Farnaby was very scared, but he crawled right out from under the wing chair and stood up in front of Mr. Neversmythe, who said, "Aye, and so I can see you're a watcher, then. And I'll be having some use for a watcher, it's true. But you see here, Pockets, I'll have none of your spyin' and that's a fact—least not on me, do y'understand. If there's spyin' to be done—an' I'm not sayin' there is and I'm not sayin' there ain't—then I'll be tellin' you what there is to be spyin' about and who there is to be spyin' upon. Do I make meself clear, Pockets?"
Of course, Farnaby Pockets was much too frightened to say whether Mr. Neversmythe made himself clear or whether he didn't. At that very moment, all Farnaby was thinking about was that he wanted to be somewhere else besides where he was. He wasn't, though. He was standing right there exactly where he was standing. And to his way of thinking, standing right there was slightly too exciting.
"Now, listen up Pockets and be keen about it," Mr. Neversmythe went on, all the while poking a long index claw right into Farnaby's chest so hard that it hurt. "You keeps your ears open, Pockets, and there'll be a silver mouseshilling in it for you if you hear anything about a dirk with three baubles on it. Do y'understand me, Pockets?"
Farnaby nodded that he did and that was partly true. He knew what ears were and mouseshillings. And he thought he knew what baubles were. He just didn't know that other word.
So that evening, Farnaby, having served the guests their casseroles in the dining room and having poured their drinks for them and having given them their desserts when they wanted them and having cleared their tables and swept the dining room when they were finished and having washed all the crockery and cutlery and skillets and pipkins and pots and skimmers and ladles and having dried all such things and put them away carefully in their proper places so that his mother could find them when next she wanted them and while sitting at the little table in the back of the kitchen eating his own casserole, said to his mother, "What's a dirk?"
And then his mother, having cleaned the front hallway and the parlor and all the guest rooms from top to bottom and having swept and dusted the front stairs and the back hallway and having washed practically every linen in the place including their own things as well as the sheets and towels from all the guest rooms and having hung them on the clothes line and when they were dry having brought them in and ironed those that needed ironing and folded those that needed folding and having rushed to the market to buy chicory and rose hips and cauliflower and cinnamon and various cheeses and having rushed home with it all and having put away in the pantry those things which she didn't need at the moment and having used the rest to cook a savory casserole and having sat down at the little table in the back of the kitchen for just a moment to eat a bite of her own casserole before jumping up to prepare some foods for breakfast the next day, said to Farnaby, "What's a what, dear?"
"A dirk," Farnaby said. "And have you ever heard of one with three baubles on it?"
"A dirk is a knife, darling," Mrs. Pockets said, and she paused and looked intently at her little mouse. "But may I know why you are asking me this?"
"It's for a mouseshilling, Mother," Farnaby said, somewhat impatiently, continuing to eat his casserole.
"Is it indeed? And how might that be, dear?"
"Well," Farnaby said carefully, "actually...a creature said that he would give me a mouseshilling if ever I heard of such a thing."
"I see," said Mrs. Pockets, continuing to eat her casserole, "What sort of creature, Farnaby?"
"Umm...a lemming, I believe," Farnaby said.
"A bog lemming, perhaps."
"We think he may be a bog lemming, yes," said Farnaby, giving much attention to the last bits of the casserole scattered around various locations in his bowl.
"Hmm, that would be Mr. Neversmythe, I expect."
Farnaby said nothing, devoted as he was at that moment to orts of casserole.
"Mr. Neversmythe, then, promised you a mouseshilling if ever you heard of a dirk with three baubles on it. Is that right, Farnaby?" Mrs. Pockets asked.
"Yes," her little mouse said very softly.
Mrs. Pockets looked up from her bowl, though not at Farnaby, and said, "Oh dear." She then fetched a piece of paper from a drawer, wrote something on it with a pen, placed it in an envelope, wrote a name on the envelope, sealed it and said, "Now in the morning, dear, you must take this to Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw."
Farnaby's eyes went suddenly wide. "Oh, Mother, may I take now please? I'm told The Silver Claw at night is ever such a wonderful place."
