Each and every morning Old Mother Tidgewallop went out to look for him. She’d call his name beside the ponds and all around the wallowing pigmires. Sometimes she thought she saw the print of his boot in the churned-up mud but she knew it was only her own clodhoppers where she’d been wandering the day before.
Then she would go back to her cottage and sadly gather her needles again and carry on knitting, picking out patterns, the brightest she could imagine, to lure her lost son home. But at night when the moon rose, she’d set down her tatting and take up her sewing. Every night, Old Mother Tidgewallop drew together a great cloak of darkness, picked out all over with stars. She made the stars from anything shiny that she could find – a glow-worm’s tear, a droplet of dew, the lost sparkle of hoar frost. Now all she needed was just one more star to sew onto the shoulder of the cloak.
Every day she would visit the well in the yard behind her cottage. At the bottom of that well lived Snizzleslide, who took the shape of a troublesome snake. Every day she’d go talk to him, and tell him all about Larkum, her long-lost son.
“He woke one day and told me he’d dreamt of a girl called Grizzlegrin who lives beyond the far mountains. He said she sits and cries at the moon every time that it waxes full. He had to go and find her and then her tears would stop. He went away to look for her and he’s never come home again…”
Snizzleslide would lie and listen, coiled in the murky darkness at the bottom of the deep dank well. When Old Mother Tidgewallop had done with her talking, Snizzleslide would simper and say how sad he was to hear about her missing son. But then he would hiss and beg her to bring him his breakfast of mice and dead bats’ wings, spiders, slugs and snails. And Old Mother Tidgewallop would scrabble away to find what she could find at the back of her broken-down barn. She’d bring them in a bag to the rim of the well and toss them down slowly, one by one. Snizzleslide would swallow them with a great grinning gulp and then writhe slyly round and round.
“Guess what I have here,” Snizzleslide would hiss. “Guess what I keep in a bottle all tucked away in the shadows.”
Old Mother Tidgewallop scratched at her chin as she replied.
“Is it a thimble of song lark’s tears? Is it a spoonful of the silence that gathers just before dawn? Is it an egg that isn’t hatched yet filled with the dew of the moon?”
“No, no,” hissed Snizzleslide. “It is far more precious to you than any of these. Deep in the darkness of the well, I’ve been hiding a star which fell from the sky. I keep it in a bottle here to stop it flying back. Now… you tell me you are seeking one last star to stitch on the shoulder of your cloak. Climb down here into the well – and surely it will be yours.”
Old Mother Tidgewallop shook her head.
“I’m not climbing down a slippery well to be bitten by a great long snake.”
“Mother Tidgewallop,” Snizzleslide wheedled sadly, “whatever would I want to do that for? You are my friend, my provider. Who else would bring me my breakfast of mice and dead bats’ wings? And besides, you know that you need this one last star so that you can finish your cloak.”
Old Mother Tidgewallop tugged her shawl around her shoulders and stamped back into her cottage. But sew as she might, by day and by night, she could find nothing that was bright enough to fill the space that was waiting for the cloak’s last shiny star. In the end she set the cloak aside and trudged through the meadows and over the hills, calling out for Larkum, her long-lost son. All she could hear was the wind, but then the wind seemed to sing with his voice.
“Larkum, Larkum, where are you?” she cried.
“I’m over the mountains and far and wide.”
“Are you safe my boy, my only child?”
“I’m as safe as the tall oaks, and safe as the stones.”
“And have you found Grizzlegrin, Larkum, my son? – have you found Grizzlegrin, the girl who cries at the moon?”
“She is here beside me, Mother dear.”
“Larkum, Larkum – I’m happy to hear it. Now that you’ve found her, won’t you bring her home?”
“How can I bring her, Mother dear, when we have no clothes to greet you in?”
Old Mother Tidgewallop shook her head.
“Larkum, Larkum, Larkum… all day long I knit and at night I sew and I have made you a fine waistcoat all brindley and snap – yellow and orange with scarlet red patches and pockets for berries gathered up from the hedges.”
