The Three Mulla-mulgars

by Walter De la Mare

  CHAPTER II

  At first the three brothers lived so forlorn and solitary together theycould scarcely eat. Everything they saw or handled told them only overand over again that their mother was dead. But there was work to bedone, and brave hearts must take courage, else sorrow and trouble wouldbe nothing but evil. This, too, was no time for sitting idle anddoleful. For a little before the gathering of the rains there began toseem a strangeness in the air. After the great heat had flown up atempest of wind and lightning of such a brightness that Nod, peering outof his little tangled window-hole, could see beneath the gleaming rodsof rain and the huge, bowed, groaning trees no less than three leopardscrouching for shelter beneath the Portingal's sturdy little hut. Hecould hear them, too, in the pauses of the tempest, mewling, spitting,and swearing, and the lash of their angry tails against the wall of thehut. After the tempest, it fell cold and very still, with sometimes amoaning in the air. Strange weather was in the sky at rise and set ofsun. And the three brothers, looking out, and seeing the numberlessflights of birds winging with cries all in one direction, and hearingthis moaning, hardly knew what to be doing. They went out every day togather great bundles of wood and as many nuts and fruits and roots asthey could carry. And they found everywhere wise creatures doing thesame--I mean, of course, collecting food--for none beside the Minimuls,the Gungas, and the Mulla-mulgars have fire-sticks, and most of themfear even the sight and smell of flames.

  And Nod, having his mother's quick hand, made a great store ofManaka-cake and Sudd-bread. He dried some fruits, pulped others. Andsome he poured with honey or Ummuz-juice into the Portingal's littleearthen pots, many of which were still unbroken, while he who had firstused them was but a bony shadow-trap in the corner. And Nod and Thumbmade two great gourds of Subbub, very sweet and potent, so that, becauseof the sweet smell of it, the four-clawed Weddervols came barking abouttheir hut all night. But the Manga-cheese their mother had made meltedin the heat of the great fires they burned, and most of it ran down outof the cupboard. They filled the wood-hole with firewood, and stacked itoutside, above Nod's shoulder, all against the hut.

  And it was about the nineteenth week after Mutta's death that Thumb, ashe came stooping to the door one night, saw fires of Tishnar on theground. Over the swamp stood a shaving of moon, clear as a bow ofsilver. And all about, on every twig, on every thorn, and leaf, andpebble; all along the nine-foot grasses, on every cushion and touch ofbark, even on the walls of their hut, lay this spangling fiery meal ofTishnar--frost. He called his brothers. Their breath stood round themlike smoke. They stared and snuffed, they coughed in the cold air.Never, since birds wore feathers--never had hoar-frost glittered onMunza-mulgar before.

  These Mullas danced; they crouched down in the dreadful cold, thinkingto warm their hands at these uncountable fires. And, lo and behold! in alittle while, looking at one another, each was a Mulgar, white andsparkling too. Their very hairs, down-arm and up-arm, every tuft stoodstiff and white with frost. Like millers they stood, all blazing in thenight.

  And that was the beginning of Witzaweelw[=u]lla (the White Winter). Forit was only three days after Tishnar's fires were kindled that Nod firstsaw snow. Now one, two, three, a scatter of flakes, just a few."Feathers," thought Nod.

  But faster, faster; twirling, rustling, hovering. "Butterflies," thoughtNod.

  And then it seemed the sky, the air, was all aflock. He ran out snuffingand frightened. He clapped his hands; he leapt and frisked and shouted.And there, coming up out of the swamp, were his brothers, laden withrushes, and as woolly with snow as sheep. Because it looked so white andcrisp and beautiful Nod even brought out a pot and filled it with snowto cook for their supper. But there, when he lifted the lid, was only alittle steaming water.

