The Midnight Folk Read online

  Kay and Edward crept up the secret stair into Kay’s room. There they heard the voice of Abner Brown calling, “Haven’t you got them, Mrs. Pouncer?” and Pouncer’s voice replying, “It’s too provoking. I must have put the lantern and rope somewhere, when I was tidying, and then, my one league shoes are gone.”

  “Well, come on,” Abner said. “We must do without them. After all, we’ve got some lights and a rope and the carriages are here.”

  “I must just look a moment longer,” she said.

  “Really you mustn’t stay a minute longer,” Abner answered. “We’ve got to get to the river and into the cave. It will be daylight before we lift anything at this rate.”

  This seemed to convince Mrs. Pouncer, because she went downstairs muttering, “It’s too provoking,” and Kay heard her pass along the hall and out at the front door. Soon the noise of carriage wheels was heard on the gravel.

  “That’s it,” Edward said. “They’ve learned where the treasure was by their magic, but they’ve learned it a little too late. Now come along, boys, let’s get busy. All the stuff in these carts has to go underneath this hearthstone before daylight.”

  There then followed a great bustle among the guards. One by one the carts were brought up and unloaded. The treasure was then carried up by hand and laid under the stone. All worked with a will. After two hours of hard work it was all stored safely away.

  Kay stood with a light in the secret room looking at it as it was carried down. First they brought in the gold and silver people which had so pleased the mermaids. Three of these were knights with swords, and one a queen-knight, leaning forward, with her hair blown back from her helmet. Then four were Bringers of Blessings, like King Cole of England, King Alfred of Wessex, Saint Nicholas of Bari, and Saint Augustine. Four others were lovely, calm women, Forgiveness, Mercy, Peace and Pity. “According to the list,” Edward said, “there should be one more of these people; but he is not there.”

  “He is under the sea,” Kay said.

  After the images, came the great gold and silver candlesticks that the goggle-eyes of so many fish had gawped at. Then came the censers and the church vessels. Then, when these had all been stored away, there came the marvellous caskets, each made like a church of gold or silver, with spires and pinnacles specked with jewels. The roofs of these churches opened like doors; inside were coloured glitterings from jewels, for each church was a box of precious stones, pearls, blue sapphires, yellow sapphires, opals like jewels with fire inside them, rubies like the heart of fire, emeralds like the depth of the green sea, diamonds like raindrops in the sun. Here and there on the treasures were relics of their travels, such as bits of the grass-mattings from Santa Barbara; chalk-marks and numbers put on them by Captain Harker or his mate Hollings, when they were brought on board the Plunderer; sprigs of coral, dried seaweed and a few spiky, pearly shells from their under-the-sea time; and much of the dried red mud of Old Man John’s farm. On the last of the caskets was an old envelope with the following inscription in ink:

  Brought up the river, and safely landed by me at midnight, January 25th, 1850.—P. Trigger.

  “I don’t know who helped him,” Edward said. “Probably his Indians, whom he paid and sent home afterwards. He was a rough customer, Sir Piney, but he did do his best to make amends for it.”

  It seemed to Kay and Edward that they heard a North Country voice say, “Tha’s reet, ma son.” Then, a moment later, they heard the same voice and a familiar female voice (now sweeter and fuller than it had been) singing in the garden:

  “After long years alone,

  Ironed to flesh and bone,

  It is most sweet to pass

  Like wind above the grass,

  Free ever, and to find

  The waiting mind.

  Then to set forth together,

  To know the new strange weather,

  And where the new road leads;

  To put old burdens by,

  And have the wind and sky,

  Light as the wild-duck’s feather

  Or dandelion seeds.”

  When the song had died away in the distance, Kay asked if he might speak to the guards. They all came in, in their dusty, rough, muddy working clothes. They were very much sunburnt and wind-tanned; it was lovely to see them all looking so well, and to have them there again. Kay spoke to each one and thanked them all.

  “You must have had a dreadfully hard time,” he said.

