apension,' he says, 'and I'll give you a good character. But that wood'sforbidden ground,' he says, 'and I'll have nobody going into it.'"
Mr Williams rose and began to collect the young partridges, and put themaway into the various hen-coops.
"Well, I must be getting along," he said, "and next month you'll have tomake friends with a new keeper."
After he had gone, Marian and Gwendolen sat thinking of all the goodtimes that they had had with him, and of poor Mrs Williams, who wouldhave to turn out of her cottage--the gay little cottage that she was soproud of. Their cheeks were quite red, and there was a hot sort ofprickly feeling at the backs of their noses, and they felt as if theywould like to go to the great house and shoot Lord Barrington dead.
"Dog in the manger," said Gwendolen, "that's what he is, with that greatbig house and no wife or children. And he's always going into his oldwood himself. I know he is, because Percy told me."
"Yes, I know," said Marian, "and half his time he never lives at thePark at all. He's judging people and sending them to prison, ortravelling about and enjoying himself."
"P'raps he doesn't know," said Gwendolen, "what a nice man Mr Williamsreally is."
Then she suddenly thought of something.
"Suppose we go and find him," she said, "and ask him to let Mr Williamsoff."
Marian was a little frightened. She had never seen Lord Barrington, butshe had once seen his picture in a magazine; and she remembered the grimlook of his eyes and his high-bridged, hawk-like nose. But the thoughtof Mr Williams and his sad face soon gave her fresh courage; and as theydrew near the Park wall she was much too excited to feel afraid.
Gwendolen was excited too, but they both knew how important it was tokeep cool; and before they climbed the wall they looked carefully roundto see that nobody was watching them. Then they found a couple of nichesto put their toes in, and they hoisted themselves up till they could seeover the wall; and there they stopped for a moment, holding on to thespikes, and studying the lie of the land. Just to their right was thecorner of the Haunted Wood, but spreading in front of them was the openpark-land, with its great trees casting their blue shadows, and thedelicate-limbed deer nibbling the grass tips. Beyond these were thegardens, and the broad terrace in front of the house; and the onlyperson in sight was a distant gardener with a watering-can.
Then they almost fell down, for round the corner of the wood came thetall figure of Lord Barrington himself. Marian recognized him at once,though he was not wearing a wig as he had been in the magazine picture,and was dressed in a grey flannel suit, carefully pressed, andrusset-brown boots. Luckily he didn't see them, and they crouched behindthe wall, holding on to the edge with their finger-tips; and when theynext peeped over they could see him unlocking the padlock of the littlegate that led into the wood. He went inside and locked it again behindhim, and they saw him begin to push his way between the branches of thetrees.
"Come along," whispered Gwendolen, "let's follow him"; so they climbedover the wall and dropped into the park. Then they ran across the grassto the little gate, where they stooped down for a moment and listened.They could hear Lord Barrington still moving through the wood. And thenvery quietly they squeezed through the fence. They both tore theirfrocks on the barbed wire, and Marian scratched her arm, but she didn'tmind. And then they began to glide, as softly as possible, deeper anddeeper into the forbidden wood.
Soon it was so dark, owing to the thick-spreading branches and theovergrown weeds and bushes, that they found themselves creeping througha sort of twilight, smelling of pine-resin and crushed herbage. Butalways, just in front of them, they could hear Lord Barrington'sfootsteps, and sometimes they caught a glimpse of his side or back.Tripping over roots, and stung by nettles, they followed in the trackthat he had beaten down; and presently the brushwood began to growthinner and the trunks of the trees farther apart.
