Brendon Chase

by B. B.

  ‘Ah, I knows the Pool, used to fish it when I was a nipper.’ Smokoe opened the door of the stove and thrust in some sticks from a bundle which lay on the floor close by. ‘Lived in the Chase all me life. You’ll be campin’ in Dukes Acres, as they call it. It’s Crown Land across the ride yonder, you’ll see notices up. Ef you’d bin campin’ there the tenant o’ the shootin’ might ’ave got you. An’ fifty years agone the Duke’s keepers would a-netted you, but the old gent don’t trouble about the Chase now.’

  ‘D’you remember a clergyman coming after butterflies last summer,’ asked Robin, ‘a little round man with a red face?’

  ‘Ah, the Reverend Whiting from Cherry Walden?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the man. It was Mr Whiting who told me about you.’

  ‘Oh ah, we gets folks you know, now and again, arter butterflies and bugs, big toffs some on ’em. The Duke used to potter round arter purple emperors.’

  ‘I saw one this summer,’ said Robin, pricking up his ears, ‘by the Blind Pool.’

  ‘Up near the tall oak at the far end?’ asked Smokoe.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, how did you know?’

  ‘Why, that’s an emperor tree. I’ve caught ’em there wi’ an old rabbit for years. That there tree is a favourite place, but I didn’t tell His Reverence that. I kips things to meself I do. Once it got about there were emperors in the Chase we’d ’ave ’arf the county ’ere arter ’em, tromplin’ around. Like to see me collection?’

  Smokoe got up from his rickety old chair and went across to a cupboard in the corner. From an upper shelf he reached down three glass-topped cases. ‘The Reverend Whiting gi’e me these boxes,’ said Smokoe proudly.

  The butterflies and moths had been roughly set with big pins, but Robin saw three magnificent female purple emperors and two males; one of the latter was, however, slightly torn. White admirals, wood whites, pearl-bordered fritillaries and silver-washed, formed the bulk of Smokoe’s collection. One high brown and two dark greens graced the cabinet.

  ‘I don’t bother much wi’ the moths,’ said Smokoe, ‘though Mr Whitin’ says there’s some good ’uns in the Chase. But I don’t like this ’ere sugarin’.’

  Smokoe then shyly produced some carvings he had done in wood, and very fine they were. He carved them out of softwoods with his pocketknife and finished them with sandpaper. Some were really exquisite. ‘Does ’em in odd times,’ said Smokoe, ‘in the winter evenings like when I’ve nuthin’ else to do. It ’elps pass the time.’

  When Robin had finished admiring them the old man glanced at the window where a dim light still entered. ‘Well, we’d better light the lamp, young feller.’

  Robin helped the old charcoal burner fill the lamp with paraffin from a cracked enamel jug.

  ‘There,’ said Smokoe, ‘that’s better. You’d better stay the night along o’ me and go back in the morning.’

  ‘You aren’t going to give us away then,’ said Robin.

  Smokoe, whose face seemed all the more alarming in the steady yellow light of the lamp, grinned for the first time.

  ‘No, sonny, Smokoe won’t gi’e ye away, not even fer fifty quid ’e won’t. I’ve got me Gyp back, that’s all I wants, better’n any fifty quid.’ Robin felt instinctively that Smokoe was telling the truth. ‘But you mind they don’t get ye,’ added the old man earnestly. ‘That Buntin’ ’as been near worryin’ me to death lately. ’E was a-saying, ’e wished they’d cut the whole place down, it ’ud make a lot er money, ’e said. A lot o’ money!’ Smokoe spat with unerring accuracy into the glowing stove. ‘That’s all some folks thinks about. ’Ark, don’t it blow!’

  Smokoe’s shadow, thrown on the side of the hut by the lamplight, looked like some grotesque gargoyle. Outside the wind was rising and against the window came the gritty rattle of driven rain. Robin could hear the boom of the gale, the dull roar as each gust broke upon the thick trees around the shack. It was unbelievably cosy to hear the wild tumult without.

  Smokoe’s owl sat up in the corner, eating a piece of rabbit, gulping down prodigious pieces which nearly choked it.

  ‘Where did you get the owl?’ asked Robin.

  ‘Oh, ’long in the old oak tree t’other side of the clearin’. Got ’im when ’e was nothin’ but a ball of white wool. ’E’s company ’e is and as wise as you make ’em.’

  ‘I believe we’ve got a nest in our oak tree,’ said Robin, ‘we’ve seen the old birds going in and out; I’d like to get a young one too.’

