The Little Grey Men

by BB

  He baited up his hook and crawled along a willow bough (rather a risky proceeding with one leg) and began fishing. But for some reason not one would bite; perhaps the wild weather had driven them away, or perhaps there were no minnows in the lake. Whilst thus engaged he heard Sneezewort, who had gone down the bank to where they had left the boat, come running back through the bushes. From his haste Dodder guessed something was wrong.

  ‘It’s gone!’ he gasped, throwing himself down among the ivy quite out of breath; ‘it’s gone, it’s gone!’

  ‘What’s gone?’ asked Dodder testily.

  ‘The boat! It’s been washed off the shore, the mooring rope is broken!’

  ‘Now we are in a fix,’ said Baldmoney, appearing from behind a tree; ‘we’re marooned and here we shall have to stop. All our stores gone and only one fishing-line! Something’s got to be done!’ Baldmoney never said a truer word, something had got to be done, but what?

  ‘The fish won’t bite either,’ said Dodder, gloomily casting in his line again. ‘I don’t believe there’s a fish round the place.’

  Sneezewort, gazing out over the grey ripples which were rising and falling off the island, uttered an exclamation.

  ‘There she is! There’s the Dragonfly!’

  ‘It isn’t, it’s a bird!’

  ‘ ’Tisn’t; it’s the boat!’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’

  Far out, showing only now and again on the crest of a wave, they saw the ill-fated Dragonfly heading up the lake. Even as they watched it a larger wave than the rest broke over her and she slowly settled down. The bow cocked up and in another moment she went under . . .

  ‘There she goes,’ said Baldmoney, ‘there goes the Dragonfly . . . the fruits of all our weeks of work, our only hope of reaching the Oak Pool alive.’

  •

  Dodder fished and fished, but never once did the tiny quill float show any sign of diving under. It bobbed up and down merrily, but not a fish showed itself. In despair Dodder hauled in his line and came off the willow.

  It was indeed a gloomy morning—everything seemed to be working against them. Instead of the wind abating, it seemed to be increasing in violence, and the far shore and trim plantations were shut out in grey curtains of driving rain.

  The gnomes found some shelter in a hollow of one of the black poplars, and there they crouched together for warmth, huddling together like storm-bound wrens.

  ‘We can’t stay here for ever with nothing in our bellies,’ said Sneezewort; ‘as far as I can see, we’re here for keeps.’

  ‘If the boat had been tied up properly it would never have come adrift,’ muttered Dodder, scowling at Baldmoney.

  ‘It’s no good blaming me,’ returned that worthy; ‘we were all so dead beat, we couldn’t do anything much last night; and, anyway, we couldn’t have started this morning with this wind—no boat could live in it.’

  ‘I wish the herons hadn’t gone,’ said Dodder at last; ‘if Sir Herne was here he’d help us, he gave me a lift up to Moss Mill, and I know he nests here on Poplar Island cos he told me so.’

  ‘Oh, it’s no good wishing he’d turn up,’ said Baldmoney; ‘after their young are hatched they go off to the rivers and the coast. They wouldn’t stay around here.’

  High above them the wind roared through the black poplar, and it seemed to be trying to tear the leaves from their hold. Nobody spoke, they just sat and listened to the storm and the continuous fret of waves on the shingle.

  There was a woodpecker’s hole in the trunk above them, but it did not look new. The bark was blackened round the lower edge. Sneezewort, idly looking at it, saw something stir on the rim. It was a draggled wild bee. It seemed to be creeping there for shelter. Poor thing! perhaps it thought the summer had gone.

  ‘This can’t last for ever,’ said Baldmoney, as he gazed dolefully out over the tossing waters; ‘the sun will shine again; all storms blow over. Help will come in some way or another, you mark my words.’

  ‘Next time, let’s see the boat is properly made fast,’ growled Dodder.

  Then they began to quarrel, each trying to blame the other. The truth is they were all irritable because their little tummies were empty, and nothing makes a gnome (or a man for that matter) more irritable than to have nothing inside him.

