This only made Grackel the more eager to press on.
‘And now,’ said Dick, when in the height of the morning they came to the foot of the Beanstalk, which was masked thick with hoar-frost smouldering in the sun, ‘here we part for a while. When you are come up to the top, give a loud hullabaloo, and I shall know you are safe. Then I shall ride off home again, and I will come to meet you here the day after tomorrow, about two.’
Now, though it was a great folly, Dick had not been able to resist bringing Grackel’s watch with him. He had hooked the chain round his waist under his breeches, and the watch bulged out like a hump in the wrong place. By good luck the giant was on the further side away from the watch, so that he had not noticed this hump. But now that they were at a standstill, and all was quiet, he detected the ticking.
And he said, ‘What is that sound I hear?’
And Dick said, ‘That is my heart beating.’
‘Why is it beating so loud?’ said Grackel.
‘Ah,’ said Dick, in a doleful tone, ‘it must be for sadness that you are going away, even if only for a little while! We have had our little disagreements together, you and me, about the sheep and the snoring and the cider. But now we are friends, and that is all over. Isn’t there any little keepsake you could give me by which to remember you till you come back?’
At this the giant drew in his lips, and none too eagerly felt in his pockets. He brought out at last from beneath the leather flap of his side pocket a discoloured stub of candle in a box.
‘It’s not much to look at,’ he grumbled, ‘but once it’s lit it will never go out till you say, Out, candle, out! even if it’s left burning in a hurricane for a hundred years.’ Dick kept this candle until the day he met his sweetheart and lit it then. It may be lighting his great-grandchildren to sleep this very evening. But that came afterwards.
‘There,’ said Grackel, ‘take great care of it, and you shall give it me back when we meet again. Aye, and then I am sure to be hungry. So have plenty of hot supper waiting for me in my house – legs of pork soused in apples, and kids in batter, and drink to wash it down! And get in for me too some more hay and blankets and horse-cloths. I could scarcely sleep a wink last night for the cold.’
Dick nodded and laughed, and the giant began to climb the Beanstalk. Dick watched him till first he was as small to look up at as an ordinary man, and next no bigger than a dwarf, and not long after that he was out of sight. About an hour or so afterwards, for Grackel being lean and sinewy was a nimble climber, Dick heard a rumbling in the higher skies. He knew that it was the giant’s hullabalooing, and that he was safe. Then as quick as lightning he set about gathering together a great heap of the last year’s bracken and dead wood and dry grass, and piled it round the parched-up roots of the Beanstalk. Then he felt in his pocket for his flint and tinder-box that his father had laid out for him overnight. He felt – and felt again; and his beating heart gave one dull thump and almost stood still. In the heat and haste of getting away he had left them both on the kitchen table!
Dick hauled out Grackel’s watch to see the time. It was seven minutes to twelve. It would now be impossible for him to get home before nightfall and back again much before morning. It was a long journey, and the way would be difficult to follow in the dark. And how was he to be certain that the giant, having come to the Castle and found that his watch was gone, would not climb down the Beanstalk again to fetch it? Dick pressed the right-hand spring of the watch, for though he was in great trouble of mind, he wanted to think hard and to make the time go slowly. And as, brooding on there under the Beanstalk, he stared at the second hand, though it was not much bigger than a darning needle, it was jerking so sluggishly that he could have counted twenty between every beat. The sun, that was now come to the top of his winter arch in the sky, and was glistening like a tiny furnace on the crystal of the watch, danced in his eyes so fiercely that at last he could scarcely see.
‘Why,’ thought Dick suddenly, ‘the glass magnifies. It’s a burning-glass!’
Instantly, after but one sharp upward glance towards the top of the Beanstalk, he took out his pocket-knife and heaved up the watch lid. The glass was as thick as half the nail-width of his little finger. He held it close down over the dried-up leaves and bracken in the full beams of the noonday sun. And in a few moments, to his great joy, a faint twirling wreath of grey smoke appeared on the buff of the bracken frond. Then there came a black pin-prick circle that rapidly began to ring out larger. Then a little red appeared at the edge of the circle. And at this Dick began to puff very very softly, still tilting the glass into the direct rays of the sun. The frond began to smoulder, and the smoulder began to spread, and now Dick blew with all his might.
