wore the same fashion of clothes--a tunic and close-fitting hose and
flat caps--seemingly very much what a boy would have worn in Queen
Elizabeth's time. The colours were sober--dark blue, dark red, grey,
brown--and each one's clothes were of one colour all through. They had
some white linen underneath; it showed a little at the neck. There were
both fair and dark among them: all were clean and passably good-looking,
one or two certainly handsome. The firstcomer was ruddy and
auburn-haired and evidently a leader. They called him Wag.
I heard whispers from corners of the room, and appeals to Wag to explain
what this and that unfamiliar object was, and noticed that he was never
at a loss for an answer of some kind, correct or not. The fireplace,
which had its summer dressing, was, it appeared, a rock garden; an old
letter lying on the floor was a charm ("Better not touch it"); the
waste-paper basket (not unnaturally) a prison; the pattern on the carpet
was--"Oh, you wouldn't understand it if I was to tell you."
Soon a voice--Wag's voice--came from somewhere near my foot.
"I say, could I get up on the top?" I offered to lift him, but he
declined rather hastily and said my leg would be all right if I didn't
mind putting it out a bit sloping: and he then ran up it on all
fours--he was quite a perceptible weight--and got on to the table from
my knee without any difficulty.
Once there, there was a great deal to interest him--books, papers, ink,
pens, pipes, matches and cards. He was full of questions about them, and
his being so much at his ease encouraged the others to follow him, so
that before very long the whole lot were perambulating the table and
making me very nervous lest they should fall off, while Wag was standing
close up to me and putting me through a catechism.
"What do you have such _little_ spears for?" he wanted to know,
brandishing a pen at me. "Is that blood on the end? whose blood? Well
then, what do you do with it? Let's see--only that?" (when I wrote a
word or two). "Well, you can tell me about it another time. Now I want
to know what these clubs in the chest are."
I said, "We make fire with them; if you like I'll show you--but it makes
a little noise."
"Go on," said Wag; and I struck a match, rather expecting a stampede.
But no, they were quite unmoved, and Wag said, "Beastly row and
smell--why don't you do the ordinary way?"
He brushed the palm of his left hand along the tips of the fingers on
his right hand, put them to his lips and then to his eyes, and behold!
his eyes began to glow from behind with a light which would have been
quite bright enough for him to read by. "Quite simple," he said; "don't
you know it?" Then he did the same thing in reverse order, touching
eyes, lips and hand, and the light was gone. I didn't like to confess
that this was beyond me.
"Yes, that's all very well," I said, "but how do you manage about your
houses? I am sure I saw lights in the windows."
"Course," he said, "put as many as you want;" and he ran round the table
dabbing his hand here and there on the cloth, or on anything that lay on
it, and at every place a little round bud or drop of very bright but
also soft light came out. "See?" he said, and darted round again,
passing his hands over the lights and touching his lips; and they were
gone. He came back and said, "It's a _much_ better way; it is _really_,"
as if it were only my native stupidity that prevented me from using it
myself.
A smaller one, who looked to me rather a quieter sort than Wag, had come
up and was standing by him: he now said in a low voice:
"P'raps they can't."
It seemed a new idea to Wag: he made his eyes very round. "Can't? Oh,
rot! it's quite simple."
The other shook his head and pointed to my hand which rested on the
table. Wag looked at it too, and then at my face.
"Could I see it spread out?" he said.
"Yes, if you'll promise not to spoil it."
He laughed slightly, and then both he and the other--whom he called
Slim--bent over and looked closely at the tips of my fingers. "Other
side, please," he said after a time, and they subjected my nails to a
like examination. The others, who had been at the remoter parts of the
table, wandered up and looked over their shoulders. After tapping my
nails and lifting up one or more fingers, Wag stood upright and said:
"Well, I s'pose it's true, and you can't. I thought your sort could do
anything."
"I thought much the same about you," I said in self-defence. "I always
thought you could fly, but you----"
"So we can," said Wag very sharply, and his face grew red.
"Oh," I said, "then why haven't you been doing it to-night?"
He kicked one foot with the other and looked quickly at Slim. The rest
said nothing and edged away, humming to themselves.
"Well, we _can_ fly perfectly well, only----"
"Only not to-night, I suppose," said I, rather unkindly.