Mrs. Pockets looked quite dubious about such an idea.
"Oh, please, Mother. I'll be ever so quick about it. I'll come back straightaway. You'll see. May I go just this once?" And when he thought he saw that his mother was actually weakening, he said, without wasting another moment, "To see what it's like and all. Just to see what it's like. Nothing more than that."
Mrs. Pockets hesitated for one split mousesecond too long, I think, and Farnaby, seeing that a tiny window of opportunity had unexpectedly opened before him, said rapidly and in a rather jumbled fashion, not having the advantage of advanced planning, "Perhaps it isn't. At night, I mean. Wonderful. Perhaps it's, after all, quite dull."
And with his mother still not looking completely satisfied, he hurried on, "And if it is very dull, then I should like very much to know that, Mother. Because...because I've heard…umm...that it isn't."
Then Mrs. Pockets, most certainly against her better judgment, and not at all knowing exactly why she was doing it, nevertheless heard herself saying, while pointing directly at Farnaby's nose, "You must not tarry, do you hear?"
With the most urgent seriousness, Farnaby assured his mother that he would not even THINK of tarrying in a case like this. And off he went to The Silver Claw. But if Mrs. Pockets had known what kind of creatures had just arrived in Tottensea Burrows that very day and who would be at The Silver Claw that very night, I can assure you that she would not—by any means!—have allowed her little mouse go over there. Most certainly not.
CHAPTER 14
The Silver Claw at Night
The Silver Claw was a public house, which was an establishment where beverages of a certain kind were sold and consumed. An animal could also get a bit of nourishment there if he wished—a lively bit of spinach, perhaps, or even brussels sprouts if times were good. It was sometimes true of field mouse pubs that there were also rooms which a creature could rent if it needed a place to stay.
Farnaby Pockets had been many times inside The Silver Claw in his young life. Once a week, his mother baked very delicious pastries and sold them to some of the shops in Tottensea Burrows. It was Farnaby's job to pack the pastries into a straw basket, and do it very carefully so that none of them would be broken or smashed, and then to cover them with a red and white checkered cloth to keep the dust off them and then to deliver them to the shops that had ordered them.
Farnaby loved pastry day because his mother would always set aside a special pastry for her little delivery mouse which he would be allowed to eat immediately he returned from his toils. But he mustn't hurry his rounds in order to have his treat all the sooner. Of course not. He must put on his carroty red corduroy cap which just matched his carroty red corduroy knickerbockers and go off and do it in the amount of time that was fitting. This meant that if you had been in Tottensea Burrows on almost any Friday afternoon, you could have seen a polite and well-dressed little mouse coming along carrying a straw basket of pastries and, just as he passed by, you could have heard his carroty red corduroy knickerbockers going whiff, whiff, whiff at an entirely suitable rate of speed.
But while Farnaby Pockets had been many times inside The Silver Claw, he had never been inside The Silver Claw at night. It was so different that for a moment he wondered if he had taken himself into the wrong place by mistake. He had never seen so many different kinds of creatures in the same room. Why, he couldn't by any means have named even all the different kinds of mice he saw there, to say
nothing of the voles and the rats, the moles and the conies, a small hedgehog, I dare say, and one little animal that someone said might even have been a shrew—though it had such a large hat pulled so low over its eyes that no one could be sure, and, in case it was a shrew, I can tell you for certain that no one there was about to ask it!
The patrons of The Silver Claw that night were all eating or drinking or smoking clay pipes with long stems or throwing darts or playing at backgammon or draughts or cards or else saying something or listening to something that someone else was saying. Most of them sat around tables lit by straw-covered bottles with candles in them or by lanterns hanging from crossbeams in the ceiling. At one end of the room was a counter with a few customers in front of it and a busy mouse behind it doing things with kettles and jugs and flasks and bottles as well as with kegs and barrels and casks which had spigots sticking out near the bottoms of them. A row of pegs on the opposite wall held caps and hats and there was a brolly alongside a mackintosh or two. There was a fireplace that had a mantle with a clock and a vase holding some unhappy flowers that badly wanted to be replaced—though Farnaby might have wondered how long a vase of flowers could have been happy and contented in a room as hot and stuffy and smoky as The Silver Claw at night.
