Brendon Chase

by B. B.

  The barking dwindled behind them, fainter and fainter, until they could only just hear it.

  They passed cows asleep among the buttercups, they smelt their sweet meadow breath and heard their subdued rustling in the shadows. Something of the eerieness of the silent Dower House lingered even here, out of doors. The landscape which, during hours of daylight, was so dearly familiar – they knew every tree and bush within a radius of a couple of miles about Cherry Walden – seemed now entirely changed and foreign. The big chestnuts along the lane, for instance, bulked large and forbidding, like couched monsters, yet in staring day they were friendly trees with many treasures in the shape of conkers and owls’ nests.

  Stealthy wildlife was revealed as they passed upon their silent way, the dim scut of a rabbit bobbed and wavered across the turf, splashings and ploppings sounded from the horse pond where Harold, in his happier days, used to fish for polly-woggles and nameless revolting worms – horse leeches he called them – and where even Robin and John had found much magic in the days of their extreme youth.

  They felt like burglars or poachers as they nipped across the Brendon road and dived into the sinister shadow of the hawthorn hedge, and the dim ribbon lay vacant and horribly remote to right and left.

  In early May the dawn soon comes and it was not long before the boys saw the sky paling to the east of them and trees and bushes becoming more distinct. And soon they heard the first lark singing over the Weald, its faraway music threadlike and cold, matching the silver light.

  They took it in turns to carry the cooking utensils and the rifle, for they had not thought to make a sling for the latter before they started. From a blossom-smothered hawthorn a blackbird began to warble richly and soon birdsongs were echoing on every hand, from blackbirds and thrushes, chaffinches and wrens.

  As the boys stood for a moment under the dim hawthorns, all the birds could be heard getting into their full stride and soon a cuckoo joined the chorus, dominating even the blackbird’s rich warbling notes.

  It was strange to think of Cherry Walden, yet asleep. Aunt Ellen’s shoes would still be patiently waiting outside her door; everyone in the house and village would be wrapped in slumber. Yet in an hour or two their disappearance would be discovered and the hue and cry would begin.

  It did not seem so very long before the boys caught sight of the Chase. It lay all along the horizon, a dense band of darkness against the dim sky. And when the sun rose at last over the rim of the Weald they were crossing the last field – where some cattle were grouped round a salt lick – for the shelter of the trees. Though it was now little after four in the morning – they had been walking continuously since one o’clock – the light was steadily increasing and they gained the forest edge not a moment too soon. For, on looking back the way they had come, they saw the first sign of life, a labourer with a rush skip on his back, cycling to work along a distant lane.

  Robin turned in the shadow of the bushes and a strange expression passed across his face as he looked back at his brother, an expression of triumph and excitement.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ve done it, Big John!’

  And then they capered and danced, Robin waving the rifle over his head like an Indian brave celebrating a victory, and as they danced they chanted curious half-formed words. ‘No more Aunt Ellen! No more lessons, no more school!’

  Carried away by their high spirits they even vowed they would never return to Cherry Walden; they would live in the forest, like outlaws, hunting and fishing like true wild woodmen, for ever and ever. The birds sang joyously, the scent of fern and leaf drove them nearly demented with delight. They rolled among the bracken and buried their faces in the dew-wet grass, they pelted each other with sticks and turned somersaults. They were drunk with the glory of living; they were the happiest beings in the world!

  Meanwhile, the cocks of Cherry Walden were proclaiming to mankind in general that it was time to be up and doing. First arose the labouring men, the early birds in the country. They breakfasted heartily and sallied forth to work, some afoot, others on their bicycles, puffing their pipes of shag. A little later, the village domestics got up to light the household fires, and blue spirals of smoke began to curl from the chimneys of the Dower House, the vicarage and the Manor Farm, which made these dwellings appear to be awakening too, which in a sense, they were.

  Hannah, the ‘tweeny’ at the Dower House, descended the back stairs with a heavy tread. It was Hannah’s first job to go all over the house and open the heavy white shutters. First in the kitchen, then in the dining room and drawing room, then in the morning room and finally in the hall.