Presently a thin reek of vapour appeared, and the bracken broke into flames. And when once these parched-up leaves and grasses had fairly taken fire, the Beanstalk itself was soon ablaze. The flames – and theirs was a strange music – roared loud in the wintry air – red, greenish, copper and gold – licking and leaping their way from strand to strand up and up, while a huge pale umber tower of smoke rose billowing into the blue air of the morning.
Dick gazed at the flames in delight and terror. Never in all his born days had he seen such a bonfire. Even Jock, who had been quietly browsing by the ruinous cottage walls, turned his dark eyes at sight of this fiery spectacle, lifted his head and whinnied. Indeed, the flaming Beanstalk must have been visible to all Gloucestershire’s seven neighbour counties round. And the fire burned up and up, and the pods and red-hot bean-seeds came hailing down, with wisps of fire and smoke. And the roaring gradually grew more and more distant, until at last the blaze up above was dwindled to little more than a red spark, like a tiny second sun, far far up in the vacancy of the heavens. And then it vanished and was gone.
And Dick with a deep sigh, partly of regret and partly of relief, knew that Jack’s old Beanstalk was gone for ever. At least this might be so, though he had been wise enough before he had begun gathering together the fuel for his fire to put two or three of the dry bean-seeds into his pocket. Some day he meant to plant them; just to see.
He broke the ice over a little spring that was frozen near the cottage, took a sip or two of the biting cold water underneath, and dabbled his hot cheeks and eyelids. Then he whistled for Jock, and jumped into the saddle. Yet again he dragged out Grackel’s watch, pressed down the left spring, and with one last glance up over his shoulder, set off for home. And pleased beyond all words was his father the farmer to see him.
* As printed in CSC (1947).
The Scarecrow*
The house in which old Mr Bolsover lived was of a faded yellow primrose colour; it was a long house, but of only two storeys. Yet even its lower windows looked out far away over the meadows lying at this moment spread out beneath them, bright green in the morning sunshine. A narrow veranda shaded the windows, its sloping canopy of copper now a pale grey-green; and around its slim wooden pillars clematis and jessamine clambered. At either end of it was a low weather-worn stone pedestal. On these stood two leaden fauns – the one ever soundlessly piping to the other across the wall-flowers and the pinks. And it was the pinks that were now in flower, white as snow, and filling the air with their musky fragrance.
A little clock had just chimed ten, and old Mr Bolsover, in his cool white jacket, was coming out of the french windows of the breakfast-room with his small niece, Letitia. Letitia had a quick nimble way of walking and talking and turning her head that was like a bird’s. And old Mr Bolsover, with his eyes and his nose, was rather like a bird himself, but of the long-legged, tall, solemn kind – the flamingos and the storks. They came to a standstill together looking out over the meadows.
‘Oh, Uncle Tim, what a perfectly lovely morning!’ said Letitia.
‘A perfectly lovely morning,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘Just as if it had been ordered all complete and to match for a certain small friend of mine!
Lettie’s like a lovely day:
She c
omes; and then – she goes away.’
‘Ah, Uncle Tim,’ said Letitia, ‘that’s called flattery.’
‘Bless me, my dear,’ replied her uncle, squinnying at her from under the glasses of his spectacles, ‘it doesn’t matter a pin what it’s called!’
‘Ah, I know all about that!’ said Letitia. ‘And to think it is exactly a whole year since I was here before! Yet you wouldn’t believe a single pink was different. Isn’t that funny, Uncle Tim? We are. And why, yes,’ she went on hastily, twisting her head on her slender neck, ‘there’s that curious old Guy Fawkes creature over there by the willows. He’s not changed a single bit either.’
‘So it is, so it is,’ said Uncle Tim, peering out over the meadows. ‘Though as a matter of fact, my dear, it’s not quite true to say he hasn’t changed a bit. He has changed his hat. Last year it was an old hat, and now it’s a very old hat, a shocking hat. No wonder he covers up one eye under its brim. But it doesn’t matter how long you stare at him, he’ll stare longer.’