  By-and-by they began to wonder and to fear no more. How glad they wereof all the wood they had brought in, and of their great cupboardful ofvictuals! They made themselves long poles, and would go leaping about tokeep themselves warm. They built such roaring fires on the hearth theysquatted round that the sparks flew up like fireflies under the black,starry sky. Snug in their hut, the brothers would sit of an evening ontheir three stools, with their smoking bowls between their legs. Andthey would open their great mouths and drone and sing the songs theirfather had taught them, beating to the notes with their flat feet on theearth floor. But, nevertheless, they pined for the cold and the snow tobe over and gone, so that they might start on their journey! Everymorning broke bleak and sparkling. Often of a night new snow came, tillthey walked between low white walls on their little path to the forest.But in spite of the cold which made them ache and shiver, and their toesand fingers burn and itch, they went out searching for frozen nuts andfruits every morning, and still fetched in faggots.

  Often while they squatted, toasting themselves round their fire, Nodwould look up, blinking his eyes, to see the faces of the Forest-mulgarspeeping in at the window, envying the Mullas their warmth, though afraidof their fire, and calling softly one to another: "Ho, ho! look at theMulla-sluggas [lazy princes] sitting round their fire!" And Thumb andThimble would grin and softly scratch their hairy knees. Thumb, indeed,made up a Mulgar drone, which he used to buzz to himself when theMunza-mulgars came miching and mocking and peeping. (But it was a badand dull drone, and I will not make it worse by turning it into my poorEnglish from Mulgar-royal.)

  Nod often sat watching the Forest-mulgars frisking in the forest, thoughevery morning the light shone through on many perched frozen in theboughs. The Mullabruks and Manquabees made huddles in the snow. But thetiny Squirrel-tails, with their dark, grave, beautiful eyes and silkenamber coats, still roosted high where the frost-wind stirred in thedark. Sometimes on a crusted branch of snow Nod would seefive--seven--nine of these tiny, frost-powdered Mulgars cuddlingtogether in a row, poor little frozen and empty boxes, their gay livesfled away. And when his brothers were gathering sticks in the forest, hewould smuggle out for them two or three handfuls of nuts and pieces ofcake and Sudd-bread. All the crusts and husks and morsels he kept in ashallow grass-basket, which his mother had plaited, to feed thesepillowy Squirrel-tails, the lean Skeetoes, and the spindle-leggedflycatchers.

  Birds of all colours and many other odd little beasts came in the snowto Nod to be fed. He summoned them with the clapping of two sticks ofivory together, till his brothers began to wonder how it was theirvictuals were dwindling so fast. But once, when Thumb and Thimble wereaway in the forest with their jumping-poles, and he had ventured out onthis errand with his basket full of scraps, he forgot to put up the doorbehind him. When he returned, skipping as fast as his fours would carryhim, wild pigs and long-snouted Brackanolls, Weddervols, and hungrybirds had come in and eaten more than half their store. The last oftheir mother's treasured cheese was gone, and all their Ummuz-cane. Thatnight Thumb and Thimble went very sulky to bed. And for the next fewdays all three brothers sallied out together, with their poles,searching and grubbing after every scrap of victuals they could findwith which to fill their larder again.

  Some time after this, so hard and sharp grew the cold that Thumb andThimble were minded to put on their red metal-hooked jackets when theywent out stick-gathering. They took their knives and nut-sacks overtheir shoulders, and muffled and bunched themselves up close, withcotton-leaves wound round their stomachs, and their skin caps pulled lowover their round frost-enticing ears. And they told Nod to cook them asmoking hot supper against the dark, for now the snow was so deep it wasa hard matter to find and carry sticks, and they meant to look for morebefore matters worsened yet. So Nod at once set to his cookery.