“I have no need to walk the hedges, Mother, collecting sweet berries, for when I’m with Grizzlegrin, we feed on the light in each other’s eyes.”
“Bring young Grizzlegrin home to me,” his mother replied, “and she shall be your wifen.”
“But what can she wear?” wailed Larkum, his voice fading further away.
“I have made her a cloak stitched with bright shining stars…” Old Mother Tidgewallop told him, then listened for the wind, to catch her son’s reply.
But his voice blew over the mountains and down to the sea as Old Mother Tidgewallop picked up her skirts and ran all the way home, across muddy fields and down twisting lanes, until she came back to her very own cottage.
“Snizzleslide, Snizzleslide – are you awake?”
She scrambled over the wall of the well and lowered herself slowly with her back pressed hard against the slippery stones and her hands and her feet clinging on tight. Water trickled down her neck and the moss grew slimy beneath the soles of her boots, but hand over hand and foot over foot, Old Mother Tidgewallop slithered and slid all the way down to the bottom of the well. It was cold, it was dark, and when she looked up, all that she could see was a tiny blue circle of sky. Under her feet the sweet water trickled, though the stones all around were slippery and dank.
“Snizzleslide, Snizzleslide, where is the bottle? Where is the bottle in which you hide the fallen star?”
Old Mother Tidgewallop waited while her eyes grew used to the darkness. She peered into the shadows, feeling sure that the bottle would be easy to find, as it would glow with the brightness of the fallen star. And she was sure that she would see Snizzleslide too, with his eyes all gleaming as he coiled among the pebbles at the bottom of the stream. But Snizzleslide was not there. Snizzleslide had gone. While Old Mother Tidgewallop was sliding down, Snizzleslide had wriggled his way up, slithering past her in the darkness.
Old Mother Tidgewallop groped around in the gloom, her frozen hands splashing in the cold running water. And then her fingers wrapped around a shiny green bottle lodged under a stone.
She picked it up quickly and struggled with the stopper, her hands trying to grip the slippery neck. She struggled and she grunted and she nearly flung it back, but the stopper flew out. Old Mother Tidgewallop shook the bottle. She held out her hand, but nothing fell into it. She raised the bottle up to her eye and peered right into the darkness inside, but try as she might she could see nothing there that looked in any way like a star. She threw the bottle back into the water that was lapping around her boots. Up above, from the circle of cloud and sky, she was sure she could hear Snizzleslide shaking with laughter as he slid quickly away.
Old Mother Tidgewallop clambered out of the well. She rushed across the yard and into her cottage, then raced up the stairs, two steps at a time. Then she flung up her hands to cover her eyes. Her neat tidy bedroom had been ransacked. While she had been down the well, someone had climbed up here and pulled open cupboards and rummaged through drawers and strewn everything around. Her sewing baskets had been turned upside-down and her threads were tangled all about while her knitting needles lay scattered across the floor.
“Oh no! Oh no!…” Old Mother Tidgewallop wailed. At first she could see nothing missing, but then she realised that the waistcoat was gone – the yellow and orange waistcoat with scarlet red patches all brindley and snap that had been hanging behind the door. And so too was the long dark cloak.
“Snizzleslide, Snizzleslide – I know it must be you. Why else did you trick me to go down into the well? Why else di
d you tell me that I’d find my very last star when all that was down there was an empty bottle?”
All that night Mother Tidgewallop sat in her chair and wept. Her frenzied fingers could scarcely stay still. They had spent so long sewing and knitting but now they had nothing to do. Then early next morning, just as soon as dawn rose, she got up and set out straight away, down to the woods. There she hunted through the thicket and under the trees for any sign of Snizzleslide, the waistcoat with scarlet patches or the cloak of stars which she’d taken so long to make. And all the while she still called out to Larkum her son and Grizzlegrin his wifen-to-be, in case they appeared suddenly between the rustling trees.
But no sign of anything could Old Mother Tidgewallop find. She sat herself on a mossy tussock and hung her head and wept. Just then she heard a shuffling and a slithering. She saw a flash of yellow and orange patched about with scarlet red. She saw a cloak of darkest black, picked out with a welkin of stars.