  It was then she saw on the tray – which stood on the Queen Anne table – a glimmering square of white paper. She was an inquisitive girl and immediately took it up and read it, at first hastily and then more slowly, four or five times. So, when Emma, the parlourmaid, in her stiff rustling print dress, knocked discreetly on Aunt Ellen’s door there was a white slip of paper on the tea tray.

  ‘Hannah found it in the ’all, ’m, on the tray. I think it must be from Master Robin and John.’

  Aunt Ellen, as yet only half awake, pushed it on one side until she had finished her cup. ‘Some rubbish from the boys I expect, Emma.’

  But when she had read it through twice she put on her dressing gown and padded along the landing to the boys’ room. It seemed strangely forlorn and vacant and the tumbled sheets were mute evidence of a midnight flit. Aunt Ellen, to give her her due, kept a level head. She went back to bed and poured herself another cup of tea, and considered in her mind her best course.

  She never for a moment believed that the boys had really run away; it was some practical joke they were playing, a poor sort of joke just now, when she had so much to think about with Harold down with measles. She must think out a fitting punishment. Extra work with the vicar, that was the line to take, and no half-holidays this week. The whole business was very irritating just now; the boys must be taught to respect authority.

  The Reverend Whiting was surprised to hear his front door bell ring a little after nine a.m. Like many bachelors he was a late riser. He had formed the habit of reading into the small hours and not retiring until long after midnight had struck from the ivied tower of his church, close by. He very rarely got out of bed before ten o’clock in the morning and his breakfast was taken when other people were beginning to wonder what was for lunch. To tell the truth, the tutoring of the Dower House boys was rather a nuisance because of this; it would mean that in the coming weeks he would have to alter his habits … Most distasteful.

  Aunt Ellen, when she learnt from the vicar’s housekeeper that he was not yet down, showed visible annoyance. ‘Tell the vicar I must see him at once, it’s most urgent. Tell him I will wait.’

  She was shown into the cosy tobacco-scented study with its bachelor disorder, letters and papers lying on the mantelshelf, more papers and books piled on the chairs and table and – Aunt Ellen sniffed disdainfully – a tumbler and a half-empty whisky bottle, complete with siphon, reposing among the back numbers of the Church Times on his desk.

  What a mess men live in when they have no wives to look after them, thought Aunt Ellen … the whisky, too … disgusting. If she were married to the vicar these things would soon be changed.

  She paced about, unable to sit down. She passed her eye over his bookcase. There were the usual massive theological tomes and numerous volumes, mostly on natural history, butterflies, birds and the like, and from the top of the bookcase a stuffed stone curlew regarded Aunt Ellen with a glassy disapproving stare. The minutes passed and still the Reverend Whiting did not appear. Bumps and footsteps overhead gave her the impression he was frantically endeavouring to dress. She paced about, now to the door, now back to the window. She stared out with unseeing eyes at the sunny garden, where a spotted flycatcher was sitting on a croquet peg under the cedar, and a black cat was stalking it along the gravel path.

  At last she heard footsteps desce
nding the stairs and the Reverend Whiting appeared, with a red gash on his chin, which he was mopping with a bloodstained handkerchief.

  ‘I must apologize for disturbing you at this early hour, Vicar, but, the truth is, I am in trouble.’

  ‘Dear me, dear me,’ said the Whiting, mopping at his chin, ‘not Harold I hope? He is not dangerously ill?’

  He motioned Aunt Ellen to a chair but she remained standing.

  ‘No, not Harold, it’s Robin and John; they’ve run away, in the night.’

  ‘Run away! Run away! Dear me!’ The vicar was so taken aback he forgot his cut chin and the blood ran down suddenly on to his white clerical collar. ‘Tck, tck, I cut myself shaving,’ he murmured apologetically as he applied his handkerchief.

  ‘Yes, run away,’ repeated Aunt Ellen severely, ‘and I have come to you for advice. They left a note for me saying they’d be back “sometime”. Of course,’ she added, ‘I have no doubt at all they will return in a few hours, when the novelty has worn off, and when they get hungry, but when they do come back they must be punished and I want your advice as to the best method. You see, Vicar, I am in charge of them. As you know, their parents are in India, and I naturally feel responsible.’