  ‘There’s one thing I would like,’ said Smokoe, who was now brewing some cocoa, ‘and that’s a rifle like your’n.’

  ‘It isn’t mine,’ said Robin, ‘I wish it was. It belongs to the gardener at the Dower House.’

  ‘Little beauty idn’er?’ Smokoe held it to his shoulder. ‘Would it shoot a deer?’

  ‘Maybe, considering I shot a –’ Robin checked himself again. He had nearly blurted it out. ‘It kills rabbits and birds well enough, I don’t see why it shouldn’t kill a deer. Do you ever get deer, Smokoe?’

  The old man looked slyly at him and winked. ‘Maybe, though I’ve got enough victalls ’ere wi’ me ’ens and pigs.’

  ‘So you keep pigs?’ asked Robin innocently. ‘I wonder there aren’t wild ones in the Chase.’

  ‘Yus, I kips pigs. I ’ad two, but one got outer the sty in the spring, a fine li’l pig ’ee was an’ all, shapin’ well. But ’ee took off into the Chase an’ I ain’t seen ’im since. Maybe ’ee’s still around, there’s plenty o’ food for ’em, especially later on when the acorns drop. Seems ter me, young feller,’ said Smokoe, ‘it’s a good thing ye be under a roof tonight, ’ark at it a-blowin’, almost like winter, ain’t it? Wot about some grub? Wot you say to a slice o’ pheasant and some ’taters?’

  ‘And I’ve got two squabs here,’ said Robin, pulling the pigeons out of his pocket.

  ‘Ah, they’ll do for squab pie when they’ve ’ung a bit,’ said Smokoe.

  From an old cupboard in the corner he produced a cold bird and set it on the table. The potatoes he put on the glowing grate of the stove.

  ‘This ’ere pheasant,’ said Smokoe, passing his hairy claw over the plump heart, ‘was one o’ the foolish virgins, she cum strayin’ roun’ me chicken run one early mornin’ last week, an’ old Belchin’ Bess put paid to ’er.’ Robin had already seen Belching Bess and had thought how such a weapon suited old Smokoe down to the ground.

  When the potatoes were cooked and the pheasant devoured – Gyp having the bones and crunching them under the table – the old man drew forth his pipe, one he had made himself out of hazel.

  ‘Ain’t you goin’ to ’ave a spit an’ a draw?’ asked Smokoe.

  ‘I’ve left my pipe in camp,’ lied Robin, glowing inwardly at the compliment.

  ‘That’s no matter, I’ve plenty o’ pipes, take yer choice.’ Smokoe held out to him a handful of nutwood pipes. ‘Made ’em last year, they smoke sweet.’

  ‘I haven’t any baccy either, I’m afraid, Smokoe!’

  ‘No baccy neither! Well, I’ve got plenty. Live comfortable, that’s my motto.’ He passed across a tattered leather pouch full of a particularly tarry looking shag.

  Robin had tried to smoke before but with poor results. And he didn’t know whether to rub up the shag or smoke it as it was, so he watched Smokoe secretively to see how he managed. Smokoe cut himself off a slab of the plug and then sliced it up small with his clasp knife. When he had shredded it he passed over the knife to Robin.

  ‘’Ope you’ll like this baccy,’ he said, puffing a dense cloud of greenish smoke at the ceiling, ‘it’s strong, plenty o’ body in it. Bosun’s Plug they calls it, sixpence an ounce.’

  Robin, having packed his pipe valiantly, lit up, and for a while they smoked in silence. Smokoe’s baccy certainly was strong! This smoking was much more of an ordeal than the timid essays with Golden Mild behind the pavilion at Banchester. He was very soon aware of a curious feeling in his Adam’s apple, as though he had a red
hot cannonball stuck in his throat. He puffed a little longer, manfully imitating Smokoe, and then he felt as if all his insides were coming up. He coughed and spluttered and then retched violently.

  ‘Ah! Ha!’ laughed Smokoe rocking back in his chair and slapping his corduroys. ‘I thought Bosun’s shag ’ud tiddle ye up a bit!’

  The tears were streaming down the unhappy outlaw’s face. ‘Phew! Smokoe, I’m afraid it is a bit too strong for me!’

  ‘You’ll get used to it, it’s all right ef you don’t swaller the smoke. You’re swallerin’ the smoke, that’s wot you’re doin’.’

  But Robin could not finish the pipe.

