Kay was about to protest, for he had promised never to bet, nor to play at cards for money; but the chubby-faced man said, ‘Of course . . . that would be simply sportsman’s honour.’
‘Agreed, agreed, what,’ the foxy-faced man said, as he twiddled the cards. ‘Hark to Merlin: “Again the fatal sister spins her web. Mark well her hand, the hand of Destiny; so shoots the weft across the serried warp; and back the sword beats and the shear descends.” Now, which is the Lady?’
‘This one,’ Kay said. ‘I saw her from underneath as the cards went down.’
He was quite certain that he had seen the Queen, but when he lifted the card, it was not the Queen, it was the three of Hearts.
‘Now how did that happen, what?’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘That will be just half-a-crown, please; for the collection in aid of the Decayed Cellarers, poor fellows. A debt of honour, you know.’
Kay felt very unhappy, but pulled out his purse and paid the half-crown. It may have been suspicion or error, yet it seemed to him that both men seemed very inquisitive, craning over, as it were, to see what money was in his purse.
‘So you carry your money in a purse,’ the chubby-faced man said. ‘It is always a wise precaution; so much better than having it loose, when it will get pulled out with the handkerchief or what not.’
The foxy-faced man spread his cards. ‘Now, Sir Lancelot,’ he said, ‘that is two to you and one to me. Won’t you give me my chance to get equal?’
Kay thought that he was already past being equal and a good deal ahead. He was sorely perplexed as to what to say. At this moment, however, the train began to slacken for a station.
‘Ha, we stop here, what?’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘Sir Dagonet, a word with you.’ He tapped his left ear and went out into the corridor; the chubby-faced man followed him. The train was at a little junction, Yarnton for Yockombe Regis; two or three people left the train and others got in.
‘I won’t play cards any more,’ Kay decided. ‘Nothing shall induce me . . .’
When the train started, the two men returned. Kay was again studying his map. He was afraid that the men would suggest more cards, but they had returned deep in thought. They talked to each other in low voices in a tongue which Kay thought must be Italian.
He glanced at them sideways from time to time. There was something in the way of their bending their heads together which seemed very sinister. Kay wondered that he had ever thought either of them nice. They were talking about somebody. They seemed to be looking out for somebody. Whenever the train stopped at one of the little stations: Gabbett’s Cross, Lower Turrington, Stoke Dever and Radsoe, the men went out into the corridor, and seemed (as Kay decided) to watch all people leaving the train. They had friends (accomplices Kay called them) in the train, for once (at Radsoe), as Kay was looking out for the landmarks of home, he saw the foxy-faced man, who had got out on to the platform, signalling to a man in a forward carriage.
‘These men are up to no good,’ Kay thought. ‘They’re after somebody. Very likely it’s some farmer, coming home from the beast-market with a lot of money, whom they are going to rob. I do hope they won’t talk to me again.’
He settled again to his map as they returned to the carriage. ‘Still feeding the mind, what?’ the foxy man said.
‘Yes, please,’ Kay said.
‘And can you tell me what country we are now coming to?’
‘Yes,’ Kay said. ‘If you will look there, you will see Condicote Church . . . Then, that wooded hill is King Arthur’s Court: it’s a Roman Camp . . . Up there, is Broadbarrow, where there used to be a gibbet.’
‘Indeed,’ the man said. ‘Well, well. Then this next station will be Condicote, I take it?’
‘Yes,’ Kay said.
‘You hear that, Palamedes?’ he said to his companion. ‘Sir Lancelot says that Condicote is next stop, where the hawks get out to wait for the chicken . . . if the chicken is still on the wing.’
‘Not so loud, not so loud,’ the chubby-faced man said, with a look of alarm. ‘Good heaven, what was that?’
Some slight noise made them all look towards the corridor. It was only the Irish terrier of the old man, ‘Barney Dog’, standing on his hind legs to look in to the compartment. With a scratching of claws upon the paint, the dog dropped from his post and slid away. Yet Kay felt somehow uneasy, for the dog had looked at him so strangely.