  “We had a lot of disappointments,” Edward said. “We followed so many false clues. And I must say that yesterday, after all night in the mud with those two men whom Arthur lent, I must say that we came near to despair. It was little Maria who kept us at it. She made us all lovely beef-tea, and whipped up eggs in milk (and in cream for poor Brown Bear), and it was she and Susan who thought that there might be that cave to the south. I can tell you . . . when Otter gave us a hint, and it proved to be the fact, when we peered in and saw the treasure, it atoned for any troubles we may have had. I must say, that was a moment.

  “But, however, we have found it; it is safely stored, and this stone is sealed. What I have to say now is . . . Up Guards and at them. It’s time to set this house to rights.

  “You, Lenda, take Jemima, Susan and Maria into this Pouncer’s room, seal her cupboard, then lock everything up, so that she won’t get in again.

  “You, Peterkin, Snowball and James, and you, W. Brown, break open that magic room, fling everything that you find there out of the window and burn it in the bonfire.

  “And the watchword, till further orders, is Keep Awake.”

  While they were hurrying to obey, there was a scuttering in the passage, Otter came tumbling into the room.

  “I say,” he said, “there are such doings, down by the river. The eight of them came, with that man Roper Bilges and his brother, and the pimply man, and Brassy, who sets the traps. They have all been digging in the mud for hours. They’re all filthy, blistered and as cross as two sticks. Then they got into the south cave and found the treasure gone; then they got into the middle cave and found a body. Now they’re all fighting, quarrelling and blaming each other.”

  “Serve them right,” Edward said. “But tell me, Otter, as you came here, did you see any coastguard men?”

  “I should think I did,” Otter said. “Dozens of them, some on the roads, others in boats, all creeping in on them.”

  “Right,” Edward said. “My plans are working just as I could wish. John, just run down to the study, will you, and bring up yesterday’s paper?”

  Edward opened the paper and read:

  “His Excellency, the Dictator of Santa Barbara, accompanied by the Archbishop of Santa Barbara and a numerous and distinguished suite, will arrive in London early tomorrow on a short visit to the metropolis. They will be stopping at the Hotel Glorious.”

  “There,” Edward cried. “On the very day the treasure is found, the people arrive to take charge of it. I noticed that announcement yesterday, tired as I was; that shows you the kind of brain I have.”

  “I showed it to him,” Maria whispered.

  “I’ll send them a letter,” Kay said. “Come along to the drawing-room, where the embossed notepaper is kept.”

  In the drawing-room, Kay wrote his letter:

  DEAR LORD EXCELLENCY AND ARCHBISHOP,

  I hop you are quite well.

  All the church treasure which was trusted to Capt. Harker, my great-grandfather, is now safely here. Please come with safe men to take it.

  I am quite well.

  KAY HARKER.

  “I’m afraid he’ll never come for that,” Kay said. “He’ll think it’s a rag.”

  “Well, let’s send it by someone who will make him come,” Edward said. “Not Ernest, he’s such an ass. Bruno Bree is the man. Bruno, mount Petter Horse, gallop to London to the Hotel Glorious, and give this letter to the Dictator’s hand. Tell him it’s deadly serious and he must come at once.”

  “I must put in a P.S.” Kay said. “T
he statue of St. George is under the sea.”

  After Bruno had galloped off with the letter, Edward said, “I must say, that your guardian has been an ass, Kay. However, someone else will be here this morning; then, perhaps, something can be arranged.

  “Now I’ll just post some guards, and you’d better get to bed for an hour or two.”

  ☆

  It was very late when Ellen called Kay that morning.

  “Oh there have been doings,” she said. “Your governess and a whole lot more of them have been taken trespassing down in a cave where they were smuggling. And what’s worse is that there’s a dead body where they’ve murdered someone. And, oh, the brandy they’ve found. Joe says it’s enough to make the Army blind and the Navy mellow. And Sir Hassle has had to telegraph to your guardian.”

  There were no lessons that morning, but a great deal of coming and going.