He was walking more quickly now, and in another three or four minutesthey saw him come out into a sort of clearing, where the ground wassmooth, with a thin growth of grass, and the sun pouring down upon it asupon a little circus. Here he stopped, and they bent down, each behindthe trunk of a great pine tree; and then, to their surprise, they sawhim take his coat off and fold it carefully and put it on the ground.Then from under a bush he drew out three wickets, and set them up on theother side of the clearing, and put the bails on them, and laid down abat beside them, and came back tossing a cricket-ball. They could seehis face, still rather stern-looking, but not so stern as it had beenbefore; and then they heard him say "Ready?" and saw him bowl the ball,which bounced over the wickets and hit a tree behind. They crept nearer,until they were almost on the edge of the clearing.
"You ought to have stopped that one," they heard him say; and still thebat lay in front of the wickets, and there wasn't a sound but the murmurof the trees.
For a long time--almost ten minutes, they thought--he went on bowlingand fetching back the ball; and every now and then he spoke a few wordsas if there were somebody really batting. And then a strange thinghappened, for slowly, as they watched, they saw the bat rise from theground; and then they saw the figure of a little boy taking guard withit in front of the wickets.
He was about fourteen, with short fair hair, and he was dressed in aflannel shirt and trousers; and the shirt was unbuttoned, showing theupper part of his chest, and its sleeves were rolled back over hissturdy arms. They looked at the judge and saw that his whole face hadaltered, as if the sun had come down and were shining through it; andthe boy smiled at him, and then tucked his lips in, as the judge bowledhim a difficult ball.
"Well played," said the judge, and they saw the boy look up and begin tocolour a little at the words of praise; and then Gwendolen got a crampin her foot and couldn't help moving and making a sound.
Lord Barrington turned sharply toward her.
"Who's there?" he asked in a terrible voice.
Gwendolen stood up, and so did Marian. It was no good hiding. They wereboth too frightened to speak.
When he saw them, he stood quite still. A wood-pigeon flew across theclearing. The little boy was no longer there.
"Come here," he said, and they had to obey him.
He stood looking at them. His face was like marble, and his eyessearched them through and through.
"Well," he said, "what have you got to say for yourselves?"
They hung their heads and said nothing.
Then Marian tried to speak, though her voice sounded funny.
"Please, sir," she said, "we wanted to ask you something, but you wereplaying with the boy."
"The boy?" he said: "did you see the boy?"
They lifted their eyes to him.
"Why, of course," they answered.
For a moment he was silent. Then his voice changed a little.
"Come and sit down," he said, "and tell me what you saw."
When they had told him, he just nodded, and sat, as Mr Williams haddone, staring in front of him.
"Well, now you know," he said, "why this wood is private, and why Inever allow anybody to come into it."
"Because of the boy?" asked Marian.
"Because of the boy," he said. "I'll try to explain to you, but I doubtif you'll understand. You see, I had a notion that if we human beingscould only imagine anything hard enough, the thing that we imaginedmight become actually real, if only just for a minute or two."
He moved his hand, with its heavy gold signet-ring.
"This is the place," he said, "where I come to imagine."
"I see," said Marian. "But why do you imagine the boy?"
He reached for his coat and took something out of a pocket-book.
"This is his photograph," he said. "He was my only son."
The two children looked at it, and then gave it back to him.
"He was fond of cricket," he said. "He died at school."
Then he rose to his feet, and they followed him out of the wood.
"Well, what was it," he said, "that you wanted to ask me?"
They told him, and his face became stern again.
"But he knew the rule," he said, "and he was older than you; and rulesare made to be kept, you know. I can't have them broken."
They were silent for a moment, and then Gwendolen had a rather awful andirreverent idea.
"But p'raps if God hadn't broken one of His rules," she said, "you mightnever have seen the boy."
He stood looking at her for a long time, or at least it seemed long,though it was only twelve seconds. Then he glanced at his watch.
"What are your names?" he asked.
They told him their names, and he held out his hand.
"Well, good-bye, Marian and Gwendolen," he said; "and you can tell MrWilliams that I've changed my mind."
Deep within the wood I know, There's a place where mourners go, Just as, in the twilight cool, Crept they to Siloam's pool.
There, with one accord, they bring Sorrows for a healing wing; And each hushed and stooping leaf Lays its hand on their heart's grief.
THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED
Caesar's Camp]
VIII
THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED
Cuthbert's friend, Edward Goldsmith, was six months older than Cuthbert,but they were in the same form, which was the lowest but one, in MrPendring's school. Most of the other boys thought him conceited, and sodid Cuthbert, and so he was. But Cuthbert had once been conceitedhimself, and so he was able to sympathize with him. Besides being strongtoo, and able to dive backward, Edward had given Cuthbert hissecond-best pocket-knife; and that was why Cuthbert resolved at last tointroduce him to Tod the Gipsy.
That was rather a special thing to do, because Tod was rather a specialsort of gipsy; and Cuthbert had never introduced him to anybody, noteven to Doris, although she had asked him to. It was in the hospital,just before he had had his tonsils out, that Cuthbert had first met Tod;and Tod had told him not to be frightened, because there was no need tobe, and it wouldn't do any good. Tod himself was often in hospital,because he had consumption and had lost one of his lungs; and besidesthat he was always getting knocked down or run over, through beingabsent-minded. He was tall and thin, with a lot of black hair that kepttumbling over his eyes, and his eyes were brown, like a dog's eyes, onlythey were brighter and always laughing.
When Cuthbert next met Tod, he had been living in his little tent on theother side of Fairbarrow Down; and Cuthbert had stayed there all nightwith him, and Tod had told him the names of the stars. Very early in themorning, when Cuthbert woke up, he had seen Tod kneeling in the dew, anda couple of wild rabbits nestling in his arms and smelling his clothes,just as if they had been tame ones.
Then Tod had beckoned him with his head and whistled a peculiar sweetwhistle, and a hare near by had pricked up her ears and come through thegrass to have her back stroked. That whistle was one of Tod's secrets,and he knew lots more, and was always learning new ones; and whenCuthbert had told him about In-between Land he said that he had beenthere too, by another way.
So it was rather a great thing for Cuthbert to promise Edward that hewould introduce him to Tod the Gipsy; and Edward was naturally ratherimpatient to go and find him, and talk to him. But the difficulty wasthat Tod was always travelling about, and Cuthbert never knew where hewas likely to be; and it wasn't until tea-time on the third Monday ofOctober that at last they found him, quite by accident.
Owing to one of Mr Pendring's boys having won a medal for helping tosave somebody's life, the whole school had been given an extrahalf-holiday, and Cuthbert and Edward had gone for a country walk.Already in the town most of the leaves had fallen, and were lying indirty heaps by the roadside, and the scraps of gardens in front of thehouses were sodden and empty of flowers. But out in the country, wherethe harvest was stacked, and men were drilling seed into themoist-smelling earth, the oaks and elms were still glowing with copperyor rusty-red leaves. The cottage gardens, too, were full offlowers--clumps of starry Michaelmas daisies, and sheaves of dark-eyedgolden sunflowers, like bumble-bees on fire. But there were real firesabout also, as there always are when summer is over--fires of weeds atthe ends of the plough-furrows, and fires of potato stems in thekitchen-gardens; and it was over a little fire of sticks and dead leavesthat they suddenly came upon Tod the Gipsy.
They were now about six miles from home, at the foot of the long rangeof hills, of which Fairbarrow Down, with its close-cropped turf, was thenearest to the town. Behind this the ground dipped a little, and thenbecame a hill called Simon's Nob, and behind Simon's Nob rose thehighest hill of all, known as Caesar's Camp. From Caesar's Camp, on a veryclear day, it was just possible to see the sea; and battles had beenfought on all these hills hundreds and thousands of years before.Sometimes they had been held by the ancient Britons when they werefighting against each other; and sometimes they had been held by theancient Britons when they were fighting against the Romans. Sometimesthe Romans had held them when they were attacked by the Britons, andonce the Britons had held them against the Saxons; and then in theirturn the Saxons had held them when they had been attacked by the Danes.After that they had slept for hundreds of years, with only the sheep tonibble their grass, and an occasional shepherd shouting across them tohis shaggy and wise-eyed sheep-dog.
