ENTER THE KNIGHT-MARE
At first it was easy enough for the children to follow the narrow
winding path which the Sandman had pointed out, but soon they came to
a part of the wood where the underbrush grew thicker and their path
lost itself in a network of other little paths spread out as if on
purpose to confuse them. Rudolf and Ann hurried along as fast as they
could go, but it was hard work to make their way through the tangled
undergrowth where the twisted roots set traps for their feet--and
caught them, too, sometimes--while overhead the tall trees met and
mingled their branches. From these hung down great masses of trailing
vines and spreading creepers like long, lean, hairy arms stretched
out to bar their way. Rudolf had to stop now and then to hack at these
arms with his sword before he and Ann could pass through. Worst of
all--the thick growth of trees made the wood so dark that they could
not see more than a few feet ahead of them.
"Oh, Ruddy, I'm sure we're not on the right path any more," said Ann
at last. "Peter is so little--he never, never could have pushed his
way through here!"
"N-no," admitted Rudolf. "Perhaps he couldn't, but maybe he stuck to
the right path, Ann, and if he did he's there by this time."
"But I don't want him to get there!" poor Ann cried. "That would be
much worse for him than being lost. If he's just around the wood
somewhere we can find him and bring him back and then coax Sandy to
send us all home by the toboggan-slide to Aunt Jane, but if he's found
the Bad Dreams or they've found him--Oh, Ruddy, how do we know what
awful things they may be doing to him!"
"Don't be a goose, Ann," said Rudolf stoutly, though he was really
beginning to feel worried himself. "You know they are only dreams if
they _are_ bad. What can a dream do, anyway? They're not real."
"Oh, they're real enough," sighed little Ann. "Sometimes the things in
dreams are real-er than real things. I'm 'fraid enough of real cows,
but _they_ can't walk up-stairs like the dream cows can--and, oh, I
remember the dream I dreamed about the Dentist-man, after I had my
tooth pulled, the one father gave me the dollar for--and--"
"Bother!" said Rudolf. "I've had lots worse dreams than cows and
dentists. P'licemen and Indian chiefs, and--oh, heaps of things, and I
didn't really mind 'em, either, but then I'm braver than--"
"Sh!" interrupted Ann, stopping and catching at Rudolf's arm. "I hear
something--something queer. Listen!"
[Illustration: "I hear something--something queer."]
Rudolf listened. "I don't hear anything," he said at last. "What was
it like?"
"Oh, such a creepy, crawly sound, and--Oh, Ruddy--there is a face--see
it? A horrid little face peeping out at us from behind that tree!"
Rudolf saw the face too, a winking, blinking, leering, little face
much like the one that had grinned at Ann from the post of the big bed
not so very long ago.
All at once as the children looked about them, they began to see faces
everywhere, faces in the crotches of the trees, faces where the
branches crossed high above their heads, faces even in the undergrowth
about their feet. It reminded Rudolf of the puzzle pictures he and Ann
were so fond of studying where you have to look and look before you
can find the hidden people, but when once you have found them you
wonder how you could have been so stupid as not to have spied them
long before. He heard distinctly now the noises Ann had heard. It was
as if the hidden places of the wood were full of small live things
which were gathering together and coming toward the children from
every direction, closing them in on every side. Then somebody laughed
in a high cracked voice just behind them, one of Ann's curls was
sharply pulled, and Rudolf's precious sword was plucked from his hand
and tossed upon the ground. Still they could see no bodies to which
the little faces could belong, and they began to feel very queer
indeed.
Then came the laugh again, repeated a number of times and coming now
from directly over their heads where the branches of a great beech
tree swept almost to the ground. Rudolf and Ann looked up just in time
to catch sight of the queer little creatures who were looking down at
them from between the beech leaves. It was no wonder they had been so
hard to see, for they were dressed in tight-fitting suits of fur
exactly the color of the bark, and had small pointed fur hoods upon
their heads which made them look very much like squirrels. Even now
that the children had spied them out, it was impossible to examine
them closely for they were never quiet, never in the same place more
than an instant, but swung themselves restlessly from bough to bough,
then to the ground and back again in two jumps, peeping, peering,
racing each other along the branches, all the time without the
slightest noise other than was made by their light feet among the
leaves and the two laughs the children had heard.