  He made up a great fire on the hearthstone. But in spite of its flames,so louring with gathering snow-clouds was the day that he had to keepthe door down to give him clearer light; and, though he kept scuttlingabout, driving out the thieving Brackanolls and Peekodillies that camenosing into the hut, and scaring away the famished birds that kepthopping in through the window-hole, even then he could not keep himselfwarm. So at last he went to the lower cupboard, u
nder the danglingPortingal, and took out his sheepskin coat. He put away the driedkingfisher which his mother had wrapped in the fleece to keep it sweet,and buttoned the ivory buttons, and skipped about nimbly over hiscooking in that. Then he heaped more wood on--logs and brush andsmoulder-wood--higher and higher, till the flames leapt red, gold, andlichen-green out of the chimney-hole. Then he said to himself, flingingyet another armful on: "Now Nod will go down and get some ice to meltfor water to make Sudd-bread." So he went down to the water-spring.

  And he stood watching the Mulgars frisking at the edge of the forest,vain that they should see him with his pole and basket, standing in hissheep's jacket. He broke up some ice and put in into his basket. Then heplodded over to his mother's grave and cleared away the hardened snowthat had fallen during the night on her little heap of stones. "Kara,kara Mutta, Mutta-matutta," he whispered, laying his bony cheek on thestones--"dearest Mutta!" And while he stood there thinking of hismother, and of how he would go and bring down a pot of honeycomb for herdeath-shadow; and then of his father; and then of the strange journeythey were all going to set out on when Tishnar returned to hermountains; and then of his Wonderstone; and then of Assasimmon, Princeof the Valleys, his peacocks and Ummuz-cane, and Ummuz-cane, andUmmuz-cane--while he was thus softly thinking of all these happy things,he suddenly saw the gigantic Ukka-tree above him, lit up marvellouslyred, and glowing as if with the setting of the sun. He shut his eyeswith dread, for he saw all the forest monkeys lit up too, stock-still,staring, staring; and he heard a curious crackle and whs-s-s-ss.

  Nod turned his little head and looked back over his shoulder. Andagainst the snowy gloom of the forest he saw not only sparks, butflames, wagging up out of the chimney-hole. The door of the hut was likethe frame of a furnace. And a trembling fear came over him, so that fora moment he could neither breathe nor move. Then, throwing down hisbasket of ice, and calling softly, "Mutta, O Mutta!" he scrambled overthe snow as fast as he could and rushed into the hut. But he was toolate; before he could jump, spluttering and choking, out of the dooragain, with just an armful of anything he could see, its walls wereablaze. Dry and tangled, its roof burnt like straw--a huge red firepouring out smoke and flame, hissing, gushing, crackling, bubbling,roaring. And presently after, while Nod ran snapping his fingers,dancing with horror in the snow, and calling shriller and shriller,

  "Thumb, Thimble; Thimble, Thumb, Leave your sticks and hurry home: Thicker and thicker the smoke do come! Thumb, Thimble; Thimble, Thumb!"

  he heard above the flames a multitudinous howling and squealing, and helooked over his shoulder, and saw hundreds upon hundreds of faces in theforest staring out between the branches at the fire. By the time thatThimble and Thumb in their red jackets were scampering on all fours,helter-skelter, downhill out of the forest, a numberless horde of theForest-mulgars were frisking and howling round the blaze, and the flameswere floating half as high as Glint's great Ukka-tree. They squealed,"Walla, walla!" (water), grinning and gibbering one to another as theycame tumbling along; but they might just as well have called"Moonshine!" for every drop was frozen. Nor would twenty flowing springsand all Assasimmon's slaves have quenched that fire now. And when theForest-mulgars saw that the Mulla-mulgars had given up hope of puttingthe fire out, they pelted it with snowballs, and scampered about,gathering up every stick and straw and shred they could find, and didtheir utmost to keep it in. For at last, in their joy that the littlePortingal's bones were in the burning, and in their envy of theMulla-mulgars, their fear of fire was gone.

  And so Night came down, and there they all were, hand-in-hand in a hugemonkey-ring, dancing and prancing round the little Portingal's burninghut, and squealing at the top of their voices; while countless beasts ofMunza-mulgar, too frightened of fire to draw near, prowled, withflame-emblazoned eyes, staring out of the forest. And this was theForest-mulgars' dancing-song:

  "Bhoor juggub duppa singlee--duppa singlee--duppa singlee; Bhoor juggub duppa singlee; Sal rosen ghar Bh[=o][=o]sh!"