‘A dog, I think,’ the chubby man said, with a warning glance at his friend. ‘One of the friends of man, as they are called. And do you keep dogs at Seekings, Mr Harker?’
Kay jumped, for how did the man know his name and home? ‘How did you know about me, sir?’ he asked.
‘Magic, no doubt,’ the man said. ‘But there is a proverb:
“More know Tom Fool
Than Tom Fool knows.”
‘Not that I want you to think that I think you a fool; by no means.’
‘By no means, what?’ the foxy-faced man said, as he put up his cards in their case. ‘He is no fool, but a hawk with the eyes of a gimlet, our young friend from Seekings House. And this is Condicote Station?’
‘It is,’ Kay said, still marvelling that the men should know him. The train stopped.
There was always a press of people on Condicote platform at the coming-in of that train: there was on this day. Kay was bumped and thrust by people getting in and out. There in the press was Caroline Louisa come to meet him; then, among other familiar faces, the old bus man, Jim, came forward to help him with his bags. ‘Why, Master Kay, how you have growed, to be sure. Learning seems to suit ’ee.’
He crossed the line with the crowd. As he gave up his ticket at the exit gate he was bumped and thrust among the company. When he had won through the press and was safely in the car, he found that he had been robbed.
‘I say,’ he said, ‘there must have been pickpockets in the crowd. They’ve got my purse and my dollar watch.’
‘When had you them last?’
‘A few minutes before we reached the station.’
‘Did you feel any hand at your pockets?’
‘No, of course not. I was pushed and shoved in the crowd, of course.’
‘Did you notice any suspicious person near you?’
‘No . . . Hullo. Here’s my ticket . . .’
‘But you gave it up just now.’
‘So I did,’ he said. ‘Well. That’s a queer thing. I couldn’t find my ticket at Musborough: and an old man who was there said “there lo, it’s on the platform”; and there it was, right at my feet. I must have picked up some other chap’s ticket, perhaps it was the old man’s own ticket. Why, there is the old man, that old fellow with the green baize case and the Irish terrier.’
‘What is he?’ Caroline Louisa asked. ‘A Punch and Judy man?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kay said. ‘I’ll ask him. And I’ll ask if I had his ticket. And may I offer him a lift? He’s rather a poor old chap to be lugging those loads about.’
‘Ask him, if you like,’ she said.
Kay asked him, had he given him his own ticket at Musborough.
‘No, I thank you,’ the old man said. ‘I had my own ticket, thank you, and have now given it over.’
‘Will you please tell me,’ Kay said, ‘if you are a Punch and Judy man?’
‘I am, so to speak, a showman,’ the old man said, ‘and my Barney Dog is, as it were, my Toby Dog, when chance does call.’
‘I was to ask you, would you like a lift down into the town, as it is rather a step, and it is so cold.’
‘No, I thank you, my young Master,’ the old man said. ‘But if you would once more steady my show, why, then I should not stumble.’
Kay helped him a little, so that the case did not overbalance him as he swung it to his shoulders.
‘And I thank you, my young Master,’ he said. ‘Time was when we had power, like the Sun, and could swing the Earth and the Moon, and now our old wheels are all running down and we are coming to a second childhood.
Kay did not know what to say to this.
‘Hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs, it goes,’ the old man said. ‘And then all the way back again.’
The old man paused an instant and looked about him. By this time, all those who had met or who had travelled by the train were gone from the station yard, while the porters and ticket man had gone back to shelter.
‘And now, Master Harker, of Seekings,’ the old man said, ‘now that the Wolves are Running, as you will have seen, perhaps you would do something to stop their Bite? Or wouldn’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Kay said, ‘but is there anything I can do for you?’
‘Master Harker,’ he said, ‘there is something that no other soul can do for me but you alone. As you go down towards Seekings, if you would stop at Bob’s shop, as it were to buy muffins now . . . Near the door you will see a woman plaided from the cold, wearing a ring of a very strange shape, Master Harker, being like my ring here, of the longways cross in gold and garnets. And she has very bright eyes, Master Harker, as bright as mine, which is what few have. If you will step into Bob’s shop to buy muffins now, saying nothing, not even to your good friend, and say to this Lady “The Wolves are Running,” then she will know and Others will know; and none will get bit.’
