Both Peter and he had received ships from the Bishop’s Christmas Tree. Kay had a ship called the Hero which went by methylated spirit, Peter had a ship which he called the pirate ship, the Royal Fortune, which went by clockwork, and Kay, in addition to these, had an old cutter which he called Captain Kidd’s Fancy. ‘We’ll launch these and christen them properly,’ they said.
‘It’s perfectly lovely,’ Kay said, ‘that the floods are out. We’ll pretend that these ships are real ships, and we’ll provision them with almonds, raisins and chocolates and we’ll all take long sticks so as to poke them off if they get stuck anywhere. And we’ll take sandwiches, cakes and hard-boiled eggs and we won’t come back till teatime.’
‘I’ve got some lovely little things that would do for the ships,’ said Susan. ‘In the stocking which they gave me from the tree there were those little tiny wooden barrels filled with Hundreds and Thousands. They were just the sort of barrels to go in the ships.’
She fetched the little barrels and they divided them up among the three ships, and they put raisins and currants and bits of biscuits in each barrel.
‘I vote,’ Jemima said, ‘that the other barrels shall be filled with ham, which we will pretend is salt pork.’
‘They don’t take salt pork any more,’ Peter said. ‘They take pemmican, which is beef chopped up with fat and raisins and chocolate and beer and almonds and ginger and stuff. It must be a sickening mess, but it’s very nourishing. It’s supposed to be what the ancient Britons had. They could take a piece as big as a currant and live on it for a week.’
As there weren’t enough barrels to provision the ships, Kay got some matchboxes and egg-collector’s pillboxes, which they filled with food. Jemima produced some drapers’ patterns of woollen goods. ‘The ships ought to have these,’ she said. ‘They’d be exactly the size of thick blankets for the little sailors.’
‘I tell you what we might do,’ Susan said. ‘When we get to the water we might take a little plank and make a landing-stage of it, and take some of those little flags that we’ve got, and we’ll pretend that these ships are Christopher Columbus’s ships going out to discover. We’ll tie the ships to the landing-stage and then Jemima shall be the Queen of Spain and Kay had better be the King of Spain, and we will all be monks and nuns and people and sing to Columbus, and then we’ll push him out into the Atlantic.’
‘That would be a good idea,’ Kay said. ‘And then, presently, we could be Sir Francis Drake, and some of us could be Indians and some of us could be Spaniards. And then one of us will be going to be burnt by the Inquisition, and, just at the end, we’ll rush in and kill all the Spaniards, and take all their treasure and sail away to Plymouth. And we could fire red-hot shot, to tell the truth, if we didn’t get the cannon too wet. You see, we can’t fire gunpowder, but we could get the caps from toy pistols and load the guns with those, and then, if you put a match to the touch-hole they sometimes go off with quite a bang.’
‘You’d better have some anchors,’ Jemima said. ‘All ships have anchors, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to stop.’
‘You’ve got to be jolly careful with anchors, with ships so little as these,’ Kay said. ‘Very often, if you try anchoring little ships like these, the anchor will pull them right underneath the water.’
They made ready the ships. Peter found a plank and rigged up some flags upon it for the landing-stage. Ellen brought sandwiches, cake, boiled eggs, fruit and ginger-beer. Kay had a bottle of methylated spirit for the engine. Then they went out to the woodshed to Joe, who gave each one of them a long wand or stick for poking off the ships if they got stuck. Then away they went in bright, sunny, clearing weather, with the noise of running water everywhere. When they came to the meadows there were pools in all the hollows and many of the molehills were bubbling up water like running springs. When they came to a suitable place on the mill stream they fixed the landing-stage and the children poked about among the banks with their sticks, while Kay and Peter got the methylated spirit furnace to make steam in the boiler.
Kay had the Box of Delights in his inner pocket and sometimes poked his hand inside to be sure that it was there.
Presently all was ready. The King and Queen of Spain, with the monks and nuns and people, sent off Christopher Columbus on his voyage, and away the ships went downstream with the children following, shouting and cheering and poking them clear of the banks with their sticks.