She did not see Snizzleslide wearing the waistcoat. She did not see an old dead branch which he dragged along beside him, draped over with the cloak of stars. She could only see Larkum, her long lost son and Grizzlegrin, his wifen-to-be.
Suddenly sunlight flooded the clearing. Old Mother Tidgewallop rushed towards them, her arms flung open wide. She embraced her son. She ran her fingers through his tangled hair. She gripped the knots of his great strong arms. She danced around him, caper-skelter, as he stood proudly in the clearing, sporting his waistcoat all brindley and snap…
Then she wrapped her arms about Grizzlegrin’s waist and rocked her and hugged her and greeted her like a lost daughter new-found.
But they were all too busy crying and laughing to hear the sound of a slithering, scurrying away. The sound of a dead branch, dragged across the ground.
“Larkum, Larkum, come back to the cottage,” the old mother exclaimed. “Grizzlegrin, Grizzlegrin, make our home your own.”
And so every day they lived as happily as they could, chopping wood and tending the fowl and drawing water from the bottom of the well. And Grizzlegrin made Larkum as contented as could be, even though every time the moon was full she would sit and cry and wail for her home back over the mountain. But when the moon was gone she would smile again and walk with Larkum under the trees. And Old Mother Tidgewallop would watch them, and she would smile too.
Then one day when Larkum was out by himself tending to the pigs in the wood, Old Mother Tidgewallop and Grizzlegrin sat down together to drink a cup of fennel tea and watch the leaves drifting down from the top of the tallest tree.
“Tell me, how do you do it?” the old woman asked the girl. “What is it you have that makes my son so glad? Is it your smile? Is it your eyes? Is it the touch of your soft tender hands?”
Grizzlegrin looked away, uncertain what to say.
“Why, Mother Tidgewallop, it’s surely none of these, but the power of this long black cloak, sewed with a skyful of stars.”
She opened up a cupboard and showed it hanging there.
“I don’t know how it came to me, and I’ll never know who made it, but I do know that I found it one day when I was out walking on the mountainside, crying at the moon. But as soon as I put it on, the warmth of the cloak wrapped around me. And it’s that warmth I share with your son. This is what I give him when I want to make him happy. And when he feels the warmth, then he’s kind and gentle and then he comes and talks to me and tells me that I make him happy. What he likes most of all is to nestle his head onto the shoulder of the cloak in the only place where there’s one space left between the stars.”
Old Mother Tidgewallop smiled as she heard her son Larkum coming back from the wood. She took Grizzlegrin’s hand between her crooked fingers.
“I could not find the last star,” she said, “but I have found my wayward son Larkum again, and now he has found you.”
Larkum, Grizzlegrin and the Cottage Sad with Dust
Let me tell you… Let me tell you… the grey wind blew and rain scattered sudden down Brunt Boggart’s sullen streets. Thunderhead put on his tall hat and his cloak of many feathers and he led the wifen and the daughters and the boys-who-would-be-men and the men who wished they were boys and the Crow Dancers and the farmers, he led them all through the Sorrowing Field and down to the Burying Ground. And there they waited while the Drummer played and the dark birds whirled in the air. Then Thunderhead said the words he always said, the words to the sky, the words to the river, the words to the earth.
Then Old Mother Tidgewallop was lowered down and Larkum her son scattered the first dirt upon her, then handed on the great iron shovel to Grizzlegrin his wife, and then on and on, Old Nanny Nettleye and Oakum Marlroot and Nanny Ninefingers till Old Mother Tidgewallop was covered all over, snug as snug, under the ground, under the sky. And then they sang; sang on while the Drummer played, and then they trudged their ways all back to their houses while Larkum and Grizzlegrin returned to the cottage, the cottage on the edge of the village where Old Mother Tidgewallop had lived all her long years long, ever since she was a girl. But now it seemed so empty without her.