‘I’ll do that, of course,’ Kay said. ‘But how did you know my name?’
‘When Wolves Run it betides to know, Master Harker,’ he said. ‘And I do bless you.
‘But Time and Tide and Buttered Eggs wait for no man,’ he added. He swung away at once, bent under his pack, followed by his Dog Barney. He had that odd stagger or waddle in his knees that Kay had so often noticed in old countrymen.
‘How on earth does he know my name?’ Kay thought. ‘And how does he know Bob’s shop? I’ve certainly never seen him before today . . .’ He went back to the car.
‘I’m sorry to have been so long,’ he said. ‘He’s a queer old man. I should think he has been something very different once . . .’
‘About your being robbed,’ Caroline Louisa said. ‘Who was with you in the train?’
‘Two men, but I don’t think they would have robbed me. They were two sort of curates. They got in at Hope-under-Chesters and got out here. The funny thing was that they knew my name and that I came from Seekings.’
‘They could have read that from your luggage labels,’ she said. ‘If your curates got in at Hope-under-Chesters they may have been members of the Missionaries College there.’
‘I say,’ Kay said, ‘are there any muffins?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘teacakes, but no muffins.’
‘Would you mind frightfully, if we stopped at Bob’s and got some muffins? Only you’ll have to lend me some tin, for my purse is gone. I haven’t a tosser to my kick.’
‘Now Kay, you mustn’t use slang in the holidays.’
‘That’s nothing to some I know.’
At this moment, the car passed the old man. Kay waved to him and the old man waved back.
‘By the way,’ Kay said, ‘are there Buttered Eggs for lunch?’
‘Yes, specially for you. We must get on to them.’
‘You know,’ Kay said, ‘there’s something very queer about that old man. He knew that there would be Buttered Eggs. He said “Time, Tide and Buttered Eggs wait for no man.”’
‘I expect that a good many have said something of the sort.’
‘No,’ Kay said. ‘He meant me, and that I ought to hurry up. There’s something uncanny about him. I mean in a good sense.’
‘Do you think that he could have picked your pockets?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘He was near you.’
‘No, but I had my money and watch after I was near him and missed them before I saw him the second time. Look. Look . . . There are the two curate sort of men, both in the bus, there.’
‘I can’t look at them while I’m driving, I’m afraid. You’re sure they didn’t rob you?’
‘Quite. Though I didn’t like them much. I say, I wish you would let me drive.’
‘Not for another five years, Kay.’
‘I say; why ever not?’
‘Because it’s against the law, for one thing and likely to be fatal, for another.’
‘Fatal fiddlesticks. We’ve a man in the Fourth, at the Coll, who drove the old Bodger’s car once. What do the curates do at Chesters?’
‘They read good books and learn how to be clergymen. They have to work in the farm and garden, I believe. Did they want you to join them?’
‘They didn’t ask me. I wish you’d tell me about them.’
‘I don’t know very much to tell. They’re the other side the county. I seem to have heard that most of them go off to missions after a time of training.’
‘And get eaten by the cassowary?’
‘Some of them, perhaps. But I’m not telling you the news. I’ve got rather a shock to give you. All the Jones children are with us for the holidays.’
‘Oh, I say, golly, whatever for?’
‘The parents have to go abroad, and I couldn’t bear the children to have nowhere to go for Christmas. I do hope you won’t mind frightfully.’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ he said. ‘I like the Joneses . . . some of them. No, I like them all, really. There’s rather a gollop of them, though.’
‘I’m putting Peter into your room,’ she said. ‘You’ll have two little snug beds and can be like robbers in a cave.’
‘We’ll have some larks, I expect,’ Kay said. ‘I do hope Maria has brought some pistols. She generally has one or two.’
‘I hope she has nothing of the kind. What do you mean by pistols? What sort of pistols?’