  They sat chatting into the early hours. Robin heard many a wonderful tale of the forest, including the legend of the Martyr who was supposed to haunt the road through the Chase. The fire burnt low, and soon Smokoe began to nod. The pipe fell from his hand on to the floor and this strange old creature with the enormous nose dropped asleep. Outside the wind continued to roar among the trees and the crazy casement rattled. Up in the corner Smokoe’s pet owl, its eyes open very wide, regarded Robin with a peculiar penetrating stare and now and again it bobbed up and down and made strange serpent-like sounds. Without a doubt Robin Hood had fallen into strange company!

  14. The Picnic

  Once more to Cherry Walden, leaving Robin Hood and Smokoe Joe asleep on either side of the stove with the wind knocking at the window and Gyp – alias Bang – also lost in slumber before the dying embers.

  Aunt Ellen and the Whiting, Miss Holcome and all the staff of that well-ordered establishment have almost been forgotten. Since the disappearance of Harold, Aunt Ellen had given herself up to despair: the boys were quite beyond her control and she had almost reached the stage when she dreaded their return. They would, no doubt, subject her to yet more ridicule.

  The affair at High Wood had made her crimson with shame. When the Whiting told her about the episode, especially the incident of the wood white and the outraged squire, he had been unable to conceal his mirth. Aunt Ellen, without a word, had primly gathered her gloves with a ‘we are not amused’ expression and walked out of the house. Moreover, she did not go to matins the following Sunday, an unheard of thing for Aunt Ellen.

  And then, after an ominous lull, there came the bombshell of the Brendon affair – the Bunting trouser epic did not, regrettably, reach her ears until years later. The headlines in the papers, more photographs, more reporters ringing at the bell – all these tortures had to be undergone afresh. To think that a nephew of her’s, a Hensman, should have stooped to assault and battery, to say nothing of absconding with poor Mr Hawkins’s van! Aunt Ellen, the family pride at stake, hired the village fly – she would not keep a carriage, though she could well have afforded it – and drove over to see the baker at Cheshunt Toller.

  ‘But my good man, are you sure it was one of my nephews?’ Aunt Ellen kept repeating, until the baker became, as Aunt Ellen said afterwards to Miss Holcome, quite rude and disrespectful. She then made the mistake of offering him money – no damage had been done either to his person, horse or van. He, Thomas Hawkins, to be so insulted!

  It was a very subdued Aunt Ellen who returned to Cherry Walden.

  All her faults might have been put down to an appalling insensitiveness and a lack of knowledge of the ways of the world, but most of all to her lack of a sense of humour.

  On the very day of Robin’s dramatic introduction to Smokoe Joe she had a note from the doctor’s wife at Yoho.

  Twelvetrees House,

  Yoho

  August 25

  My Dear Miss Hensman,

  We are having a little picnic for Angela’s birthday tomorrow and several of her little friends are coming. She had intended to ask your three nephews but since that is not possible she is very anxious that you should come. I am sure it would do you good, and it will be a change for you, after all your dreadful anxieties. Your Vicar is coming, too, and has kindly offered to bring you in his car. He is so good with the children. Do come if you can: forgive such short notice!

  Yours very sincerely,

  Elizabeth Bowers

  ‘It will do you good, ma’am, I’m sure,’ said Cook, when Aunt Ellen told her she was going. ‘It will take your mind off your troubles. You haven’t been outside the village for months.’

  ‘The reason is, to tell you the truth, Cook, I dare not show my face in public … the shame of it all …’

  ‘Still,’ consoled Cook, ‘you go, ma’am, it’ll do you a power of good, especially if it’s a nice day. I expect Lady Bramshott will be there, too, ma’am, and the children; it would be nice for you to see company.’

  ‘I suppose it would,’ said Aunt Ellen with a sigh, ‘I suppose it would!’

  The following day it rained in the morning and Aunt Ellen half hoped it would continue. But a little after midday the sun came out and the afternoon promised to be hot. Punctually at two-fifteen Aunt Ellen heard rumbling sounds at the gate and clouds of evil-smelling smoke advertised the fact that the vicar’s car was awaiting her. She would have much preferred to go with Lady Bramshott, but she did not wish to appear rude to the vicar, who, after all, had been a very present help in trouble.

  ‘Ah, Miss Hensman, here you are,’ said the Whiting brightly, as Aunt Ellen appeared in motor veil and wrap, ‘what a glorious day for the picnic!’

  The Whiting was quite smart in a grey flannel suit and a white panama.

  ‘Yes, so fortunate, Vicar, especially after the wet morning.’