The fiercest battle of all had been fought on Caesar's Camp, from whichthe Romans had driven away the Britons, and there was a great mound onit, covered with grass, in which the dead soldiers had been buried. Butthat was nearly two thousand years ago, and it had never looked morepeaceful than on this autumn afternoon, with the baby moon peeping aboveit and growing brighter as the daylight faded. It was a steep climb tothe top of Caesar's Camp, and the hill was guarded at the bottom by afringe of elm trees; and in front of these elm trees there was a belt ofbracken, reddening with decay, and reaching to the boys' shoulders. Ithad been rather fun to push their way through it, startling the rabbits,and listening to the rooks; and it was in a little quarry among the elmsthat Tod the Gipsy had made his fire.
Close to the fire he had spread some branches and a heap of bracken tomake a mattress, and over this he had thrown his blanket and the littletarpaulin that made his tent. When they first caught sight of him, hewas humming a song and beating an accompaniment to himself on an emptybiscuit-box:
Where do the gipsies come from? The gipsies come from Egypt. The fiery sun begot them, Their dam was the desert dry. She lay there stripped and basking, And gave them suck for the asking, And an emperor's bone to play with, Whenever she heard them cry.
Cuthbert introduced him to Edward Goldsmith, and Tod held out a bonyhand.
"Glad to meet you," he said. "You're just in time for tea. You'll haveto share a mug, but there's lots of bread and jam."
He was thinner than ever, but he had the same old trick of tossing hishair back from his eyes; and his eyes were as bright and gay andpiercing as if they had just come back from some magic wash. While theywere eating, he sipped his tea and filled his pipe and went on singing:
What did the gipsies do there? They built a tomb for Pharaoh, They built a tomb for Pharaoh, So tall it touched the sky. They buried him deep inside it, Then let what would betide it, They saddled their lean-ribbed ponies And left him there to die.
He nodded his head toward the sides of the quarry, the overhangingtrees, and the hill beyond.
"And this is where they've left me," he said.
Cuthbert stared at him.
"But you're not going to die, are you?"
"Pretty soon," said Tod. He tapped his chest. "There's not much left,you know, in this old box of mine."
"Well, you don't seem to mind much," said Edward.
"I don't," said Tod, "and I'll tell you why. I've just found outso
mething that I've been looking for very nearly all my life."
He lit his pipe and leaned forward, with the fire shining in his eyes.The days were so short now that the dusk had already come, and thefirelight cast strange shadows over the little quarry. The boys drewcloser to him, and he took from his waistcoat pocket a small box, with apinch of red powder in it.
"For twenty years," he said, "I've been trying to make this powder; andat last I've succeeded--just in time."
They bent over his hand and examined the powder. It was as light asthistle-down, and smelt like cloves.
"Now look," he said.
He threw some on the fire. But the boys could see nothing except thecrumbling leaves.
Tod laughed.
"Look a little higher," he said; and then, in the smoke, they suddenlysaw a bird hovering, and then another bird and another, and a couple ofnests hanging faintly in the air.
"Now listen," said Tod; and above the whisper of the flames they couldhear the soft sharpening of tiny beaks, and the sound of wings, and theghosts of cheepings and chirpings, as if they had been hundreds of milesaway. Then they faded, and Tod leaned back, looking triumphantly at thetwo boys.
"But what were they?" said Cuthbert.
"They were memories," said Tod. "They were the memories of those deadleaves."
"But do leaves remember?" asked Edward.
"Everything remembers," said Tod, "only nobody's been able to prove it.The ground we're sitting on, the fields you've come across, the hillsabove us, they're crammed with memories. And when they die, if they everdo die, these memories come crowding back to them, just like they do toa dying man; and it's this powder that makes them visible."
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