Rudolf picked up his sword, and said in as bold a voice as he could
manage--"Please, could any of you tell us the right path to--"
A burst of sharp squeals, shrill laughs, and jeering remarks
interrupted his question. The whole company of queer creatures dropped
to the ground at the same time, and instantly formed a circle about
the children, snapping their little white teeth, and grinning and
chattering like monkeys.
"Are you the Bad Dreams?" asked Rudolf. Then, as a burst of laughter
contradicted this idea--"Who are you, then?"
"Who are we? Who are we?" mocked the creatures. "O-ho, hear the human!
Doesn't know us--never got scolded on _our_ account, did he, did he?
_Oh_, no; _oh_, no! Bite him, snatch him, scratch him! _Catch_ him!"
Closer and closer the horrid little things pressed about the two
children. "What do you mean, anyway?" cried Rudolf, keeping them back
with his foot as best he could. "Who are you? You're squirrels--that's
all you are!"
"Squirrels!" The leader of the little wretches seemed furious at the
idea. "No, no," he screamed, making a dash at Rudolf's leg with his
sharp teeth. "We're Fidgets, Fidgets, Fidgets! Don't you know the
Fidgets when you see 'em, you great blundering human, you? An old,
_old_ family, that's what we are. Guess Methuselah had the Fidgets
sometimes, guess he did, did, did!" With every one of the last three
words he made a snatch at Rudolf, trying his best to bite him, and at
the same time dodging cleverly the blows Rudolf was now dealing on all
sides with his sword.
Ann had picked up a little stick and was doing her best to help Rudolf
in his battle. "I know you," she cried, turning angrily on the
Fidgets, "you horrid little things! I've had you often, in school just
before it's out, and in church, and when mother takes me out to make
calls--you've disgraced her often--" Then she stopped, really afraid
of saying too much. The Fidgets, with a wild squeal, now began a mad
sort of dance round and round the two children, giving them now a nip,
now a pinch, now a sharp pull till they were dizzy and frightened and
weary of trying to defend themselves against such unequal numbers.
All at once, above the shrill cries of their enemies, the children
heard a new sound, a crackling rustling noise in the bushes as if some
large creature was making its way through the wood. The Fidgets heard
it, too, and in a twinkling they had hushed their shrill voices,
broken their circle, and completely hidden themselves from sight. It
was all so sudden that Rudolf and Ann had no time to run, but stood
perfectly still, gazing at the bushes just in front of them from which
the noises came.
As they looked the bushes were parted, and a long lean head poked
itself through, a large black head with a white streak down its nose,
and two great mournful eyes that stared into theirs. Ann gave a little
scream and shrank closer to Rudolf. The creature opened a wide mouth
that showed enormous, ugly, yellow teeth, and said in a rough but not
unfriendly voice: "Hullo! Oats-and-Broadswords--if it's not a couple
of lost colts! Where'd you come from, youngsters?"
Without waiting for them to answer, it crashed through the bushes and
stood before them, a curious sight, indeed the strangest they had yet
seen in the course of their adventures. What they had thought was a
horse from the sight of its head, was a horse no farther down than the
shoulders, all the rest of him was a Knight, a splendid knight in full
armor of shining steel. He was without weapon of any kind, and even
while the children shrank from the sight of his big ugly head with its
sad eyes and long yellow teeth, they saw that this was not a creature
to be much afraid of.
"Well, I scared 'em away, didn't I?" he asked triumphantly, and then,
hanging his head a little, he added in rather a humble tone, "It's
pretty poor sport hunting Fidgets, I know, but it's about all I can
get nowadays. Hope they didn't hurt you?" he added politely.
"Not a bit," said Rudolf, "but I'm sure I'm glad you came along when
you did, for I don't know how we ever would have got rid of the
beastly little things. Only when we first saw you, we thought--"
"Oh, I know," interrupted the stranger hastily--"you thought it was
something worse. That's it, that's just my luck! I'm the gentlest
creature in the world and everybody's afraid of me. My business," he
explained, turning to Ann, "is to redress wrongs and to see after the
ladies, but--bless you--they won't let me get near enough to do
anything for 'em!" A great tear rolled down his long nose as he spoke,
and he looked so silly that Ann and Rudolf could hardly help laughing
at him, though they did not in the least want to be rude.
"And then," continued the creature, sobbing, "I'm so divided in my
feelings. If I were only _all_ Knight, now, or even all Mare, I'd be
thankful, but a Knight-mare is an unsatisfactory sort of thing to be."