"No, _not_ to-night," said Wag; "and you needn't laugh, either--we'll
soon show you."
"That _will_ be nice," I said; "and when will you show me?"
"Let's see" (he turned to Slim), "two nights more, isn't it? All right
then (to me), in two nights more you'll see."
Just then a moth which flew in caused a welcome diversion--for I could
see that somehow I had touched on a sore subject, and that he was
feeling awkward--and he first jumped at it and then ran after it. Slim
lingered. I raised my eyebrows and pointed at Wag. Slim nodded.
"The fact is," he said in a low voice, "he got us into rather a row
yesterday and we're all stopped flying for three nights."
"Oh," said I. "I _see_: you must tell him I am very sorry for being so
stupid. May I ask who stopped you?"
"Oh, just the old man, not the owls."
"You do go to the owls for something, then?" I asked, trying to appear
intelligent.
"Yes, history and geography."
"To be sure," I said; "of course they've seen a lot, haven't they?"
"So they say," said Slim, "but----"
Just then the low toll of the bell was wafted through the window and
there was an instant scurry to the edge of the table, then to the seat
of the chair, and up to the window-sill; small arms waved caps at me,
the shrubs rustled, and I was left alone.
V
DANGER TO THE JARS
Now my ears and eyes and tongue had been dealt with, and what remained
were the forehead and the chest. I could not guess what would come of
treating these with the ointment, but I thought I would try the forehead
first. There was still a day or two when the moon would be bright enough
for the trial. I hoped that perhaps the effect of these two last jars
might be to make me able to go on with my experiences--to keep in touch
with the new people I had come across--during the time when she--the
moon, I mean--was out of sight.
I had one anxiety. The precious box must be guarded from those who were
after it. About this I had a conviction, that if I could keep them off
until I had used each of the five jars, the box and I would be safe. Why
I felt sure of this I could not say, but my experience had led me to
trust these beliefs that came into my head, and I meant to trust this
one. It would be best, I thought, if I did not go far from the
house--perhaps even if I did not leave it at all till the time of danger
was past.
Several things happened in the course of the morning which confirmed me
in my belief. I took up a position at the table by the window of my
sitting-room. I had put the box in my suit-case, which I had locked, and
I now laid it beside me where I could keep an eye upon it. The view from
my window showed me, first, the garden of the cottage, with its lawn and
little flower beds, its hedge and back gate, and beyond that a path
leading down across a field. More fields, I knew, came after that one,
and sloped pretty sharply down to a stream in the valley, which I could
not see; but I could see the steep slope of fields, partly pasture, and
then clothed with green woods towards the top. There were no other
houses in sight: the road was behind me, passing the front of the
cottage, and my bedroom looked out that way. I had some writing and
reading to do, and I had not long finished breakfast before I settled
down to it, and heard the maid "doing out" the bedroom as usual,
accompanied every now and then by a slight mew from the cat, who (also
as usual) was watching her at work. These mews meant nothing in
particular, I may say; they were only intended to be met by an
encouraging remark, such as "There you are, then, pussy," or "Don't get
in my way, now," or "All in good time." Finally I heard "Come along
then, and let's see what we've got for you downstairs," and the door was
shut. I mention this because of what happened about a quarter of an hour
later.
There was suddenly a fearful crash in the bedroom, a fall, a breaking
of glass and crockery and snapping of wood, and then, fainter, sobbings
and moans of pain. I started up.
"Goodness!" I thought, "she must have been dusting that heavy shelf high
up on the wall with all the china on it, and the whole thing has given
way. She must be badly hurt! But why doesn't her mistress come rushing
upstairs? and what was that rasping noise just beside me?"
I looked at my suit-case, which lay on the table just inside the open
window. Across the new smooth top of it there were three deep scratches
running towards the window, which had not been there before. I moved it
to the other side of me and sat down. There had been an attempt to decoy
me out of the room, and it had failed. Certainly there would be more.
I waited; but everything was quiet in the house: no more noise from the
bedroom and no one moving about, upstairs or downstairs; nothing but
the pump clanking in the scullery. I turned to my work again.
Half an hour must have gone by, and, though on the look-out, I was not
fidgety. Then I was aware of a confused noise from the field outside.
