The Whispering Mountain

by Joan Aiken

  “Yes, your lordship,” said the smaller man in a submissive tone, but the taller, sour-faced one lingered a moment and demanded truculently,

  “What about the bung, then?”

  “Don’t come your thieves can’t with me, fellow,” said the Marquess sharply.

  “You knows what I means, gaffer. The ready, the lour, the mint, when does we get it? No use to stand on your pantofles with me, or I won’t do the prig.”

  A white line appeared round Lord Malyn’s mouth at this insolence, but he only said icily,

  “Not a penny do either of you receive until the end of your task. I shall expect you at Caer Malyn by Wednesday. Then you shall be paid, not before. Now, begone.”

  With a resentful scowl the tall man stooped to grasp Mr. Hughes’s feet. By accident, or design, he brushed against the yellow folds of Lord Malyn’s velvet robe in doing so. Quick as an adder, the Marquess swung the doubled length of his gold chain and dealt the man a savage cut across the face.

  “Don’t do that again, dog,” he said, breathing a little fast. “Or I shall quite lose my temper.”

  The secretary, Garble, moved one smooth step forward.

  But his intervention was not needed. The tall man dropped his eyes sullenly before Lord Malyn’s yellow stare, and shuffled out of the room, carrying his share of the unconscious Mr. Hughes. A mottled red weal was beginning to come up on his cheek.

  The smaller man, holding Mr. Hughes’s head, found it difficult to close the door behind him; finally he managed by jamming the head between his knees and pushing the door to with his hip.

  “Now, perhaps,” said the Marquess, fanning the air as if to eliminate a disagreeable odour, “now perhaps we can have a little civilized peace and quiet.” He drew towards him the dish of fruit, made a leisurely selection of the largest peach and began to peel off its furry skin, adding, “You may tell our swarthy-skinned Ottoman friend—what title does he give himself?”

  “The Seljuk of Rum.”

  “—Just so. The Seljuk of Rum. You may tell him that the coffee-room is quite at his disposal should he wish to return. I will even challenge him to a game of chess.”

  But, unlikely though it seemed, considering the rain and dark, the Seljuk of Rum must still have been out inspecting the sights of Pennygaff, for he was nowhere to be found.

  3

  Owen suddenly realized that he was awake, and listening to low voices. In fact he had been vaguely aware of them for some minutes, but had thought they were part of a dream.

  “Blow my glaziers!” somebody whispered. “Here’s a rummy set-out! I never in all my days saw a ken so full of halfpenny stuff—not a thing here worth prigging.”

  All in a moment three words jerked Owen into full wakefulness.

  “Keep your fambles in your pockets, cully!” another voice muttered warningly. “We’re not suppose to prig anything except this blessed bandore—this Harp of Teirtu. Or as likely as not we’ll end up in the queerken.”

  “All right, all right,” complained the first voice, “stop grutching at me! I can look about, I suppose? Anyway, where is this here sanitary harp?”

  Owen felt a cold draught on his legs. Someone had pushed open the library door. He saw two pairs of feet approaching—feet whose clumsy leather boots had been bound with strips of rag to muffle their noise. Somebody carried a lantern: a circle of dim light swam across the floor.

  “Naught in here but books,” whispered the first voice.

  “Stow your crash, doddypol! What’s that on the table covered with a caster? I’ll lay a brace of demies that’s the harp.”

  The feet were right beside Owen now; he lay under the table, paralysed with indecision and sheer surprise. How had these men managed to enter? Who were they? And where was his grandfather?

  “Soho! What did I say?” the first voice whispered with satisfaction. “This is the bandore all right.”

  “That pitiful kickshaw? The Harp of Teirtu there’s all this rumpus about? Why, it’s as black as my brogue, and has but one catling left.”

  “That’s it, just the same, no question. There’s the letters on it that his worship said to look for.”

  “Give it here, then. I’ll carry it and you dup the jigger.”

  In a flash Owen understood that he must act, and at once.

  “Hey! Don’t you dare touch that harp!” he shouted, rolling out from under the table.

  The two thieves were startled almost out of their wits. One of them let out a yelp, and dropped his lantern, which went out. The other, who had been about to pick up the harp, jumped towards the door. But there he paused. The room was still dimly lit by Owen’s rush dip, flickering on the table.