Farnaby saw a face that he knew across the room and began to make his way through this noisy, busy, elbowy place. And because there was hardly enough space to squeeze between the tables and chairs, he passed much too close to four or five ship rats hunched together over a table, speaking in low voices and watching him with suspicion. They weren't looking at him with suspicion for any particular reason, I think. Ship rats, I'm told, look at everyone with suspicion. In any event, suddenly and without warning, the rat with the gold ring in his ear and a patch over one eye reached, quick as a snake, and laid an iron grip on Farnaby's shoulder. "What'll ya be doin' here, boy?" the rat said, but in a room so noisy that only those close by could have heard him. "Who sent ya to be spyin' on poor simple creatures what only want to raise an honest elbow with a few good friends? Eh?" And the iron grip tightened till Farnaby thought he might cry.
"Why no one, sir! I'm not spyin' on no one at all, sir," said Farnaby Pockets, frightened quite beyond all the good grammar that Mr. Utwiler Thipples The Schoolmaster had ever taught him.
"Aye, and I'll not have ya lyin' to me, boy," said the rat, thrusting a black claw in Farnaby's face. "No' a word of it, d'ya hear?" And he held tightly to Farnaby with the one paw while he took a pull at his ale with the other. He wiped his mouth on a dirty brown sleeve and said, "All right, off with ya then," as he pointed the claw at Farnaby's face again, "and no more snoopin' about or I'll be havin' a look at the gizzard of ya with a rusty blade, I will, or me name's not Frenchie Grimwott—which it is." And his one eye glared at Farnaby as if it might pop right out of its socket. "Begone with ya!" And the iron grip having released him at last, Farnaby lurched away and scrambled off hurriedly and was not to be looking back even when he heard an explosion of laughter from the rats' table.
Farnaby was proud that he hadn't cried for the rat. Not really cried, I mean. It's true that his eyes were watery and his vision a bit blurred as he moved on through the room, but some of those tears came from the tobacco smoke that had stung his eyes from the moment he came in the door. And though there was still trouble getting through the crowd, with things being said to him like "That'll be me foot, lad!" or "It's me back yer puttin' yer elbow into, sir, if you don't mind!" at least no one else took hold of him or said anything to him about looking at his gizzard.
You can imagine, I think, what a great relief it was to Farnaby when he finally heard a friendly voice that he knew. "Why Master Pockets, as I breathe," said Mr. Denslow Twofolding-Wetstraw, proprietor of The Silver Claw. Though he was working hard at that moment serving his customers, the old mouse stopped nonetheless to give kind attention to a young mouse on a mission. He had a towel over one arm, Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw did, and he was holding a tray full of mugs and cups and tankards high over his head with the other and was huffing and puffing a little as he said, "And it's not even Friday, I believe."
"No sir, Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw," said Farnaby Pockets but said it in an ordinary quiet field mouse kind of voice, which of course could not at all be heard above the noise of The Silver Claw at night. So he said it again, only louder, and Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw bent down as low as he could to try to hear, bearing in mind that the tray of mugs and cups and tankards must still be held high as possible on account of other creatures' heads and things. So Farnaby Pockets was obliged to say a third time, "No sir, Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw, I've not come about the pastries this time."
"Not about the pastries, is it? Very well, then, come with me," said Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw, motioning Farnaby to follow him, which, of course, he did. They ended up at a little rolltop desk in the back corner of the kitchen of The Silver Claw, which, though a considerably quieter place, was not a bit less busy with waiters and cooks bustling over here and over there and hardly slowing down for even a mouseminute. "Now then, Master Pockets, of what service can I be to a fine young fellow like yourself on a busy evening like this," said the tired old mouse, who had put down his tray of cups and mugs and tankards and sat himself at his desk and was wiping his brow with the towel.
"Well, Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw, I'm very sorry to trouble you at such a busy time but I have a message for Mr. Pickerel from Mrs. Pockets and she said that it was very important that I give it to you, sir." And Farnaby held out the envelope.