"Help! help! Keep off, you brute! Help, you there!" as well as I could
make out, again and again. Towards the far end of the field, which was a
pretty large one, a poor old man was trying to get to a gate in the
hedge at a staggering run, and striking now and then with his stick at a
great deer-hound which was leaping up at him with hollow barks. It
seemed as if nothing but the promptest dash to the spot could save him;
it seemed, too, as if he had caught sight of me at the window, for he
beckoned. How strange the cries sounded! It was as if someone was
shouting into an empty jug. My field-glasses were by me on the table,
and I thought I would take just _one_ look before I rushed out. I am
glad I did; for, do you know, when I had the glasses focused on the dog
and the man, all that I could see was a sort of fuzz of dancing vapour,
much as if the shimmering air that you see on the heath on a hot day had
been gathered up and rolled into a shape.
"Ha! ha!" I said, as I put down the glasses; and something in the air,
about four yards off, made a sharp hissing sound. No doubt there were
words, but I could not distinguish them. A second attempt had failed;
you may be sure I was well on the alert for the next.
I put away my books now, and sat looking out of the window, and
wondering as I watched whether there was anything out of the common to
be noticed. For one thing, I thought there were more little birds about
than I expected. At first I did not see them, for they were not hopping
about on the lawn; but as I stared at the hedge of the garden, and at
that of the field, I became aware that these were full of life. On
almost every twig that could hold a bird in shelter--not on the top of
the hedges--a bird was sitting, quite still, and they were all looking
towards the window, as if they were expecting something to happen there.
Occasionally one would flutter its wings a little and turn its head
towards its neighbour; but this was all they did.
I picked up my glasses and began to study the bottom of the hedges and
the bushes, where there was some quantity of dead leaves, and here, too,
I could see that there were spectators. A small bright eye or a bit of a
nose was visible almost wherever I looked; in short, the mice, and, I
don't doubt, some of the rats, hedgehogs, and toads as well, were
collected there and were as intently on the watch as the birds. "What a
chance for the cat, if only she knew!" I put my head cautiously out of
the window, and looking down on the sill of the window below, I could
see her head, with the ears pushed forward; she was looking earnestly
at the hedge, but she did not move. Only, at the slight noise I made,
she turned her face upwards and crowed to me in a modest but encouraging
manner.
Time passed on. Luncheon was laid--on another table--and was over,
before anything else happened.
The next thing was that I heard the maid saying sharply:
"What business 'ave you got going round to the back? We don't want none
of your rubbish here."
A hoarse voice answered inaudibly.
_Maid_: "No, nor the gentleman don't want none of your stuff neither;
and how do you know there's a gentleman here at all I should like to
know? What? Don't mean no offence? I dare say. That's more than I know.
Well, that's the last word I've got to say."
In a minute more there was a knock at my door, and at the same time a
step on the gravel path under my window, and a loud hiss from the cat.
As I said "Come in" to the knock, I hastily looked out of the window,
but saw nothing. It was the maid who had knocked. She had come to ask if
there was anything I should like from the village, or anything I should
want before tea-time, because the mistress was going out, and wanted her
to go over and fetch something from the shop. I said there was nothing
except the letters and perhaps a small parcel from the post office. She
lingered a moment before going, and finally said:
"You'll excuse me naming it, sir, but there seems to be some funny
people about the roads to-day, if you'd please to be what I mean to say
a bit on the look-out, if you're not a-going out yourself."
"Certainly," I said. "No, I don't mean to go out. By the way, who was it
came to the door just now?"
"Oh, it was one of these 'awking men, not one I've seen before, and he
must be a stranger in this part, I think, because he began going round
to the garden door, only I stopped him. He'd got these cheap rubbishing
'atpins and what not; leastways, if you understand me, what I thought to
myself I shouldn't like to be seen with 'em, whatever others might."
"Yes, I see," I answered; and she went, and I turned to my books once
more.
Within a very few minutes I began to suspect that I was getting sleepy.
Yes, it was undoubtedly so. What with the warmth of the day, and lunch,
and not having been out.... There was a curious smell in the room, too,
not exactly nasty, like something burning. What did it remind me of?
Wood smoke from a cottage fire, that one smells on an autumn evening as
one comes bicycling down the hill into a village? Not quite so nice as
that; something more like a chemist's shop. I wondered: and as I
wondered, my eyes closed and my head went forward.