  ‘I know, dear lady, it’s very disturbing for you, but from what I know of boys I think you will find that the young gentlemen will be back at the Dower House before tonight. It’s my belief that they are probably in hiding in the grounds, or even on the premises. I should not worry on that score. As to a fitting punishment, I should suggest extra work, extra homework I mean,’ he added hastily. He foresaw that he might in a sense be punished too if Aunt Ellen insisted that they had longer hours with him, and though the extra guineas which he would receive for tuition would be useful, he was a man who valued his liberty as much as any boy. Indeed, he was very like an overgrown boy himself. Perhaps he secretly sympathized with Robin and John, and reflected that he would probably have run away too if he had had such an old dragon for a guardian.

  He soothed Aunt Ellen as best he could and it was in a better frame of mind that she returned to the Dower House. She even half expected to find the miscreants sitting shamefacedly at the breakfast table.

  Miss Holcome and Hannah – who met her in the hall – reminded her of two flustered hens. ‘Oh, please’m, Rumbold’s just been up to say his rifle’s missing. He thinks the young gentlemen have taken it, he says they must have found where he kept the key to the pottin’ shed.’ Hannah seemed quite pleased about the whole affair.

  Now, had Aunt Ellen known boys better she would have been uneasy at this latest piece of information. She still believed they would put in an appearance before the day was out.

  In the meantime she tried to dismiss the subject from her mind and went to interview Harold who, so Miss Holcome said, had passed a restless night. She had decided to say nothing to him about the disappearance of his brothers. If he knew anything about it he would be sure to say something. But Harold, the unhappy Harold, felt too ill to talk, and after seeing that he had taken his medicine, and that the blinds were drawn, she busied herself about the house.

  Lunchtime came and after a restless afternoon, during which she made several leisurely tours of the grounds, suspiciously eyeing every bush, she returned to tea. Her anxiety was growing with each passing moment. Rumbold, whom she found tying up the raspberry canes, was gloomily depressing.

  ‘Ef you ask me ’m, they’ve cleared off somewheres an’ we shan’t see ’em back ’ere until they runs short o’ food. They told me at the post office that Master Robin went and bought some packets o’ porridge oats, five packets ’e bought! Looks as ef they mean to make a real do of it. Ef I was you, mum, I’d let the sergeant know, there’s no knowin’ what they may be up to with that there rifle o’ mine, it’s a dangerous weapon.’

  The police! Aunt Ellen shivered at the thought. The whole village would soon know of the escapade, she would be disgraced, she would be made to appear foolish before everybody. She even visualized bloodhounds and Scotland Yard, headlines in the papers. ‘Disappearance of two boys from Cherry Walden Dower House.’ For the first time in her life Aunt Ellen felt she would like to have a good cry.

  3. Gone to Ground

  The sunlight of late afternoon illuminated the tops of the oak trees. Every ride, every rabbit track, was wrapped in cool shade; scarce a breath of wind stirred the million, million leaves.

  In the very heart of this magnificent forest which covered an area of eleven thousand undulating acres, in a little green clearing hedged around with fern and sallow, grew a massive oak tree. It was not very tall, indeed it was considerably lower than many of the other oaks round about, for centuries since its top had decayed away only the massive rough trunk remained. But thick healthy foliage grew from the gnarled and knotted crown, and these new branches spread wide like a vast, deep green umbrella for many yards on all sides.

  The roughened trunk was covered with excrescences and bulges, its total outside girth must have been nearly twenty-five feet. At its base, on the western side, was a small aperture not more than two feet wide by three high, like the opening to a little black cave or a postern door.

  In the quiet of evening the nightingales were singing, whitethroats were bubbling their merry woodland music from the depths of the hazels and sallows, and now and again a pigeon passed over, high in the sunlight, its breast lit by the low rays of the setting sun.

  One of them, spying the thick crown of the oak below it in the clearing, closed its wings, wheeled round, and came to a clattering rest among the green leaves. It was amazing that so large a bird could alight so swiftly it seemed to pierce the wall of foliage with ease, almost as if it were an arrow.

