by Clive King
barked. Barney felt the hair on his neck rising too. He jumped, as the pony came prancing up and snorted behind them, and stood looking with pricked ears in the same direction as Dinah.
Dinah barked again. Then, before their eyes, a great animal leapt into a patch of moonlight in the glade and stood there for a moment.
‘It’s a stag!’ breathed Lou with astonishment.
‘I know,’ whispered Barney.
‘But there aren’t any stags here!’ exclaimed Lou.
Dinah was the first to recover from her surprise, and she hurled herself into the glade and the stag bounded off into the wood with Dinah in pursuit. The pony snorted and blew behind them, and stood there with quivering nostrils.
It was then that the children went midsummer crazy. Without a word Lou grabbed the pony by the mane, Barney legged her up on the pony’s back, Lou hoisted him up in front, and before they could stop to think they had cleared the fence and were galloping – straight for the edge of the pit!
The pit was there all right. The pony poised on the edge – then with a spring and a scramble which kept them too busy clinging with legs and hands to think what was happening, Flash was down and up the other side! What had happened? Instead of the great quarry there was a mere scratch in the ground. And now nothing was familiar. They expected every minute to come to the cornfield beyond the copse, but the thickets and glades stretched on and on. They were treading the slope which should have led to the lane, and Flash slowed down a little, but from far ahead came Dinah’s mad yelping and the crashing of undergrowth, and the pony needed no urging to pursue the hunt. And still no landmarks came in sight. No open fields, no hedges, no orchards, no farms, only hazel-thickets, beechwoods, and the chalky hillside. Without a rein to guide or restrain him, the pony went like the wind, his head well up, and Barney and Lou could only cling there with their bare legs and look with round eyes at the strange landscape.
‘Barney!’ gasped Lou, clinging to her brother more tightly than she had ever done before. ‘We’re dreaming all this really.’
‘You may be. I’m not,’ Barney shouted against the wind, and twined his fingers more deeply in the pony’s mane.
They were galloping up a little valley between clumps of bramble and taller bushes. There was no sound of barking from Dinah. Suddenly there in the moonlight was the dog, lying stretched out on the turf right in front of them. The pony slowed and swerved, the children fell off, in a tangle of limbs, on to the soft turf that smelt of wild thyme, and the pony trotted off casually to get his breath back. Of the stag there was no sign.
Barney and Lou sorted themselves out. Lou tried to stand up, but her legs felt woolly after using them to cling on with for so long, so she sat down again.
‘Well Dinah,’ she said to the dog. ‘Where’s the stag, eh? Couldn’t catch it, I suppose. Never mind, you’re not a stag hound, are you? Eh, Dinah?’
Then she turned to Barney. ‘Barney, if we’re not dreaming all this, where are we?’
‘Don’t know,’ replied Barney. ‘Let’s go on just a little bit more, and maybe we’ll see.’
There was a line of beech trees at the top of the little valley and Barney felt there must be something the other side of them. He scrambled up the slope, went between the dark trunks and beyond them was – nothing!
It was like flying. Smooth turf sloped down steeply under his feet, and far below the land was spread out like a map.
‘Lou,’ he called. ‘Look where we are!’
They realized they were standing on the edge of the North Downs, a place they knew well enough, and the moon made everything as clear as day. And yet the more they looked the stranger it was. There should have been pylons striding over the land carrying electric cables. There should have been squares of orchard, hop-gardens, villages, and churches. There should have been cement-works in the distance by the river – and where was the tall television mast with the red light on top? They could see nothing but forest and heath over the whole floor of the valley, and out of the night strange animal noises came up to them. And in all this stretch of empty land there were only two – no, three – points of light twinkling, to show that man was somewhere about.
The nearest light was only a little way along the side of the hills, and now they could hear human voices coming from it.
‘It’s a camp fire,’ said Barney. ‘Come on, let’s go and see.’
‘But it might be savages or something,’ said Lou doubtfully.
‘There aren’t any savages in England.’