A sharp pain on the back of my hand, and a crash of glass! Up I jumped,
and which of three or four things I realized first I don't know now. But
I did realize in a second or two that my hand was bleeding from a
scratch all down the back of it, that a pane of the window was broken
and that the whole window was darkened with little birds that were
bumping their chests against it; that the cat was on the table gazing
into my face with intense expression, that a little smoke was drifting
into the room, and that my suit-case was on the point of slipping out
over the window-sill. A despairing dash at it I made, and managed to
clutch it; but for the life of me I could not pull it back. I could see
no string or cord, much less any hand that was dragging at it. I hardly
dared to take my hand from it to catch up something and hack at the
thief I could not see. Besides, there was nothing within reach.
Then I remembered the knife in my pocket. Could I get it out and open
it without losing hold? "They hate steel," I thought. Somehow--frantically
holding on with one hand--I got out the knife, and opened it, goodness
knows how, for it was horribly small and stiff, with my teeth, and
sheared and stabbed indiscriminately all round the farther end of the
suit-case. Thank goodness, the strain relaxed. I got the thing inside
the window, dropped it, and stood on it, craning over the garden path
and round the corner of the house. Of course there was nothing to be
seen. The birds were gone. The cat was still on the table saying "O you
owl! O you owl!" The sole and only clue to what had been happening was a
small earthenware saucer that lay on the path immediately below the
window, with a little heap of ashes in it, from which a thin column of
smoke was coming straight up and curling over when it reached the window
level. That, I could not doubt, was the cause of my sudden sleepiness.
I dropped a large book straight on to it, and had the satisfaction of
hearing it crush to bits and of seeing the smoke go four ways along the
ground and vanish.
I was perfectly awake now. I looked at the cat, and showed her the back
of my hand. She sat quite still and said:
"Well, what did you expect? I had to do something. I'll lick it if you
like, but I'd rather not. No particular ill-feeling, you understand; all
the same a hundred years hence."
I was not in a position to answer her, so I shook my head at her, wound
up my hand in a handkerchief, and then stroked her. She took it
agreeably, jumped off the table, and requested to be let out.
So the third attack had failed. I sat down and looked out. The hedges
were empty; not a bird, not a mouse was left. I took this to mean that
the dangerous time was past, and great was the relief. Soon I heard the
maid come back from her errands in the village, then the mistress's
chaise, then the clock striking five. I felt it would be all right for
me to go out after tea.
And so I did; first, however, concealing the suit-case in my
bedroom--not that I supposed hiding it would be of much use--and piling
upon it poker, tongs, knife, horseshoe, and anything else I could find
which I thought would keep off trespassers. I had, by the way, to
explain to the maid that a bird had flown against the window and broken
it, and when she said "Stupid, tiresome little things they are," I am
afraid I did not contradict her.
I went out by way of the garden and crossed the field, near the middle
of which stands a large old oak. I went up to this, for no particular
reason, and stood gazing at the trunk. As I did so I became aware that
my eyes were beginning to "see through," and behold! a family of owls
was inside. As it was near evening, they were getting wakeful,
stirring, smacking their beaks and opening their wings a little from
time to time. At last one of them said:
"Time's nearly up. Out and about! Out and about!"
"Anyone outside?" said another.
"No harm there," said the first.
This short way of talking, I believe, was due to the owls not being
properly awake and consequently sulky. As they brightened up and got
their eyes open, they began to be more easy in manner.
"Oop! Oop! Oop! I've had a very good day of it. You have, too, I hope?"
"Sound as a rock, I thank you, except when they were carrying on at the
cottage."
"Oh goodness! I forgot! They didn't bring it off, I hope."
"Not they; the watch was too well set, but it was wanted. I had a leaf
about it a few minutes after, and it seems they got him asleep."
"Well! I never heard anyone bring a leaf."
"I dare say not, but I was expecting it; pigeon dropped it. There it is,
on that child's back."
I saw the hen-owl stoop and examine a dead chestnut leaf which lay, as
the other had said, on an owlet's back.
"Fa-a-ther!" said this owlet suddenly, in a shrill voice, "mayn't I go
out to-night?"