  ‘There we are, dear lady,’ said the Whiting, arranging rather a grubby dust sheet over her knees as she sat down in the back seat. ‘We are calling at the Hall for one of the Bramshott children and the nurse, as their wagonette will not hold them all.’

  ‘Is Lady Bramshott going too?’ asked Aunt Ellen, adjusting her veil.

  ‘Yes, yes, I believe so, I believe so,’ said the Whiting, grasping the starting handle and going round to the front of the car. The whole vehicle shook with his robust efforts at winding and the cherries on Aunt Ellen’s hat quivered. A sudden hideous bolt-shaking roar suddenly burst forth and the Whiting climbed into the front seat. ‘She always starts up so well,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘never any trouble!’

  Aunt Ellen was thinking of a suitable reply when she was flung violently forward and her pince-nez fell down inside her veil. She gave a slight cry. Her dentures had also been badly rattled.

  ‘Sorry,’ grinned the Whiting, ‘my fault, these gears are rather harsh, it’s want of practice, you know, simply want of practice.’

  ‘Please don’t drive too fast, Vicar,’ implored Aunt Ellen, ‘I cannot bear speed.’

  They turned out of the drive, where Rumbold was holding open the white gate, touching his cap and grinning as they passed. The Whiting noticed that many of the villagers smiled now when they saw him coming; they seemed much more friendly than they used to be. He did not know it was the story of Bunting’s trousers which provoked the smiles.

  As they bowled along, with dust clouds whirling behind them, the Whiting discoursed on the crops. They had ripened well with the hot weather and the rain and wind in the night had not been sufficiently heavy to cause any damage.

  ‘Where is the picnic to be, Vicar?’ asked Aunt Ellen, who was quite beginning to enjoy herself.

  ‘Ah – Brendon Chase,’ he said, ‘I hope – ah …’ There was an awkward pause. ‘I hope we shall meet the others all right.’

  At the sinister words ‘Brendon Chase’ Aunt Ellen made a small unintelligible noise. ‘Oh dear, that’s where the police have been hunting for my nephews … I … I think that Mrs Bowers might have chosen a … er … chosen another place for her picnic.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s ideal,’ said the Whiting enthusiastically, ‘so handy for Mrs Bowers, and the children will adore it.’ Aunt Ellen noticed a green butterfly net sticking out of the Whiting’s pocket and she sniffed. ‘As a matter of fact it was I who suggested to Mrs Bowers that we should go to Brendo
n Chase,’ confessed the Whiting.

  ‘I suppose you did not think of the mosquitoes,’ said Aunt Ellen severely. ‘I suffer terribly from mosquito bites.’

  They arrived at the gate which was familiar to the Whiting to find the magnificent equipage from the Hall standing in the shade with a cockaded coachman by the horses’ heads. A squealing concourse of children, in their best clothes, was being herded by grown-ups and nurses into the green ride.

  ‘Ah, here is our good shepherd,’ said Mrs Bowers with unintentional profanity. ‘So you’ve got here all right, Vicar; we thought something had happened to you!’

  ‘Not late I hope?’ said the Whiting, raising his panama. ‘We started on time you know.’

  ‘No, no, we’ve only just arrived,’ said Mrs Bowers. ‘Isn’t it a heavenly place for our picnic, Vicar? The children will love it.’

  The chattering, laughing crowd followed behind him down the ride, Mrs Bowers’s chauffeur bringing up the rear, staggering under an ample wicker picnic basket full of good things.

  It seemed an unendurable walk to the clearing which the Whiting had chosen for the party. One of the young Bramshotts stung its fat pink legs on some nettles and the forest rang with its cries. Lady Bramshott fanned herself delicately with a scented handkerchief and her red parasol trembled. ‘Not much farther I hope, Vicar? The little ones …’

  ‘Only a few yards more,’ said the Whiting cheerfully, scanning the tree tops on either side of the ride as he walked along.

  Aunt Ellen began to lag behind. She found herself among the camp followers, the nursemaids and infants.

  ‘Oh dear, ma’am, I hope it isn’t much farther,’ gasped a fat nurse in grey, ‘Master Jeremy is getting so tired and he’s stung his leg so badly.’

  ‘Boo! Hoo!’ yelled Master Jeremy, ‘I want to go home! I want to go home!’

  ‘It’s madness,’ burst out Aunt Ellen, who was by now in what Rumbold would have vulgarly called a ‘muck sweat’. ‘I can’t think why Mrs Bowers ever consented to the vicar taking charge like this. Bachelors cannot be expected to understand children.’