‘There aren’t any stags in this part of England, but we just saw one. And this doesn’t seem to be England at all.’
‘Well, it must be somewhere,’ said Barney. ‘Let’s go and ask those people.’
‘I think we ought to be careful,’ said Lou. ‘Let’s creep up through the woods and have a look.’
They went back into the shadow of the beech woods and made their way as quietly as they could over last year’s crackling leaves and husks.
‘Keep to heel, Dinah!’ whispered Lou. ‘Barney, I wish we had a lead. Dinah might give us away.’
‘I’ve got some string in my pocket, I think,’ said Barney. He rummaged in his pockets and found a coil of hairy string he had taken from a runner-bean that seemed to have finished with it. They tied it to Dinah’s collar and went cautiously on. Soon the sounds of the camp were quite near and they could see the red firelight flickering through the black beech trunks.
‘Sounds as if they are having a party,’ said Lou.
‘Listen! Music!’
‘That’s not music,’ said Barney.
‘Well it’s jazz or something. Or one of those skiffle groups.’
As they moved towards the firelight, keeping to the shadows, the noises were so loud that they did not have to worry about keeping quiet themselves. They reached the last beech tree of the wood, a giant with thick roots coiling into the chalky soil and broad boughs spreading out towards the slope on which the camp stood.
‘What are you doing, Barney?’ hissed Lou, as Barney started scrambling on to one of the spreading branches.
‘I’m going to climb this tree so I can see.’
‘So am I then.’
‘What about Dinah? You can’t bring her up.’
‘I’ll tie her up here,’ said Lou. ‘Lie down, Dinah! Be quiet! There’s a good dog!’
They climbed from limb to limb of the great beech tree until they got to a thick bough that grew out straight towards the firelight. Barney sat astride it and inched himself along until he reached a fork, far out over the bushes and brambles that straggled along the edge of the wood.
They had a perfect view of the camp. Or was it a camp? There were beehive huts made of poles planted in the ground, tied together at the top and thatched with straw and rushes. In an open space there was quite a crowd of people gathered round the fire. None of them seemed to be wearing much more than Lou and Barney. All of them seemed to have a lot of wild black hair, except for a few grey and white heads. The older ones were sitting, lying, or squatting around, toddlers were tumbling or sleeping in the dust, boys and girls were chasing each other round the outside of the crowd or teasing fierce-looking dogs.
The noise that was something like music came mostly from a group in the middle of the crowd near the fire. There were four figures in the group. One was holding half the jawbone of a large animal and running another longer bone up and down the teeth, making a scratchy rhythm. Another had a hollow log which he was hitting with two wooden clubs. The third was the singer. He didn’t seem to have much idea of a tune and the children couldn’t understand the words, but it was quite clear what the song was about. One moment the singer was a deer, grazing peacefully and then
looking anxiously about. Then he was a hunter, stalking his prey with spear poised. Then he was the deer fleeing, the hunter throwing his spear, the deer falling, the hunter carrying it back to camp. The crowd became as excited as the singer, and joined in with hand clap
s and cries.
But there was yet another sound which the listeners could not quite understand, a kind of BLOONG, BLUNG, BLONG, BLOONG, not always on one note as most of the singing was, and not really taking much notice of the rhythm of the log-drum and jawbone. It was as if someone who had never heard a tune was trying to play one for the first time with a tea-chest, string, and broomstick.
Then the bones-scraper in his excitement joined the singer in a little shuffle-dance and the children could see the fourth member of the band. On the ground was a large hollow animal skull with great curving horns. Tied between the horns were three or four lengths of string or gut, and a small dark figure was squatting by this simple harp, plucking at the strings BLUNG BLONG BLOONG BLUNG, and taking very little notice of anyone else.
In fact the song came to an end, the drummer gave the final thump to his log, the bones-scraper rattled to a stop, but the little harpist went on with his three notes as if he were the only musician in the world. Some of the crowd began to laugh and jeer at him as he played away, but it wasn’t until someone threw a meat bone, catching him on the head with a clunk the children could hear in their tree, that the player looked up, as if surprised to see that he was not alone.