  They sing at first in a kind of droning zap-zap, and through theirnoses, these Munza-mulgar, their yelps gradually gathering in speed andvolume, till they lift their spellbound faces in the air and howl aloud.And with such a resounding shout and clamour on the Bh[=o][=o]sh youwould think they were in pain.

  For the best part of that night the fire flared and smouldered, whilethe stars wheeled in the black sky above the forest; and still round andround the Mulgars jigged and danced in the glistening snow. For thefrost was so hard and still, not even this great fire could melt itfifteen paces distant from its flames. And Thimble and Thumb in theirred jackets, and Nod in his cotton breeches and sheepskin coat, shiveredand shook, because they weren't hardened, like the Forest-mulgars, tothe icy night-wind that stole fitfully abroad.

  When morning broke, the fire had burned down to a smother, and most ofthe dancing Mulgars had trooped back, tired out and sleepy, to theirtree-houses and huddles and caverns and hanging ropes in the forest. Butno sleep stole over those Mulla-sluggas, Thumb, Thimble, and Nod,sitting on their stones in the snow, watching their home-smoke droopingdown and down. Nod stared and stared at the embers, his teethchattering, ashamed and nearly heart-broken. But his brothers looked nowat the smoke, and now at him, and whenever they looked at Nod theymuttered, "Foh! Mulla-jugguba, foh!"--that is to say, "Foh!Royal-Flame-Shining One!" or "Your Highness Firebright!" or "What thinkyou now, Prince of Bonfires?" But they were too sullen and angry, andNod was too downcast, even to get up to drive away the littlemole-skinned Brackanolls and the Peekodillies which came nosing andgrunting and scratching in the ashes, in search of the scorched oil-nutsand the charred Sudd and Manaka-cake.

  The three Mulla-mulgars sat there until the sun began to be bright ontheir faces and to make a splendour of the snow; then they did not feelquite so cold and miserable. And when they had nibbled a few nuts andberries which a friendly old Manquabee brought down to them, they beganto think and talk over what they had best be doing now--at least, Nodlistened, while Thumb and Thimble talked. And at length they decidedthat, their hut being burnt, and they without refuge from the cold, orany hoard of food, they would wait no longer, but set off at once intothe forest on the same long journey as their father Seelem had gone, toseek out their Uncle Assasimmon, Prince of the Valleys of Tishnar.

  This once said, Thumb lifted his fat body stiffly from his stone, andtook his jumping-pole, and frisked high, leaping to and fro to makehimself warm again. Soon he began to tingle, and laughed out to cheerthe others when he tumbled head over heels into a snowdrift. And theycombed themselves, and stood up to their trouble, and thoughtstubbornly, as far as their monkey-wits would let them, only of thefuture (which is easier to manage than the past). Then they searchedclose in the cooling ashes and embers of the hut, and found a few beadsundimmed by the heat, and all the Margarita stones, which, like theSalamander, no flame can change; also, one or two unbroken pots and jarsand an old stone kettle or Ghob. Nod, indeed, found also a piece of goldthat had lain hid in the Portingal's rags. But all the littleTraveller's bones except his left thumb knuckle-bone were fallen toashes. Nod gave Thumb the noddle of gold, and himself kept theknuckle-bone. "S[=o][=o]tli,"[5] he whispered, touched his nose with it,and put it secretly into his pocket. And glad were they to think thatonly that morning they had fetched out their red jackets and Nod hiswool coat.

  [5] That is, Magic, or Strangeness. When the Mulgars of Munza see anything strange or unknown, they will whimper to one another, as they stand with eyes fixed, "S[=o][=o]tli, S[=o][=o]tli, S[=o][=o]tli," or some such sound.