  The storm blew itself out by late afternoon and miraculously the sun suddenly burst forth from behind the clouds. The poor gnomes had had nothing to eat all day, they had crouched in the hollow under the trunk and gone to sleep.

  But as soon as the sun came out, making every twig and leaf sparkle with a million diamonds, they felt renewed hope.

  As the wind died away and the warm rays set everything steaming (including the gnomes) a humming began up in the woodpecker’s hole. First one bee appeared and then another, and soon a constant procession was going in and out. Baldmoney was the first to notice it.

  ‘Look, Dodder! . . . Hey! Sneezewort! . . . a wild bees’ nest! Honey! Honey! Honey!’

  Now there is nothing gnomes like more than honey. Every summer they go into the banks and hedges looking for wild bees’ nests, which they raid as efficiently as fernbears.

  It did not take Baldmoney long to make up his mind. It was an easy tree to climb, with plenty of branches. He took off his skin coat and, with Cloudberry’s knife in his teeth, he went up.

  To cut through about three inches of bark and wood is no easy matter, but from long practice Baldmoney was almost as skilful as a woodpecker. He worked away for all he was worth and the bees didn’t seem to mind. They did not perhaps realize what he was doing; anyway, he was so small, perhaps they thought he was a bird.

  As Baldmoney worked, the chips fell rustling down among the ground ivy where the others were standing, looking up.

  ‘You are working very hard, gnomes . . . ’ a tiny reedy voice sounded in his ear, and a humble little bird, very like a mouse, with a thin, needle-like bill, slightly curved, and a curious serrated tail which she used as a prop against the trunk of the tree, came sidling round. It was Treecreeper.

  ‘Hullo, Treecreeper,’ said Baldmoney, scarcely looking up, ‘sorry I’ve no time to talk, but we’re simply starving. We’re marooned, our boat’s washed away, and we’ve lost our fishing-lines,’ and he went on cutting away at the rough tree trunk.

  Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! Several worker bees, returning laden with pollen in their little honey bags, flew angrily around. There was too much activity outside their nesting hole and they were beginning to be suspicious. The guards at the entrance to the nest began to get wary, but that didn’t worry Baldmoney as gnomes are as impervious as badgers to bee stings.

  More and more bees began to gather; the humming grew. Treecreeper retired somewhat hastily when two bees settled on her spotted back. How hard Baldmoney worked! The sweat dripped off him and ran down the tree, then Sneezewort came up and took a turn. At last they were through and there came a hollow booming from within. There was a great turmoil in the camp.

  Dodder could hardly see Baldmoney and Sneezewort for bees; they came out in such a swarm they were like a black whirling dust storm round the entrance to the nest. Baldmoney got his hand in at last and broke off pieces of the crisp, papery comb, full of lovely amber treasure. He put them in a dock leaf and Sneezewort passed it down. Baldmoney was black with bees. They crawled all over his head and hands, and some got inside his jacket and down his neck, and some became entangled in his beard, and they stung and stung and stung, but Baldmoney didn’t mind a bit!

  ‘There’s always been a bees’ nest in the poplar,’ said Treecreeper to Dodder. The little bird had again crept round the tree in a spiral, making Dodder jump. But Dodder did not answer for he was so hungry and the smell and sight of the honey was almost too much for him. He was dribbling like a hungry puppy.

  ‘Oh! do be quick, Baldmoney; I’m so hungry,’ he called.

  ‘Coming!’ came the answer from above.

  Down came Baldmoney and Sneezewort, the former with a dock le
af between his teeth full of honeycomb. It made an awful mess, for the sweet stuff oozed out of the leaf all over his jacket, but he was too hungry to notice it.

  The ate the honey among the ground ivy at the foot of the tree, whilst the angry bees roared about the woodpecker’s hole overhead. The gnomes soon had honey all over themselves; it matted their beards and glued up their fingers; some of it ran down out of the corners of their mouths on to their skin coats; but wasn’t it good, wasn’t it a feast! All their past troubles seemed to be worth while. Poor bees!