  “Why,” he said in relief and disgust. “What mugs we are! He’s naught but a kinchin, no bigger than a sparrow. Clobber him, Bilk!”

  “Hell’s bellikins, I will!” growled the other. A large black shape approached Owen, who, shaking with fright and determination, had taken up his position in front of the harp. Ducking, he evaded a blow which whistled past his head, and dodged away, yelling loudly,

  “Grandfather! Grandfather! Wake up! Bring the blunderbuss! Thieves! Call the watch! Thieves!” in hopes of scaring off the intruders.

  “Stow your maundering, you little caffler! It’s no manner of use roaring for the old gager, anyways; he won’t come, I can tell you. Wake up? Lucky if he wakes up afore Turpentine Sunday.”

  Desperately, Owen shook a heavy hand from his arm, seized one of the burglars by his coat, and butted him with all his strength in the stomach; the man let out a ghastly crowing yell and staggered backward against the wall, completely winded. Owen’s triumph did not last, however; the other man clutched him round the throat, exclaiming,

  “Would you, then, you little whipper-snapper? Stall down, or I’ll trine you with your galleyslops!”

  His grip tightened till the room whirled round in green and black flashes; with a frantic effort Owen broke free and, snatching up a volume of sermons that must have weighed fifteen pounds, thumped his assailant with it. Gaspingly, he continued to shout,

  “Thieves! Help! Thieves!”

  “Blow the varmint! He’ll have the macemongers on us yet! Here, Bilk, for pittacock’s sake, give us a hand, don’t just stand there mammering.”

  The other man, having recovered his breath, came back into the fight and dispatched Owen by one conclusive blow that knocked him half across the room; as he went down both men flung themselves on him, pummelling and be-labouring; his glasses fell off when he was thrown on his face and, with a sick feeling of despair, he heard them crunch under somebody’s foot on the stone floor.

  “Right, then,” said the man called Bilk, breathing heavily. “Tie his fambles with summat—tear a strip off his shirt, that’s the dandy—and shove a clout in his gan so he can’t yammer any more.” Owen’s hands were dragged behind him and tied violently tight; somebody’s cheese-smelling neckerchief was stuffed into his mouth.

  “Got your shiv, Prigman? Spit him, then, like a partridge; we don’t want him telling our names to the constables; you’d no call to go shouting Bilk like that, you fool!”

  “Must I spit him?” Prigman objected, sounding uneasy. “You do it. I never relishes spitting a cove in cold blood.”

  “Dang it, man, go on, spike him!”

  “Hold up,” Prigman said quickly, “here’s a bit of writing stowed under the harp.”

  “What’s it say, then? You’re sharper at reading gybe than I am, spell it out. But spit him first.”

  However Prigman read the letter aloud first, with a good many fumblings and stumblings.

  “Well, by‘r Ladybird!” he said when he had come to the end. “If that ain’t providentickal! Here’s our young sprout just about ready to run off his very own self with this here tinkleplunk! ‘Dear Granda, I be sorry to be obliged to carry off some of your property!’ he says. Cool, I calls that, cool as a cowsleycumber!”

  The other man, Bilk, gave a short, deep chuck
le.

  “Cool or no, it serves our turn,” he said. “Here, stow the paper back where he left it, and we’ll mizzle, and take young Tantony with us. Then we can scrag him and leave him in a hugger somewhere out on the mountain; everyone’ ll think he done the prig.”

  “That’s it, Bilk, that’s it!” Prigman was skipping about as the full beauty of the situation dawned on him. “And I’ll tell you summat else—’

  “Stow your whids now, for mussy’s sake, let’s get clear from here afore we pollyvow. You carry the boy, I’ll take the bandore. Is all straight? We don’t want anyone to suspicion as there’s been a mill here.”

  The two men hastily put the room to rights, returning the volume of sermons to a shelf and kicking Owen’s broken spectacles under the table. Prigman, who seemed enormously strong in spite of his short stature, slung Owen on to his shoulder, Bilk put the harp in a large canvas bag together with Owen’s bundle, and the two men left the museum by the back door, locking it behind them and tossing the key into a little brook which ran down the mountain to join the river Gaff.