"Mr. Pickerel, is it?" Mr. Twofolding-Wetstraw said, taking the envelope and looking at it and rubbing his chin with a paw and frowning ever so slightly. "Hmm. Yes. You're right, of course. 'Mr. Langston Pickerel' it says, right here in plain writing. Well, now let me see, then. You must tell your dear mother, sir, that I can't promise her anything," and he looked at Farnaby over his spectacles and pointed one claw at nothing in particular. "He does keep rooms here, it's true, but still, in all, one doesn't see him very often, you understand. Mr. Pickerel comes, you see, and Mr. Pickerel goes. It could be days. It could be weeks. But one will do what one can." And he unlocked the desk and placed the envelope in a little compartment inside it.
Then Mr. Denslow Twofolding-Wetstraw gave young Master Pockets a cup of chocolate which was very sweet and very hot. Farnaby thanked his host politely, drank the chocolate as fast as he reasonably could (it being so hot), fervently hoping all the while that it would not be counted against him as tarrying, and then he hurried right home to his mother. Straightaway.
CHAPTER 15
Preparations for a Ball
The Tottensea Burrows Midsummer's Night Fancy Dress Cotillion Ball was, beyond question, the premier social event of the field mouse season. All Tottensea was in a flutter over it for weeks.
The Fieldpea burrow (along with many others) stirred mightily at such a time, for fancy dress was there being perpetually discussed, extensively planned and, in the end, painstakingly constructed. Many of Mr. Fieldpea's meals were peppered with words of great mystery to him, words such as furbelows, for example, and flounces and pelerines. Farthingales, even, were spoken of openly at table. And bandeaux, whatever they were.
The Fieldpea girls, for fellowship, brought their projects to the sitting room after dinner so that as Mr. Fieldpea sat in his chair reading The Tottensea Weekly Noticer or, it might have been, The Rodent's Digest, all about him swirled a sea of the most intense activity—fabrics being snipped, needles threaded, hems stitched, digits pricked, patience tested, mistakes realized, patterns referred to, tears shed and gowns finally and triumphantly made!
One evening amid the stir and bustle of these doings, Incarnadine came into the sitting room to show off her new dancing slippers.
"Oh, Incarnadine, they're lovely!" Almandine said.
"Do you like them? The buckles are actually silver, I believe. With luck, I shall dance the quadrille with Merchanty Swift in these," Incarnadine said, rehearsing a turn from that dance.
"That will take a bit of luck," Grenadine said, not looking up, "since Merchanty Swift doesn't attend balls."
"Merchanty Swift doesn't attend anything," Almandine said with a sigh. "And it isn't fair."
"You are both altogether too pessimistic, is my opinion," sniffed Incarnadine. "These things can change. A mouse can be smitten more than once. Parsalina Smarts said that."
"Did she, indeed?" asked Almandine.
"She did," replied Incarnadine, "and I'm inclined to agree with her."
"And who may we expect to do this...re-smiting, dear?" Almandine asked. "Would it be Parsalina Smarts, then? Or yourself, perhaps?"
At the word "re-smiting," Incarnadine was quite unable to maintain a straight face. And as Grenadine began to invent a conjugation for the verb "to resmite" the discussion was overtaken by snickers and then guffaws. By the time she had attained the form "we shall have been resmitten," they were all more or less seized of laughter and Mr. Fieldpea looked up briefly from his article to suggest that, after all, the new verb might have to be abandoned for the sake of getting one's breath.
On the day of the ball, anticipation and preparations of many kinds reached elevated levels across all Tottensea. Proserpine Pockets, on that day, was rather up to her ears, so to speak, and somewhat behind schedule in the making of pastries and relishes for the celebrated event. And so when she heard, behind her, the sound of walnut bits falling off a counter, striking the floor and shooting off in many directions, and when she turned in time to see Farnaby badly over-reaching to lick up a spill of icing sugar and saw that the walnut bowl had been overturned because of that over-reaching, she fell out of temper and, rounding upon her mouseling, turned him out-of-doors. "Farnaby Pockets," she said sharply, "you are quite underfoot, my dear!"
The Linnet's Tale (A Mouse Story for Grownups) (The Tottensea Series) Page 8