  •

  In a very short time there was very little honey left and barely a scrap of comb, but several wasps arrived and rather worried the gnomes by settling on their beards to suck the remnants of the feast, and they had to keep them off with a ceaseless winnowing of sticks.

  After they had finished and washed the sticky stuff from their persons they set to work to make themselves a hut. After great deliberations and argument it was finally decided to build it in a tree; as Sneezewort said, ‘Let’s have it up a tree; we don’t know what wild animals live on the island, and anyway a house in a tree is much more fun than a house on the ground.’ Which after all was a very sensible remark (for Sneezewort).

  So they set to work, collecting sticks, moss, and leaves, and gathering all the material at the foot of a spindly pine tree, the only one on the island. They chose the pine because usually it is an easy tree to climb, with plenty of branches.

  As gnomes are observant little creatures, you may be sure they picked up some tips from Squirrel as to house-building in the tree tops. Of course Dodder, with his game leg, couldn’t do much save gather sticks, and he left the actual building to Sneezewort and Baldmoney.

  They found a branch fork about seven feet up which made a natural platform on which to lay the foundations, and the hut (or rather nest, because when finished it looked exactly like a very large wren’s nest with the opening at the side) soon began to take shape.

  They had to make a ladder to help Dodder up, for of course he could not climb as easily as the others. By dusk the house was completed and the gnomes were quite exhausted, for it had been hard work. How it brought back the old days in Crow Wood with Squirrel! They wished he was with them, life would have been so much jollier.

  From the hut they could see out over the grey lake and look down into the dark, dark water, for even close to the island it was deep. They could see all the little pebbles on the shore and the ivy leaves far below. When the wind blew it played a song among the fir tassels just as it used to do in Squirrel’s house in Crow Wood, a beautiful soothing sound.

  If there had been plenty of food on the island all this would have been tremendous fun, for there’s no fun quite like making huts, whether up in trees or on the ground.

  By the look of things they would be on the island for some time, unless some kind friend should chance along. But as all the herons had gone away for their annual holiday, this was unlikely.

  Next day Dodder, hunting about on the south foreshore, made a discovery. In the shallow water he found a small bed of freshwater mussels, huge shells which were almost as much as he could carry. With this glad news he hurried back to the others. He found them putting the finishing touches to the tree house.

  ‘Food! Food!’ he shouted. ‘As much as we want!’

  Sneezewort and Baldmoney came running along the shore and very soon they were carrying the big shellfish up to the pine tree, stacking them against the trunk. This was indeed a piece of luck because Dodder’s efforts with the fishing line had still proved useless.

  As dusk fell, Baldmoney, with some difficulty, got the fire going, for the sticks were damp, and soon a bright little blaze was burning at the foot of the pine, and Baldmoney drew out his knife and began opening the mussels.

  ‘Did you ever taste such beauties?’ said Dodder with his mouth full. ‘I do believe they are better than the Folly mussels. It’s a pity Poplar Island isn’t a little nearer home.’ (They had long since exhausted all the mussel beds near the Oak Pool.)

  Sneezewort smacked his lips as he took a steaming morsel from the frying-pan. ‘I think this little spell will do us good; after all, we’ve been on the go since we left home, killing giants and Pan knows what.’ They were beginning to feel quite cheerful again.

  When they had eaten all they could hold they lay round the red embers gossiping. It was this hour by the dying firelight that the gnomes loved more than any other time. It was then they talked of so many things.

  ‘Funny how a fire makes you want to stare and stare at it,’ said Dodder reflectively, blowing out a cloud of tobacco smoke and watching the glow of the red fire’s core; ‘men are just the same, so the hobgoblins used to tell me. There was a hobgoblin in the old farmhouse which stood where Lucking’s farm now is. He told me they sit, just like we do, staring into the embers. Of course, it is understandable in man, because a fire is the only bit of wildness left in his house; his surroundings are artificial, but a fire makes him think of the days when he lived as we do, out in the open with nothing but caves and hollow trees to shield him from the weather.’

  •

  And so they chatted on and on. It was only natural that at last the conversation should turn to the real object of their journey.