When they had gone about half a mile down the stream, Susan, who was looking up at the sky, said, ‘There’s an aeroplane: no; two.’ The others didn’t see the aeroplanes at first but then saw them like two bright specks against a dark cloud. ‘It’s odd we didn’t hear them,’ Susan said. They hadn’t heard them.
They went on with their ships, paddling in the water, getting very wet and enjoying themselves so much that they forgot about all other things, till Kay suddenly saw a shadow running across the field in front of him, and, looking up, saw two aeroplanes circling silently overhead. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘look at the aeroplanes, absolutely silent.’
He didn’t say so, but the thought flashed through his mind that the aeroplanes were there after them, but the other thought also flashed that no aeroplane would dare to land on ground so rotten with springs as that low-lying field. ‘They’d stick in the mud if they tried that,’ he thought.
‘They’re going to land,’ Susan said. ‘They’re coming down by the copse there.’
‘I’ll bet they’re after us,’ Kay said to himself. ‘Bring the ships in to the banks.’
They saw the two aeroplanes come down on to the big dry open field near the copse on the other side of the stream. There were some old willow trees where Kay was standing. He climbed up one of them. ‘There are four men getting out of the aeroplanes,’ he said. ‘They’ve got pistols and ropes and they’re coming this way. I think it would be wise to get out of the way.’
‘Do you think they’re after us?’ Susan said.
‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ Kay said.
‘But it’s all tommy-rot,’ Jemima said. ‘Who’d be coming after us with pistols and ropes? They’re probably mole-catchers coming to set traps over these fields now that the moles are working in the soft earth.’
‘That’s a champion remark,’ Peter said. ‘When did you ever hear of mole-catchers coming in aeroplanes with pistols?’
‘They’re the men who kidnapped the Punch and Judy man,’ Kay said. ‘That’s the man who was in the front of that attack: the tall one with the white splash of paint on his leggings. I’ll bet they’re after us.’
‘What shall we do?’ said Susan. ‘Shall we run to the mill or the farm?’
‘They’d beat us to either of those,’ Kay said.
‘Could we get down into the gully there?’ Susan said.
‘The gully’s full of water in this flood,’ Kay said.
‘Well, what can we do?’ Susan asked.
‘Well, I’ve got here,’ Kay said, ‘a sort of magic dodge. If we all hold hands while I touch a button on it, we shall all shrink into little tiny creatures, and then we’ll pop on board our ships and go down the stream.’
They held hands, and he twiddled the little button, and, instantly, each one of them felt lighter and brighter than ever before. The earth seemed to shoot up and to become enormous, and there they were, clambering on board their gigantic ships. They cast loose the strings which tied them to the bank and away they sailed downstream, round a bend and on. ‘All very well,’ Kay thought, ‘as long as we can keep in mid-stream, but in a flood like this if we jam against some wreckage or fallen tree we shall be sucked right under.’
Just as the ships went round the bend, Kay saw the four men coming in sight close to the bank. It was plain that each man had two long pistols stuck in his belt and they were coiling lassoes ready for a throw. The ships went gaily down the mill stream into the mill-race. At the mill-race came a roaring and terrible torrent, down which the ships plunged so swiftly that they were through it bef
ore they had time to be afraid. In an instant they were in quiet water out of all the currents, gently rubbing the ships’ sides against the roots of an elm tree, which grew in the high bank. Kay and Peter hooked the anchors on to some of the roots of the tree. They secured all three ships alongside each other.
Chapter VII
‘And now,’ Kay said, ‘I vote we have our pemmican and decide what we’ll do next.’
At this moment a little voice sounded from up above. ‘Hullo, you people,’ it said. ‘Come indoors. There’s going to be a shower. You can have your feast in here. I’ll let down a cage to hoist you up.’ Then they saw a little field mouse leaning over a platform which projected from the trunk of the elm. He had a little crane on the platform. Evidently he hoisted all his stores from the water by means of it. Presently the little cage came dangling down from the crane and the field mouse said, ‘Not more than two of you at one time.’