Letitia nonetheless continued to gaze at the scarecrow – and with a peculiar little frown between her eyes. ‘You know, he is a little queer, Uncle Tim – if you look at him long enough. And you can easily pretend you are not quite looking at him. You don’t seem to remember either,’ she went on solemnly, ‘that the very last morning I was here you promised me faithfully to tell me all about him. But you didn’t, because mother came in just when I was asking you, and you forgot all about it.’
‘Why, so I did,’ said Mr Bolsover. ‘That’s what comes of having a memory like a bag with a hole in it. That’s what comes of the piecrust promises are made of – they just melt in your mouth … Still, that’s Old Joe right enough. So old, my dear, you could hardly tell us apart!’
‘You’re please not to say that, Uncle Tim – it isn’t true. You are the youngest oldest kindest Uncle Tim that ever was. So there. But what were you going to tell me about Old Joe? Where did he come from? What is he for – except the rooks, I mean? Isn’t there a tune about Old Joe? Is that him? Tell me now?’ cried Letitia. ‘Let’s sit down here comfily on the stones. Feel! they are as warm as toast with the sun! And now go straight on. Please.’
Down sat old Mr Bolsover; down sat Letitia – side by side like Mr Punch and his dog Toby. And this is the story he told of Old Joe …
‘I must begin, Letitia,’ he began, ‘at the beginning. It is much the best place from which to get to the end. Now when I was about your age – not quite 129 years ago – I used sometimes to go and stay with an old friend of my mother’s – your grandmother’s, that is – whose name was Sara Lumb. She was a very stout woman, with black sleek hair, round red cheeks, and dimples for knuckles. And she used, I remember, to wear an amethyst-coloured velvet cap, flat over her ears, and a lace thingummy over her shoulders. I can see her now – her wide face all creased up in smiles, and her fat fingers with their emeralds and their amethysts, and even the large emerald brooch she wore at her neck. She wasn’t an aunt of mine, she wasn’t even so much as my godmother, but she was extremely kind to me. Almost as kind as I am to you! She was very fond of eatables and drinkables too and had a cook that could make every sort of cake that is worth talking about – seven sultanas and nine currants to the square inch. Jams, jellies, raspberry fool, fritters, pancakes, tipsy-cake – they were the best I have ever tasted. So were her stuffed eggs and oyster patties at the Christmas parties. My eye!’
‘Oh, Uncle Tim,’ said Letitia, ‘you were a greedy thing.’
‘And what’s worse,’ said her uncle, ‘I have never grown out of it. You shall see for yourself at lunch. And if I’m not an unprophetic Double-Dutchman I can already smell apple charlotte. But never mind about that. It’s no good – until it’s ready. But in any case I am sure you will agree, Letitia, that my old friend Mrs Lumb was just the kind of old friend for a small boy with a large appetite to stay with. This of course was always during the holidays; and, in those days, while there was plenty of hard tack at school, “impots”, canings, cabbage stalks, cod, suet-duff, castor oil, bread-and-scrape and what not, there was no such horror as a holiday task. Holiday tasks always remind me, my dear, of the young lady who wanted to go out to swim:
Mother may I go out to swim?
Yes, my darling daughter.
Fold your clothes up neat and trim,
And don’t go near the water.’
‘The rhyme I know,’ said Letitia, ‘is “Hang your clothes on a hickory limb”.’
‘That’s all very well,’ said her uncle, ‘but just you show me one! Let’s have it both ways then:
Mother, may I go out to swim?
Yes, my darling daughter.
Fold your clothes up neat and trim,
(So at least says Uncle Tim),
Or hang them up on a hickory limb,
(That’s what Letitia said to him),
And don’t go near the water.
What – before this violent quarrel – I meant was, my dear, that in those days no good little boy had to stew indoors in his holidays and simply detest reading a book which he would have given half his pocket money to read for its own sake if he had never been made to. Q.E.D. But that’s quite between ourselves. We must never, never criticize our elders. And anyhow, at my old friend’s Mrs Lumb’s there was no need to. It was bliss.
‘First, hers was a queer old rambling house, much older than this one, and at least three and a half times as big again. Next, there was beautiful country round it too; fields stretching down their sunny slopes, and little woods and copses on the crests and in the folds and valleys; and a stream – with reeds and rushes and all sorts of water birds – that came brawling over the stones at the foot of her long sloping garden. But I hate descriptions, don’t you, Letitia? And there, an orchard so full of cherry trees that in springtime it looked as if it were thick with snow. Well, well, if ever I go to heaven, my child, I hope to see that house and garden again.’