The cottage had always been tidy and bright. The other wifen would come around and say Old Mother Tidgewallop’s was the neatest in all of Brunt Boggart. And they’d ruffle the hair of her tousle-maned son and watch as he played all out in the back yard. But when he left home, that’s when Old Mother Tidgewallop’s cottage grew sad with dust, until Larkum returned with Grizzlegrin. But by then Mother Tidgewallop was old and old and there was dust on top of the dust and however much she brushed, she could never brush it away. Until one day she just gave up.
“Let the wind come,” she said. “Let the wind blow. Wind and rain will come and go, but the dust is here to stay.”
But the dust did not stay for long. Larkum and Grizzlegrin fell to cleaning and brushing, polishing and scrubbing.
“Now that your mother’s gone,” said Grizzlegrin, “we can make the cottage just the way we want it.”
In the days that came they brought down all of Old Mother Tidgewallop’s trinkets and rings and glittery things. They brought down her needles that had knitted a waistcoat all brindly and snap and sewed the cloak of darkness, picked out all over with stars.
But now Grizzlegrin forgot to wear the cloak. She was too busy scrubbing at the cottage floors and whitewashing the walls and clearing out everything Old Mother Tidgewallop had stored away so safely in drawers and dressers. And when she went down to the village, none of the other wifen wore a cloak all covered in stars. They wore dresses and stockings and smocks and so that’s what Grizzlegrin wore too, for she was new to Brunt Boggart – she came from over the mountain and far and wide.
Back in the cottage she’d sweep and she’d dust, she’d mop and she’d wash and she changed all the linen, all the curtains and hearthrugs, because this was her cottage now – the cottage she shared with Larkum, the man who made her happy. But Larkum didn’t seem so happy any more. He remembered the cottage the way it had always been, the way it had been since he was a boy, when he’d play in the yard in the sun and the rain and throw shiny pebbles down into the well and hold his breath and count till he heard them hit the bottom.
Now Larkum spent all day out in the fields and tended to the pigs in the wood, while Grizzlegrin was dusting and cleaning the cottage. When he came back he was tired – and just sat all evening in his chair, the chair that had once been his mother’s chair all the years he’d lived there. He couldn’t believe she was gone. And he couldn’t bear to see Grizzlegrin changing this and changing that, clearing and sprucing and putting things about.
“Stop all your fidgeting and fussing,” he grumbled. “You never said nothing was wrong with the cottage all the time my mother was here.”
“I do not like this musty house,” Grizzlegrin told him. “It’s full of cobwebs, dust and damp. I want to make a new home for us. I want to clear out your mother’s clutter and make room for the children we’ll have.”
But Larkum was
sad, and his sadness spread till Grizzlegrin fell sad as well. Every month she cried at the moon and every other night too. The sadder she felt the more she decided that now this was her cottage, she wanted to make it all sparkly and new. She packed Old Mother Tidgewallop’s trinkets into a box – all her rings and her scarves, her plates and her cups, her cruets and her bowls, and the needles that she’d used to knit the waistcoat and to sew the cloak of darkness all picked out in stars.
That evening Larkum came home, tired and aching from working the fields and stinking of the pigs in the wood. He looked at the box that was blocking the door.
“What’s all this?” he exclaimed.
“It’s your mother’s old nonsense,” Grizzlegrin told him. “I’ve no use for it all. Take it down to the village and see if you can sell it for shillen and coppers, then we can buy curtains, all bright, new and clean – then the house will feel like our own, and we’ll be happy again.”
Larkum just looked even sadder, but all he had was Grizzlegrin now and he wanted to make her happy – so next day he took the box away, packed with his mother’s trinkets. He took them down to the hollow in the Green, right in the middle of Brunt Boggart, and there he tried to sell them to anyone who would have them – Old Nanny Nettleye, Nanny Ninefingers and old Granny Willowmist poking and prodding over his mother’s treasures.
“These be Tidgewallop’s,” all of them said. “Can’t take them off you, they were hers. They were all of her own precious things.”
Larkum didn’t know what to do. He packed his mother’s trinkets back into the box and trudged slowly, a long way and long, to his home. When he got to the cottage, there stood Grizzlegrin.
Brunt Boggart Page 16