Peter and Jemima got in and the little mouse went to a winch and set the works going, and, instantly, the cage was up at the platform. Then the cage was sent down for Kay and Susan.
‘Well, here we are,’ the field mouse said. ‘Come in.’ He led the way from the platform into a corridor to a room with little windows which looked out upon the river. The floor was covered with dry leaves and moss, and the wall had lockers all along it, labelled: ‘Beech-nuts’, ‘Corn’, ‘Pig-nuts’, ‘Best Berries’, ‘Second-best Berries’, ‘Berries’, ‘Assorted Seeds’, ‘Hazel-nuts’, ‘Honey’, ‘Dried Minnow’ etc., etc.
‘Well, now let’s lunch,’ he said. They all got out their provisions: pemmican, ham and the rest. The field mouse told them where to look for other things. He produced some blackberry wine and some beech-nut loaves, which Susan toasted at the fire. While they were feasting in this happy way they heard a great clumping noise outside. ‘That’s men,’ the field mouse said. ‘They might be elephants the noise they make.’ Almost at once the men began to talk.
‘Well,’ one man said, ‘they seem to have got away from us. They must have come downstream under cover of the banks somehow. We’d have seen them if they’d gone upstream, because there aren’t any banks.’
‘Well,’ another said, ‘if they’ve gone into the stream the flood must have got them,’ and another said, ‘Well, if the floods have got them, we’ve got to fish them out.’
‘Well,’ the first one said, ‘there’s nothing like little children for leading one a dance: little devils! I thought we were making a mistake bringing both the planes down and losing sight of them. You see, those little creatures have popped away into almost nothing.’
‘How would it be to look under the bridge there?’ one of them said. ‘They’d time to get to the bridge.’
‘Yes, the bridge is a good idea,’ they said, and then the voices and footsteps moved away.
When they had gone the field mouse said, ‘Perhaps you’d like to see some of the wonders of this tree.’
‘We should love to see the tree,’ the children said. The field mouse threw up a shutter in the wall. In the hollow behind the shutter was a little cage like that in which he had hoisted them from the ships. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I have to have a good many places like this. Chaps like me sometimes have to leave the room in a hurry; if I hear someone coming whom I don’t want, you understand. I name no names, but there are several round here; uncertain sort of chaps, and you never can tell in a place like this which door they will come in at. But now that I’ve got the lifts fixed, if I hear anyone suspicious I nip into one of these places. Just step in here, will you? And I press a button and up we go.’
The cage shot upwards. When it stopped, the mouse opened the door. ‘See, it’s rather a bare loft here,’ he said. ‘If you will just come to the window here you’ll be able to see down.’ They looked out of the little window. They were amazed to find that they were right at the very top of the great elm tree. Close to them was an old rook’s nest: it looked like a mass of black timbers, big as a church. Just beyond it, on a twig, was a rook swaying in the sun: his back, which was towards them, glistened purple. ‘Dangerous chaps, those,’ the field mouse said. ‘I keep out of their way as a rule. Now just come this way. Now here,’ he said, ‘is one of the slides. If you just let yourself go you can’t hurt yourself. You just slither down on to moss.’
They slithered down and found themselves in another bare corridor, in which there was a strange droning noise, which the children took to be the wind in the boughs. There was a strong smell of honey in the air. The mouse opened a little shutter and told them to look within to the hollow of a tree. They saw that within the tree there were a multitude of bees which had almost filled the hollow with their honeycombs. Although it was winter they were moving there, making the place drone like a thrashing-machine. The place smelt as though all the summer was still there with lime-blossom and bean-blossom. ‘This is a fine place on a cold winter night,’ the field mouse said, ‘curled up in a blanket and letting the bees drone you to sleep. And in any place you can get a draught of honey. Lots of the tree is all blocked with very old honey which the bees will never get to now. And, of course, here and there in this part of the tree there are woodpeckers, the green and the spotted. They’re very nice people, of course. The rooks are very nice people too: very wise. But all those chaps have got rather a snappy way. They don’t mean anything, of course, but if you get one good snap with those great beaks I ask you, where are you? Oh, and then, of course,’ he said, ‘there are the jackdaws. Very odd chaps, the jackdaws. If you will look in the corner here you’ll see the kind of things they bring.’