Barney nearly fell off his branch. ‘It’s Stig!’ he almost shouted.
‘Hush, Barney!’ Lou hissed. ‘You’ll give us away!’
‘But it is Stig,’ said Barney excitedly ‘I said he was clever. He probably invented that thing he was playing music on. Where’s he going now?’ For the little figure Barney said was Stig was rather sulkily walking away from the camp fire towards the trees.
‘He’s coming this way,’ whispered Lou. ‘Barney, you’re not to give us away!’
‘Why not? He’s my friend.’
‘What about all the others? Who are they? You never said about them.’
‘I don’t know who they are. I never saw them before.’
‘Well, we’d better be careful, Barney.’
‘Oh, all right!’
But what gave them away was Dinah, tied up at the bottom of the tree. She had been quiet up to now, but when she heard Stig walking towards the wood she began to growl and then to give short sharp barks. On the edge of the bushes, Stig at once froze into stillness. Dinah went on barking, and some of the wild children playing on the outside of the crowd heard her too. The bolder ones ran to the edge of the wood, the little ones ran to their parents by the fire. Soon a number of alarmed elders, snatching up spears and clubs, were making for the woods and the sound of Dinah’s bark.
Lou and Barney clung to their high branch like squirrels, not daring to move. They could see the strange people on the edge of the wood, wondering at the unusual sound of a spaniel’s bark, then at last plucking up courage to advance into the darkness of the bushes and the beech forest, holding their weapons at the ready.
Dinah’s barking became more and more frantic as she heard the rustling of bodies through the bushes all round and the crackling and snapping of footsteps. Under cover of the noise Barney whispered: ‘Lou, we’ve got to escape.’
‘How can we?’ breathed Lou.
‘Look where that bough goes!’ Barney pointed in the moonlight. The limb they were on stuck out into nothingness, but one of its branches went across to another long limb, and this one stretched out and rubbed shoulders with another great beech tree. If they climbed over into the other tree, Barney thought they could escape.
‘We can go across there,’ he whispered. ‘Come on, while they’re making all this noise.’
Lou’s face seemed to go pale. ‘Oh, Barney, we can’t! And they’ll find Dinah anyhow.’
‘I’m going to try. Then perhaps we can rescue Dinah.’
He inched himself backwards along the limb they were sitting on until he reached the branch that grew crosswise. When he came to it he wondered what to do. It was too thin to sit astride so he decided to hang underneath it like a sloth by his hands and legs. Upside down like this he crawled through the empty air between the two big limbs. By bending his head right back he had an upside-down view of the floor of the forest, patched with moonlight – and right beneath him was a wild hunter, the tip of his spear pointing skywards, but looking at the ground. Barney hung without moving until the man had passed on, then moved as quickly and as quietly as he could to where the branch passed over the other great limb. Here he got himself right way up on the bough again. His heart was thumping and his legs felt quivery, but at least he was safer for a little while.
But now he had to go outward to where the two trees shook hands high in the air. He worked his way forward. As he went the boughs became thinner and swayed more. At last he was where the trees met. Where the branches crossed their movement in the wind had rubbed a great dry scar, and nothing he could do would stop a loud creak coming from this rubbing-place every time he moved.
‘I must get over on to the other tree,’ he thought. As quickly as he dared he turned round so as to go backward down the new branch, let go the branch he had just come up and – CRACK!
It was a dead branch!
Barney fell through nothing, then struck a flat leafy branch below, slid outwards from this on to a lower one, crashed through and fell the last few feet on to the soft forest floor.
Chapter Nine
The Standing Stones
For a moment Barney’s brain bounced back to the first time he had fallen down the chalk cliff and met Stig. Then he opened his eyes and saw, not the face of the cliff with daylight at the top, but the pattern of beech boughs through which the full moon looked down at him. Then there was a rustle of branches, and he could see Lou clambering down towards him. She fell off the last low bough and ran to where he was lying.