  The gale had blown itself out, and a watery moon was struggling from behind ragged clouds. The two men picked their way over the rough hillside to a gully in which a couple of ponies were tethered, and Owen was hoisted on to one of them. Prigman mounted behind him, Bilk threw a leg over the other pony, and they trotted away round the mountain.

  For a long time Owen was hardly conscious of where they were going. Several hours went by, and at last, by degrees, daylight began to filter into the sky. A cool, fresh wind, smelling of leaves and water, blew into their faces and presently helped to revive Owen, who slowly raised his head and looked about him.

  They were travelling along the side of a small, deep valley, not far above the tree-line. Above them the grassy mountainside ran up to scree, and then to crags; below lay thick oak woods. When they reached the head of the valley they crossed the stream which had cut it so deep, at a point where it was only a brooklet, easily fordable by the sure-footed ponies; presently they turned a corner of hill into a second valley, threaded that, and so into a third, sometimes riding close beside the rushing streams in the valley bottoms, more often hundreds of feet above.

  Great birds, buzzards or eagles, soared above: sometimes they heard the grunt and thump of a wild boar digging for roots in the woods below.

  To Owen, without his glasses, everything seemed a confused, dazzling blur; the trees in their autumn colours of rust and gold, the greener hillsides above them streaked with white threads which were waterfalls, all swam together into a vague but beautiful tapestry.

  Prigman felt Owen’s restless movement.

  “Hallow, my gamecock, are you rousting a bit, then?” he said in a low voice. “Best not clapper about overmuch, or old Bilk will call you to mind, and he’s rare and handy with a shiv. You don’t want five inches of cold steel in your breadbasket, I’ll lay. Best hold your whids till we get to the stalling-ken.”

  Bilk, who was riding ahead spying out the way, heard his companion’s voice and reined in.

  “I’m stamashed,” he growled. “How about a bit o’ peck, and finish off the young co? We can hugger him away in one o’ the caves round here, and not a soul the wiser for the next ten-twenty years.”

  This was true, Owen guessed. The country was wild and empty of human inhabitants owing to the wolves and wild boars which thronged the woods. Caves—narrow, deep cracks in the hillsides—were numerous, and there were, too, potholes of an unknown depth, into which streams sometimes disappeared. Disposing of a body would present no problem at all.

  “Right, let’s nibble,” Prigman said, and, dismounting, pulled Owen down, roughly enough, on to the ground. “Bide there,” he warned, “and don’t go trying to mizzle, or you’ll have a taste of her.” He flourished a long and wicked-looking knife, which, however, as Owen lay half-dazed on the grass, he proceeded to use in a more domestic manner, cutting slices off a loaf and a hunk of bacon. He laid a slice of bacon on a lump of bread, took a huge bite of both, and then prepared a similar slab for Owen.

  “Here, young co, I daresay you can peck a bit.” He held it handy and Owen, suddenly realizing how ravenous he was, made a clumsy bite at it, which amused Prigman greatly.

  “Dang it, man, don’t waste pannam on him!” Bilk said, scandalized. “Why, soon’s we’ve done I’m agoing to slit his tripes and drop him in the lage yonder.”

  “No, hearken, friend, I’ve a better lay than that! You go to gybing-ken, don’t you, young co? School?”—as Owen looked bewildered. “We knows you can scribe, acos of that paper you left for the old gager, your granda.”

  “Yes, I can write,” Owen said, puzzled. “Though I don’t know how clear it would be—my glasses got broken in the fight and I can’t see far without them.”

  “Oh, I’ll lay you could do it naffy enough for us,” Prigman said, and then, with a meaning glance at Bilk, “Reckon if you’re so sand-eyed without your glazing-cheats, you can’t see me and Bilk very clear, eh, boy? Not to know us by our nabs?”

  “No, I wouldn’t recognize you if I saw you across the street,” Owen said truly. Prigman gave another triumphant glance at Bilk, who, however, remained suspicious.

  “So, so?” he growled. “That’s not agoing to put any mint-sauce in our pockets as I can see.”

  “Oh, don’t you gammon, slow-top,” Prigman exclaimed impatiently. “The young co can scribe a letter saying as how he took the harp and he wants a deal of mint, a thousand guineas, say, afore he’ll hand it back. And we can tell Old Stigmatical as how the harp had been prigged afore we ever got to the ken. Now do you glimmer?”