‘Oh, the usual sort of pistols: revolvers: she got a lot of them from some robbers once. She’s sure to have some still. She says she couldn’t live without pistols now. She shoots old electric light bulbs dangling from a clothes-line.’
‘She shall shoot none at Seekings, I trust.’
They sped on towards Seekings. ‘I say,’ Kay said, ‘how far is Hope-under-Chesters from here?’
‘Thirty or thirty-five miles.’
‘Do you know it at all?’
‘No, not more than one can know by passing.’
‘I thought it looked a wonderful sort of place. I’d like to go exploring there.’
‘It’s deep, wild country,’ she said, ‘but it is just a little far away for winter exploring. Leave it till the summer.’
‘When I grow up,’ Kay said, ‘I mean to explore all the wild bits left in England.’
‘There aren’t very many,’ she said, ‘but the Chesters are the wildest near here.’
‘Do you think any of the people are pagans, there, still?’
‘Not at heart, the Bishop says, but a good many in outward observance.’
‘There’s some snow,’ he said. ‘I do hope we shall have a real deep snow, so that we can make a snowman.’
‘The paper says that there will be snow, and the glass is falling.’
As they entered the little street, it was so dark with the promise of snow that the shops were being lighted. They were all decked out with holly, mistletoe, tinsel, crackers, toys, oranges, model Christmas trees with tapers and glass balls, apples, sweets, sucking pigs, sides of beef, turkeys, geese, Christmas cakes and big plum puddings.
‘I say, I do love Christmas,’ Kay said. ‘You’ll have to give me a whole lot of tin presently, please, for I’ll have to get four extra presents for the Joneses. And I wonder if I could get Jane to give me a plum pudding that I could give to that old man? I wouldn’t like him to have no plum pudding on Christmas. And would you mind stopping at Bob’s?’
‘Jane will give you a plum pudding,’ she said, as she stopped the car in the busy market-place. There were open-air booths the
re selling all manner of matters for Christmas; chiefly woollen mufflers, nailed boots, cloth caps, hedger’s gloves and the twenty-eight-pound cheeses, known as Tatchester Double Stones. The keepers of the stalls were flogging their arms against the cold; some of them were packing up before the snow began. Kay passed through these in some excitement. ‘Of course, it’s all rot,’ he said. ‘How can he know that there will be a woman near the door there . . . And yet, there is one, sure enough . . .’
Bob was the baker and confectioner of the little town. His shop was always sweet and pleasant with the smell of new bread. His window at this Christmas time was a sight to see. In it were two Christmas cakes, four storeys high, in pink and white sugar, both crowned with little dancers in tinsel who went round and round, each holding little electric light bulbs. All round these cakes were the most marvellous crackers that eye ever saw or child pulled. But Kay was not thinking of cake or crackers. He looked only at the figure of a woman who stood near the shopwindow, with her back to the wall, staring at the man who was calling at a near-by booth:
‘The very best warm caps and mufflers
As worn by the great Explorer Shackleton.
The North Pole caps and mufflers.
As worn by Airmen.
North and South Pole caps and mufflers.’
She was plaided over the head and shoulders with a grey plaid shawl. Now, as Kay drew near, the woman, who had been motionless, stirred. Her right hand came from underneath the plaid, drew the plaid closer about her, and held it there. Her hand was wearing what looked like a chamois-leather glove. On the middle finger outside the glove, and, therefore, very conspicuous, was a ring such as the old man had worn, a heavy gold ring arranged in a St Andrew’s Cross and set with garnets. At the same moment the woman shook the plaid back from her face, so that Kay saw a pair of eyes so bright that they seemed to burn in the head. She looked keenly at Kay. At the instant there was nobody very near. Kay looked at her. His heart beat as he said in a low voice, ‘The Wolves are Running.’ She looked hard at him, gave a very, very slight nod, and, as Kay went on into the shop to buy the muffins, she slipped away sideways, walking very swiftly with an erect bearing. An old woman coming out of the shop with a basket shoved Kay aside, so that he lost sight of her at that point. She had moved into the thickest of the crowd in the market-place.
The Box of Delights Page 2