‘Barney!’ she was saying. ‘Are you all right, Barney?’
He sat up. ‘Course I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Bit scratched, that’s all. Why didn’t you stay up there if you didn’t want to be caught?’
‘I thought you were hurt, or I would have,’ said Lou, looking around anxiously. Shadowy figures were moving towards them through the wood. One of them, with tousled head, skin skirt, and flint spear, came into the moonlight patch. Lou drew away from it, but Barney knew who it was.
‘Hallo Stig!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
Stig’s teeth flashed in the moonlight, and then he looked curiously at Lou.
‘Oh, this is only my sister, Stig,’ said Barney.
‘Is this really Stig?’ whispered Lou.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Barney. ‘My friend Stig.’
‘Oh,’ said Lou. ‘Er, good evening, Mr Stig.’ Stig merely grinned again in a friendly way and said nothing.
‘Doesn’t he speak English?’ whispered Lou.
‘No,’ replied Barney.
‘What does he speak then? Latin or French?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Barney. ‘You might try ‘em.’
Lou didn’t seem to be able to remember anything suitable to say to a savage spearman in a moonlit wood, so she said nothing. Meanwhile other figures had appeared from the shadows and were standing round in a circle, watching them. Stig made a few strange sounds, and they lowered their weapons. Then an argument broke out, with a lot of waving of arms towards the camp and pointing of fingers at Barney and Lou. Finally Stig smiled at them, held out his two hands to them, and made ushering movements.
‘I think we’re invited to the party,’ said Barney.
They moved off through the wood, in a silence that was broken by a barking and whining, and there in the dark was Dinah, jumping around on the end of her string. Lou ran up to her.
‘Poor Dinah,’ she said. ‘Did we leave you in the dark then? It’s all right Dinah, it’s only Barney’s friend Stig and the other nice gentlemen.’ Dinah didn’t seem at all too sure about the other nice gentlemen, and stood there growling in her throat, until Stig came up and said something, and she actually licked his hand.
‘That’s funny!’ Lou whispered. ‘Dinah seems to know
Stig.’
‘Well, why not? Probably meets him when she goes rabbiting,’ said Barney. ‘You know, in the old days. I mean, when things are usual.’
They were on a forest track now, so narrow that they had to go in single file and not talk. But soon they came out from the edge of the wood on to the bare top of the hill, and now the women and bigger children who had not dared go into the dark wood ran up to stare at them.
‘I don’t suppose they’ve ever seen anything like us,’ Lou whispered.
Barney took a look at Lou in the bright moonlight. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You can’t see yourself, Lou. You don’t look much different from them, except your hair’s fair.’
Lou felt her tangled hair and looked at her ripped shorts, then looked at Barney with his legs all smeared with green from the bark of the trees.
‘You don’t look very different yourself,’ she said.
They were walking over the smooth turf towards the cluster of huts. The armed tribesmen were on each side of them, and it was difficult for them to feel sure whether they were prisoners or guests. As they came near the huts Lou said: ‘I thought Stigs were cave men.’
‘So they are. My friend Stig is, anyway,’ said Barney.
‘What have they got huts for then?’ asked Lou.
Barney thought for a moment as they passed the huts. They were not much more than shelters, a few long branches tied together at the tops, thatched with leaves and bracken. ‘Perhaps they’re cave men on holiday,’ he said.
There was a holiday feeling about the tribe. They were sitting round the fires, from which there came smells of roasting meat. The men were together in groups, the women were looking after the meat on the spits or holding sleeping babies. Barney looked at a group of boys who were rolling and wrestling on the ground and whispered, ‘Do you think we’ll be allowed to play with them?’
‘Better not,’ Lou whispered back. ‘We’ll have to say how-do-you-do to whoever’s giving the party first anyhow.’ She tried to comb her hair with her fingers, but Barney, after taking a few leaves and twigs out of his, decided it wasn’t worth trying.