  “Ha, hum,” Bilk said, pondering this. “Who does the young co send his letter to?”

  “Why, to his granda, you Banbury cheese!”

  “That old gager hasn’t got a thousand guineas! Odds if he has a thousand groats.”

  “Oh, give over pribbling and prabbling! He’ll pass the letter on to his lordship.”

  “Not he,” said Bilk, shaking his head. “The old gager’s as proud and stiff-stomached as a porcupig. Look how he wouldn’t hand over the harp last cockshut. ‘Not fully convinced of your ludship’s title to it,’ says he, calm as a whelk, and my lord’s glaziers fair flaming with passion, and his crashers a-gnashing.”

  “That’s true,” muttered Prigman. “You’ve got a rare pigheaded granfer, young co. Didn’t it been for him refusing to hand over the bandore, you’d be snug asleep in your libbege now, instead of a-rambling out in the dews-a-vill with us.”

  In spite of the trouble he was in, Owen felt proud to think that his grandfather had refused to give up the harp. Pity the people of Pennygaff didn’t know that, he thought.

  “Are you taking the harp to Lord Malyn, then?” he asked incautiously.

  “Ask no cattakicks, you’ll hear no peevy whids,” growled Bilk, moving his knife from side to side in a very disagreeable way. Owen took the hint and asked no more.

  The two men went on with their discussion.

  “Why not send the letter straight to my lord, then?” Prigman suggested. “He’d pay up and plenty. Special if he thought some other cove might get his fambles on the bandore first.”

  “By gar, I have it, my bully-cove!” Bilk gave a shout of laughter; it came oddly from his bad-tempered face. “We’ll send letters to all the worships—ay, to his highness the Prince of Wales, too! Old Morgan at the bousing-ken said his highness is a-coming to stay with his lordship at Malyn for to hunt the wild grunters. Then the first of ’em to pass over his thousand mint clinkers gets the bandore.”

  “Whoa! That’s none so bad,” Prigman said admiringly. He began to count on his fingers. “A letter for Prince David—and a letter for the whiskered sir at the jumble-ken,” —Owen supposed that by this he meant Mr. Hughes—“and a letter for old Stigmatical, that’s three, and t’other lordship is four. Can you scribe four letters, boy?”

  Owen had not the least intention of writing any letters demand
ing money for the harp, particularly if they purported to come from him, but Prigman gave him a warning kick, so he nodded cautiously.

  “Odds chitlings, then,” Bilk said, “let’s be on our way to the stalling-ken. There’s no ink or paper hereabouts. Then, when the young sprig’s done the scribing, we can slit his weasand and drop him over Devil’s Leap.”

  They bolted their last bits of bread and bacon, untied the ponies, remounted, and continued on their journey, taking a circuitous route through more and yet more uninhabited valleys.

  By now the day was well advanced, and presently the sun dropped behind a craggy hill ahead of them which bore, as they proceeded, a strong resemblance to a man wearing a large, flat hat. There could be no doubt that it was Fig-hat Ben, the Whispering Mountain. Owen had once accompanied his grandfather to Nant Agerddau in order to help him carry home some volumes of sermons for the museum library, and had been greatly struck by this unusual peak.

  By now they had abandoned the valleys and were crossing a wide, barren, shelving upland, covered with loose stones. Ahead of them the great summit showed black against a pale yellow sky.

  “In all my born days I never did glim such a dismal, frampold part o’ the country,” Prigman muttered with a shiver. “They say old Bogey-Boo lives up here in this nook-shotten place—well, I say, if he does, he’s welcome to it.”

  Bilk, on the faster pony, and carrying less weight, had again drawn some distance ahead, so Owen risked another question.

  “What part do you come from then?”

  “Bless your nab, me and my cully comes from London town, where the streets is paved with mint sauce and the birds has diamond plumes! And shan’t I be joyful when I’m a-posting back there,” Prigman said in heartfelt tones. “Mind you I knows this country, oh yes, I knows it; time was, I was a kitchen boy at Castle Malyn, scouring the pots and basting the cracklers, till I got turned off for prigging a gold chafer and sent to the queer-ken.”

  Prison, Owen guessed.

  “But then, why did you come down here again? It’s a long way from London.”