‘But isn’t it still there?’ said Letitia. ‘I mean, you know, where it used to be?’
‘Alas, my dear, no,’ said old Mr Bolsover. ‘It is gone for ever. There came a cook – not Mrs Lumb’s. She was frying dabs – Brighton dabs – for breakfast one morning; the cat squealed and scratched her leg; she upset the pan; there was one huge blaze; she ran screeching into the garden instead of – well, doing what she ought to have done; and the old house was burned down clean to the ground. Clean. Think of that, Letitia. Always keep your eye on cats and fat. But this, I am thankful to say, was after my dear old friend Mrs Lumb had left the house and had gone out to live with her younger brother in Ceylon, where the bad cook’s strong tea had come from.
‘Now in those far-away days birds were all my fancy. The wonder is I never sprouted feathers. I loved them too much to carry a catapult, but not enough to refrain from setting traps for them, to catch them for pets. Brick traps and sieve traps. But how would you like to be a linnet or a lark or a thrush or a bullfinch caged up in one tiny room with bars for windows just to amuse a wretch of a boy like me when I was nine or ten or eleven or thereabouts?’
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Letitia. ‘But I’d much much rather be in your cage than in any other horrid little boy’s.’
‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Mr Bolsover. ‘That’s a bargain. Still, the wilder the bird the worse the cage. But then as I was a boy, I did as boys do – bless their little hearts! And I used to weep tears like a crocodile when the sparrows or finches I caught moped off and died. After the funeral I’d stick a bit of wood in the ground to mark the grave – and go off to set another trap.
‘My traps were everywhere, and sometimes in places where they had no business to be. But first you must understand what I was after, really after.’ Mr Bolsover all but whispered it. ‘It was rare birds – hoopoes, golden orioles, honey buzzards – the lovely and seldom. Deep down in me I pined for a bird unspeakably marvellous in plumage and song; a bird that nobody else had ever even seen; a bird that had flown clean out of the wind
ow of some magician’s mind. Which means of course that I had become a little cracked on birds. I used even to dream of that bird sometimes – but then it was usually me myself that was in the cage!
‘Well, there was one particular covert that I kept in memory to set a trap in for days before I ventured to make the attempt. This was at the edge of a field where a great many birds of all kinds and sizes were accustomed to haunt, though I never found out why. I watched them again and again, hosts of them – their wings shimmering in the light. It seemed it was their happy secret meeting place – and in spite of Old Joe!’
‘That Old Joe there?’ cried Letitia, pointing at the mute lank ungainly figure over against the grey-green willows, with its ragged arms, and battered old hat on one side, that stood blankly gazing at them from out of the field beyond the garden.
‘Yes,’ said her uncle, ‘that Old Joe there. You see, between you and me, Letitia, and don’t let us look his way for a moment in case we should hurt his feelings, that Old Joe there (as perhaps you’ve guessed) is a scarecrow. He is nothing but a dumb, tumbledown hugger-mugger antiquated old hodmadod. He has never really been anything else; though after all the years he and I have been together, and not a single unkind word said on either side, he is now a sort of twin brother. Like Joseph and Benjamin, you know. Why, if we changed places, I don’t suppose you would be able to tell us apart.’
‘How can you dare to say such things, Uncle Tim?’ cried Letitia, pushing her hand in under his elbow. ‘You know perfectly well that that’s a sort of a kind of flattery – of yourself, you bad thing.’
‘All I can say to that, Miss Tomtit,’ replied Uncle Tim, ‘is, ask Old Joe. Still, we are old friends now, he and I, whereas the first time I saw him he gave me a pretty bad fright. I had come creeping along on the other side of the hedge, keeping a very wary eye open for anybody that might be in the fields – because I was trespassing. When they were not being ploughed or harrowed or rolled or sown or hoed or cropped, there never was anybody; except perhaps on Sunday, when the farmer, Mr Jones, a large stout man with a red face and a thick stick, came round to have a look at his crops.
Short Stories for Children Page 42