  ‘I know it’s all very good fun living in a house in a tree on a desert island,’ began Baldmoney, ‘but we can’t stay here indefinitely. We’ve got to build another boat. It’s too far to swim to the shore and no animals live here who can help us. This really is an uninhabited island, except for the birds, and they can’t help us much.’

  ‘That’s true,’ replied Dodder, sucking his teeth, ‘we shall have to build something. But I’ve an idea. There are a lot of frogskins lying around, thanks to our good friends the herons. It won’t take us long to build a coracle like our fishing-boats at home, and then we could choose our day when the sea is calm (the lake was so vast to them that they called it the sea) and then we can get to the shore. Of course, we can’t build another Dragonfly—we haven’t got the wood for one thing, and it would take too long.’

  ‘Supposing we get to the shore,’ said Sneezewort, ‘what then? Do we try and go on with our coracle?’

  ‘No . . . ’ Dodder thought a minute. ‘We shall have to start for home. The journey won’t take us long because we shall have the current to help us down. Let’s have a look at the map, Baldmoney.’

  Baldmoney took off his waistcoat and spread it on the ivy leaves in the light of the fire and studied it carefully. It was beautifully drawn; the Oak Pool, Moss Mill, the rapids and waterfalls, Crow Wood, and Wood Pool, even the Gibbet Clearing, all were there.

  ‘The Oak Pool is about four days’ journey from here,’ said Dodder at last; ‘it should be an easy trip down; we will probably be able to shoot the rapids—we’d be back in no time.’

  An owl hooted at the far end of the island, and in the silence they could hear the low talk of water lapping on the south shore. ‘If only Owl would come and chat to us, he might help,’ said Sneezewort dreamily. Full of mussel and warmed by the genial glow of the fire, he was nearly asleep.

  Far away a fox barked from the fir coverts on the shore. The gnomes could not suppress a shudder; it was like hearing the cry of a wolf. Again and again they had heard the distant howl of a fox during their trip up the Folly; always there came a creeping fear, which was instinctive.

  ‘It’s a good thing we’re on an island,’ said Baldmoney. He was putting the finishing touches to a little drawing of their hut in the tree. ‘I don’t much fancy this country; it smells of wood dogs.’

  Slowly the fire died away; nobody spoke. They lay on their backs warming their toes and watching the trembling stars high above and the dark rustling crown of the black poplars etched against the velvet sky.

  ‘It’s a pity we couldn’t have found the Folly Source and Cloudberry,’ said Baldmoney. He had put on his waistcoat again and was looking out through the opening of the hut at the dim obscurity of the vas
t water . . . ‘that writing on the bridge, it did give one a little encouragement.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s all for the best,’ replied Dodder; ‘anyway, even if we don’t find Cloudberry, this trip will have been worth while.’

  Some diving bird called across the water and in the pine tree the wind rustled softly, blowing the sparks about in the dying embers of the fire. Tiny stealthy noises came from all around them, faint rustlings and clickings, the night noises of the wild.

  What did the future hold for the three little gnomes, what adventures, what joys, what sorrows—who could tell?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Shark

  hen the gnomes set to work to make the frogskin coracle they had some difficulty in finding the right wood for the job. It had to be pliable and easily bent and there were few willows on the island. But after a day or two it began to take shape.

  At first they thought of fitting paddles like those on the Dragonfly, but that idea was abandoned after a few experiments. The craft was too frail to stand the strain and it was decided to use sail alone.

  It took a long time to scrape the frogskins clean and make them pliable. This was done by soaking them in water and steaming them by the fire. They worked hard, for time was against them. Bar the mussels and the honey (which would soon be exhausted) there was nothing to eat on the island, and despite persistent efforts by Dodder to catch fish with the last remaining hook and line, all his efforts were of no avail.

  This was very curious. Dodder was an expert, and there must have been fish round the island, indeed he had caught a glimpse of several nervous shoals of roachlings, but they all seemed extremely shy and would not look at his bait. And then one evening, about ten days after they had been cast away, Dodder suddenly found the cause.