"A Knight-mare--Oh, how dreadful!" cried Ann, drawing away from him.
"Is _that_ what you are?"
"There! You see how it is!" exclaimed the Knight-mare, tossing his
long black mane. "Nobody's got any sympathy for me. How would _you_
like it? Suppose you were a little girl only as far as your shoulders
and all the rest of you hippopotamus, eh?"
"I wouldn't like it at all," said Ann, after thinking a moment.
"Then no more do I," said the Knight-mare, and sighed a long sad sigh.
"Would you mind telling us how it happened?" asked Rudolf politely.
"Not at all," said the Knight-mare. "You see I was a great boy for
fighting in the old days--though you mightn't think it to see me
now--and I used to ride forth to battle on my coal-black steed, this
very mare whose head I'm wearing now. Well, of course I was a terror
to my enemies, used to scare 'em into fits, and I suppose it was one
of those very fellows that got me into this fix, dreamed me into it
one night, you know, only he got me and my steed mixed. We've stayed
mixed ever since, and the worst of it is I oughtn't to be a Bad Dream
at all. I was the nicest kind of a Good Dream once--why I belonged to
a lady who lived in a castle, and she thought a lot of me, she did!"
"It's too bad," said Rudolf sympathetically; "but isn't there anything
you can do about it?"
"Nothing," groaned the Knight-mare, "nothing at all. At least not till
I can find a way to get rid of this ugly head of mine. If there was
anybody big enough and brave enough, now, to--" He interrupted his
speech to stoop down and snatch up something from the grass. It was
Rudolf's sword which he had dropped from his hand in his weariness
after his battle with the Fidgets. "What's this?" the Knight-mare
cried. "Hurrah, a sword!"
"My sword," said Rudolf, stretching out his hand for it.
"Just the thing for cutting heads off!" cried the Knight. "Will you
lend it to me, like a good fellow? Mine is lost."
"What for?" asked Rudolf suspiciously.
"Why, to cut my head off with, of course, or better yet, perhaps
you'll do it for me. Come, now! Just to oblige me?"
Rudolf took back his sword, while Ann gave a little scream and seized
both the Knight's mailed hands in hers. "I'm sorry not to oblige you,"
said Rudolf firmly, "but I can't do anything of the sort. I never cut
anybody's head off in my life, and the sword's not so awful sharp,
you know, and then how can you tell a new head will grow at your time
of life?"
"Oh, I'd risk that," said the Knight-mare lightly. "I do wish you'd
think it over. If you knew what a life mine is! All my days spent
browsing round on shoots here in the wood, without a single adventure
because nobody's willing to be rescued by the likes of me! And then
the nights! Oh"--groaned the poor fellow--"the nights are the worst of
all!"
"What do you do then?" asked Rudolf and Ann.
"Oh, I'm ridden to death," sighed the Knight-mare. "As if it wasn't
bad enough to scare folks all day _not_ meaning to, without being sent
out nights to do it on purpose!" He looked over his shoulder as if he
was afraid some one might be listening, and then added in a low
voice, "And it's not my fault, either, I swear it's not. _They_
actually make me do it!"
The children shivered, for they guessed at once that "they" meant the
Bad Dreams. Then they suddenly recollected poor little Peter, whom
their last adventure and the Knight-mare's talk had quite put out of
their minds.
"I tell you what," said Rudolf suddenly, "I'll make a bargain with
you. My little brother has run away to find the Bad Dreams, and we
have got to find him and bring him back. If you'll lead us to him and
help us all you can, why--why--I won't promise--but I'll see what I
can do for you."
The Knight-mare gave a loud triumphant neigh. "Ods-bodikins and bran
mash!" he cried. "You're worth rescuing for nothing, the whole lot of
you! But"--he added mournfully--"I ought to warn you to keep away
from that crowd--they're a bad lot. You'd do better to cut along
home."
"We can't do that," cried Rudolf and Ann together.
"Then come with me," said the Knight-mare. "It's only a short way
to--"
He was suddenly interrupted by a fresh commotion in the wood. Heavy
bodies were parting the undergrowth back of where they stood. Before
the children could think of escape, four strange figures sprang on
them from behind, their arms were seized, they were tripped up, and
they landed very hard upon the ground. Both knew in a moment what had
happened. The Bad Dreams had caught them!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]