  After looking about it for a moment or two it puffed out its breast and began to ‘Coo, Coo, Coocoo, Coo, Coo, Coocoo, Coo, Coo, Coocoo, Coo!’ An amusing sound, very soothing, breathing the peace of the woods and ending abruptly with half a note as though the bird had heard something and had stopped to listen.

  Other wood pigeons were answering from the surrounding trees; many no doubt had nests deep among the hazels. The bird had barely finished its song when the face of Robin Hood appeared at the opening at the foot of the oak. His eyes were rolled upwards showing the whites. He was searching the thick green coverlet of oak leaves overhead.

  The pigeon which had already made quite sure there was no enemy below when he first alighted in the tree – they always look directly below them as soon as they settle – cooed again.

  The face of Robin Hood emerged still further as cautiously as a fox. He could not see the bird, even though it was only just above him among the branches. Then, as he gazed round, moving his head slowly, he suddenly stiffened, paused, then withdrew silently into the intense black shadow of the tree. In another moment there appeared the barrel of a rifle. It wavered a moment, then steadied. A second’s pause, then there came a muffled crack and a desperate fluttering among the oak leaves. A fat blue-grey body crashed through the branches to land on the short rabbit-nibbled grass below with a resounding thump.

  ‘Got him! Got him!’ ejaculated Robin triumphantly.

  ‘Well done, Robin, first blood to you, a pretty shot forsooth!’

  Robin Hood and Big John scrambled out of the oak like hens tumbling from a fowl house.

  ‘What a beauty! My, what a beauty!’

  ‘Fat as butter!’

  ‘Shall we stew him or roast him?’

  ‘Stew him I should think, ’cos we haven’t got any fat to roast him.’

  They picked the pigeon up, felt its breast and pronounced it a well-fed bird fit for any hunter’s pot.

  In a moment or two all was bustle and activity. Robin grabbed the saucepan and hurried away into the hazels. About twenty yards distant he came to a narrow path which wound in and out among the ferns. Following this a short way, he came to a small stream which ran between two low banks almost completely arched over with a tunnel of male ferns.

  They had found this st
ream earlier in the day and had chanced upon it quite by accident. It was clear, fresh water and delightfully handy to their camp.

  Meanwhile, Big John was busying himself with making a fire. He searched about among the bushes until he had collected an armful of dry grass and fine twigs, and a few paces from the entrance to their tree house he built the fire. First he rolled the dry brittle grass into a loose ball, and arranged the small twigs in the shape of an Indian wigwam all round it. Then he applied the match.

  The grass flared up and in a minute or two the fine twigs caught as well. By the time Robin came hurrying back through the hazels with his saucepan full of water the fire was burning brightly. Robin seized the plump pigeon – with eager haste – and the blue-grey feathers came out in showers, to be carefully cremated in the fire. The boys were evidently old hands at plucking.

  To Big John was assigned the business of ‘drawing’ the bird, an unpleasant job but one which had to be done. Outlaws cannot afford to be squeamish. It is wonderful how appetite acts as a spur on these occasions. He had many times watched Cook preparing a chicken at the Dower House and had noted how the job was carried out. By the time he had finished, the result was quite professional and even Robin was impressed. The next moment the pigeon was popped into the pot with a spoonful of salt and it began to stew merrily on the fire. While this was going on Robin had been collecting firewood. There was so much lying about they did not have to go far to get it and soon there was a goodly stack which was stored inside the tree. They carried it under cover so that it should be in the dry, for even though the weather was fine, a heavy thunder rain in the night or the morning dew would be sufficient to damp it. Damp wood means smoke and smoke means advertising one’s presence, and this was by no means desirable. Later they were not so particular about this precaution.

  The outlaws’ house

  The doorway of the outlaws’ camping place, or opening, in the oak was quite small. Inside the tree there was enough room to hold twelve fully grown men standing upright. Overhead was a mass of half-decayed wood and in the centre of this ‘ceiling’ a dark hollow, which no doubt passed right up inside the trunk like a chimney. No light showed from above, however, and as yet the boys had had no time to explore this wonderful natural cave of theirs.