  When the Forest-mulgars heard that the three brothers were setting outon their long journey, they came trooping down from their leafyvillages, carrying presents, two skin water-bags (for the longed-fortime when the ice should bestir itself), a rough stone knife, a wild-beehoneycomb, a plaited bag of dried Nanoes and nuts, and so on. But ofthese Mulgar tribes few, like ants, or bees, or squ
irrels, make anystore, and none uses fire, nor, save one or two solitaries here andthere, can any walk upright or carry a cudgel. They munch and frisk andchatter, and scratch and quarrel and mock, having their own ways andwisdom and their own musts and mustn'ts. There are few, too, thatcherish not some kindness, if not for all, at least for one another--theleopard to her cubs, the Coccadrillo to her eggs. But back to ourMulla-mulgars.

  The forest of Munza-mulgar saw a feast upon its borders that day. TheForest-mulgars sat in a great ring, and ate and drank, and when the sunhad ascended into the middle of the sky and the snow-piled branchesshone white as Tishnar's lambs, Thumb, Thimble, and Nod, rose up andsang, "Gar Mulgar Dusangee"--the Mulgars' Farewell. While they sang, allthe Forest-mulgars, in their companies and tribes, sat solemnly aroundthem, furred and coloured and pouched and tailed. Shave their chops andput them in breeches, they might well be little men. And they wavedslowly palm-branches and greenery to the time of the tune; some evenmoaned and grunted, too.

  "Far away in Nanga-noon Lived an old and grey Baboon,[6] Ah-mi, Sulani! Once a Prince among his kind, Now forsaken, left behind, Feeble, lonely, all but blind: Sulani, ghar magleer.

  "Peaceful Tishnar came by night, In the moonbeams cold and white; Ah-mi, Sulani! 'Far away from Nanga-noon, Thou old and grey Baboon; Is a journey for thee soon!' Sulani, ghar magleer.

  "'Be not frightened, shut thine eye; Comfort take, nor weep, nor sigh; Solitary Tishnar's nigh!' Sulani, ghar magleer.

  "Old Baboon, he gravely did All that peaceful Tishnar bid; Ah-mi, Sulani! In the darkness cold and grim Drew his blanket over him; Closed his old eyes, sad and dim: Sulani, ghar magleer."

  [6] So I have translated "Babbabooma."

  And here the Mulgars all lay flat, with their faces in the snow, and putthe palms of their hands on their heads; while the three Mulla-mulgarspaced slowly round, singing the last verse, which, after the doggerel Ihave made of the others, I despair of putting into English:

  "Talaheeti sul magloon Olgar, ulgar Nanga-noon; Ah-mi, Sulani! Tishnar s[=o][=o]tli maltmahee, Ganganareez soongalee, Manni Mulgar sang suwhee: Sulani, ghar magleer."

  Then the Mulla-mulgars cut down stout boughs to make cudgels, and,having tied up their few possessions into three bundles and filled theirpockets with old nuts, they took palm-leaves and honey-comb and witheredscarlet and green berries, with which they canopied as best they couldtheir mother's grave, nor forgot poor gluttonous Glint's. They stoodthere in the snow, and raised their hands in lamentable salutation. Andeach took up a stone and jerked it (for they cannot throw as men do) asfar as he could towards the forest, as if to say, "Go with us!" Then,with one last sorrowful look at the befrosted ashes of their hut, theytook up their bundles and started on their journey.

  At first, as I have said, the Mulgar-track is wide, and even in thiscontinually falling snow was beaten clear by hundreds of hand and footprints. But after a while the lofty branches began to knit themselvesabove, and to hang thickly over the travellers, and to shut out thelight. And the path grew faint and narrow.

  One by one their friends waved good-bye and left them, until only Nolland Nunga (Mutta-matutta's only sister's only children) accompaniedthem. Just before sunset, when the forest seemed like a cage of musicwith the voices of the birds that now sang, many of them desperatelyfrom cold and hunger rather than for delight, Noll, too, and Nungaraised their hands, touched noses, and said good-bye. And the threebrothers stood watching them till they had waved their branches for thelast time. Then they went on.