In a corner near an opening, where a knot in the wood had fallen, was a heap of stuff which sparkled. The children went to it and pulled the things over. There was a lady’s little, old gold watch, two rings set with brilliants, a pin with a fox’s head top, a bit of quartz which gleamed, two scraps of Roman glass, iridescent from being in the earth for eighteen hundred years, the red cut-glass stopper of a bottle, a broken glass marble with a coloured spiral in it, a bit of brass chain and a crystal seal set in gold. ‘They just bring these things in and leave them,’ the mouse said. ‘Queer chaps.
‘But come on down now. Oh, before we go just come up this stair. You will see a sight.’ They crept up a little stair and looked into what seemed like a cavern. Within the cavern, just below them, a big white owl was perched, fast asleep, gurgling and growling. Peter dropped a bit of bark on to him. He half opened an eye and gurgled back to sleep again. ‘He’s the oldest thing around here,’ the field mouse said. ‘He’s ever so old: he remembers when this tree was a sprig and when the Very Good People were here. He makes my blood run cold, he’s so old. But come on down. His place is a bit bony and birdy and he’s a graveyard of my relations, if the truth were known. I never come here except in winter,’ the field mouse said, as he went down the little stair. ‘This is really the birds’ quarter. In the season there’ll be a matter of seventy or eighty young jackdaws in this tree first and last, and about half that of young rooks. And they knock the place about and nothing’s safe from them.’
He opened another little door, a trapdoor in the floor. The children could see a long shoot leading downwards. ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ the mouse said, ‘if you just let yourself go. Nothing but weed and moss to fall on to: you can’t hurt yourself.’ And with that he let himself drop and the children followed. ‘Now this,’ the field mouse said, as they got on to their feet in a strange room, ‘this is a part of the tree that’s really worth seeing.’
The room in which they were had been a music-room. There was a stage still set with music-stands and torn music propped up: against the wall were old ’cellos and pretty little fiddles; a drum with the end knocked in; and parts of brass trombones. It hadn’t been used for many years: it was dusty and cobwebby. ‘Now this, you see, is a part that was made by the Very Good People, who don’t come here any more.’
‘D’you mean Fairies?’ Susan asked.
‘No, very, Very Good Peo
ple,’ the field mouse said: ‘very clever, very beautiful and very wise. But they went away. It’s a long time ago,’ the field mouse added. ‘I don’t know the rights of it. It isn’t wise to talk about those People, but, of course, everybody knows they were very, very good.’
He led the way out of the music-room to a beautiful staircase hung with tapestries and lit still with glowing lights. The staircase was carpeted with scarlet. The banisters were beautifully carved with flowers growing on stems. The tapestries showed countless little people carrying coloured baubles to a queen of extraordinary beauty who sat upon a mushroom.
‘Now, this place,’ the mouse said, when they reached the foot of the stairs, ‘this place I don’t quite like going into, but it’s so beautiful I can’t keep from it.’ He opened a big door, so that they pressed into a great room which seemed to fill the whole hollow of the tree. The walls were hung with banners and with portraits of extraordinarily brilliant people, whose eyes seemed to move in their painted heads. This room was lit like the staircase with a soft, glowing light: it was carpeted with scarlet: at the end of the room was a dais with a throne, and in front of the throne a table on which lay an ivory horn. Underneath the horn, written in letters of flame which flickered to and fro, were the words:
‘He that dares blow must blow me thrice.
Or feed th’ outrageous cockatrice.’
‘Oh, I would love to blow,’ Kay said, ‘just to see what would happen. What is a cockatrice?’
‘Oh, don’t,’ Susan said. ‘Anything might happen. A cockatrice is a fearful thing, like a cock and a cobra mixed.’
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