But all that Father did was to clasp its head in his claw and push it to
and fro several times. When he let go, the owlet made no sound, but
crept away and hid its face in a corner, and heaved as if with sobs.
Father closed his eyes slowly and opened them slowly--amused, I thought.
The mother had been reading the leaf all the time.
"Dear me! _very_ interesting!" she said. "I suppose now the worst of it
is over."
"All's quiet for to-night, anyhow," said Father, "but I wish he could
see someone about to-morrow; that's their last chance, and they
_may_----" He ruffled up his feathers, lifted first one foot and then
the other. "The awkwardness is," he went on, "if I say too much and they
do get the jars, there's one risk; and if there's no warning and they
get them, there's another risk."
"But if there _is_ a warning and they _don't_ get them," said she, very
sensibly.
"Well, to be sure, that would be better, even though we don't know much
about him."
"But where do you suppose he is, and whom ought he to see?" (It was just
what I wanted to know, and I thanked her.)
"Why, as to the first, I suspect he's outside; there is someone there,
and why they should stop there all this time unless they're listening, I
don't know."
"Good gracious! listening to our private conversation! and me with my
feathers all anyhow!" She began to peck at herself vigorously; but this
was straying from the point, and annoyed me. However, Father went slowly
on:
"As to that, I don't much care whether he's listening or not. As to whom
he ought to see, that's rather more difficult. If he's got as far as
talking to any of the Right People (he said this as if they had capital
letters), they'd know, of course; and some of them down about the
village, they'd know; and the Old Mother knows, and----"
"What about the boys?" said she, pausing in the middle of her toilet and
poking her head up at him. He wholly disdained to answer, and merely
butted at her with his head, so that she slipped down off her ledge
several inches, with a great scrabbling. "Oh, _don't_!" she said
peevishly, as she climbed back. "I'm all untidy again."
"Well then, don't ask such ridiculous questions. I shall buffle you with
both wings next time. And now, as soon as the coast is clear, I shall be
out and about."
I took the hint and moved off, for I had learnt as much perhaps as I
could expect, even if all was not yet plain; and before I had gone many
paces I was aware of the pair both sailing smoothly off in the opposite
direction.
I was "seeing through" a good deal that evening; it is surprising what a
lot of coppers people drop, even on a field path; surprising, too, in
how many places there lie, unsuspected, bones of men. Some things I saw
which were ugly and sad, like that, but more that were amusing and even
exciting. There is one spot I could show where four gold cups stand
round what was once a book, but the book is no more than earth now.
That, however, I did not see on this particular evening.
What I remember best is a family of young rabbits huddled round their
parents in a burrow, and the mother telling a story: "And so then he
went a little farther and found a dandelion, and stopped and sat up and
began to eat it. And when he had eaten two large leaves and one little
one, he saw a fly on it--no, two flies; and then he thought he had had
enough of that dandelion, and he went a little farther and found another
dandelion...." And so it went on interminably, and entirely stupid, like
everything else I ever heard a rabbit say, for they have forgotten all
about their ancestor, Brer Rabbit. However, the children were absorbed
in the story, so much so that they never heard a stoat making its way
down the burrow. But I heard it, and by stamping and driving my stick in
I was able to make it turn tail and go off, cursing. All stoats,
weasels, ferrets, polecats, are of the wrong people, as you may imagine,
and so are most rats and bats.
At last I left off seeing through, by trying not to do so, and went back
to the house, where I found all safe and quiet.
I ought to say that I had not as yet tried speaking to any animal, even
to the cat when she scratched me, but I thought I would try it now. So
when she came in at dinner-time and circled about, with what I may call
pious aspirations about fish and other such things, I summoned up my
courage and said (using my voice in the way I described, or rather did
not describe, before):
"I used to be told, 'If you are hungry, you can eat dry bread.'"
She was certainly horribly startled. At first I thought she would have
dashed up the chimney or out of the window; but she recovered pretty
quickly and sat down, still looking at me with intense surprise.
"I suppose I might have guessed," she said; "but dear! what a turn you
did give me! I feel quite faint; and gracious! what a day it has been!
When I found you dozing off like a great---- Well, no one wants to be
rude, do they? but I can tell you I had more than half a mind to go at
your face."
"I am glad you didn't," I said; "and really, you know, it wasn't my
fault: it was that stuff they were burning on the path."