  But long before lunch, at about eleven o’clock, there came a much greater surprise. While Kay was in the schoolroom wrestling with a portion of Mrs. Markham, Ellen came to say that he was wanted in the drawing-room. This was usually a message foreboding punishment. Today Ellen brought it all smiling. “Who is there, Ellen?” he asked. “You are a tease not to tell a fellow.”

  “You go down and you’ll see,” she said.

  He went down in a drag-leg sort of way, and opened the door. There, to his amazement, was the beautiful lady who had taken him to the weathercocks and to Miss Twiney Pricker. She came up to him and kissed him. “You don’t know who I am,” she said. “But I know who you are. I am Caroline Louisa, who loved your Mother. I could not come before, but now I am going to live here and look after you. Will you like that?”

  “Will I like that? I should rather think so. But what will she say?”

  “She won’t be here.”

  “Oh.”

  ☆

  At half-past two that afternoon they were playing cricket in the garden, when His Excellency, the Dictator, with the Archbishop of Santa Barbara, and two very important-looking men, drove up to the door in the fly from the Cock and Pye. They were all as nice as they could be. Kay had the great pleasure of taking them to his room, rolling back the carpet and showing them the stone. The two men procured crowbars from the ironmonger’s shop in the village. They hove the stone aside, there was the treasure neatly arranged as the guards had left it. Kay told them all the story of it. They guarded it that night and then carried it away.

  As for Abner Brown, Mrs. Pouncer and the others, they were all examined by the magistrates for being found unlawfully assembled, with arms in their possession, with intent to defraud the Queen’s Majesty, by removing certain articles of contraband, to wit brandy, lace and tobacco from where they were to some other place, the said articles not having paid any duty. The magistrates were much puzzled by the case, because the people were not smugglers, and had not smuggled the goods, yet were plainly there with ropes, hooks and carriages to remove the same. The Seven were at last dismissed with a good scolding for taking part in a foolish frolic, but they were fined a large sum for trespassing in pursuit of game.

  Abner Brown paid all the fines. Mrs. Pouncer left the district that afternoon.

  Roper Bilges was discharged from his place for poaching. In revenge, he and his brother, Sir Hassle’s footman, poisoned all the otter hounds. For this they were sent to Dr. Gubbins’s Remedial Home for Scoundrels, where parts of them have been cut out, cleaned, and then put back; they are already much improved. Dr. Gubbins has great hopes of them.

  Pimply Whatto and Brassy are now keeping a little pig farm.

  Sir Hassle wears his grandfather’s repeater, which goes as well as ever it did. He takes Kay for a ride three times a week, out of the hunting season; he is going to give Kay a lovely little pony mare, called Christine, for his birthday, but of course this is a secret. Sir Hassle never draws for a fox down by the river.

  The Squire will not buy any more otter hounds, otter hunting has therefore come to an end there. Water-Rat and Otter have the river to themselves; they are very happy there, as the salmon have begun to come back.

  Miss Twiney Pricker mourned for her Pa; but was glad to have his bones to bury. She is very well, but her medical attendant is sadly distressed at her smoking and drinking and most unladylike language.

  Joe has taken the pledge, and is keeping it.

  Bitem is very well. He has a fine summer lair in the hollow of Spring Hill. So far he has had one of my hens and three of my ducks this season. In the winter he goes down to the cave near the river where no hounds ever come. I hear him singing from time to time.

  Blackmalkin and Greymalkin have turned over new leaves; but of course they will never be so nice as Nibbins, who is the nicest cat there is.

  Old Blinky is still there, so is Bat.

  Ellen and Jane say that they are never going to marry; but stop where they are to look after Kay until he marries.

  Kay and Caroline Louisa are as happy as the day is long. Last year they went to spend the winter as the guests of the Dictator of Santa Barbara, where they had a most happy time. While they were there, the Archbishop showed them the treasure, or some of it, in use, as it had been of old, the candlesticks on the Altar, the images against the screens in the quire, and the vessels in the side-chapels. Many of the precious stones from the caskets had been sold to build and endow a great College for the Study and Cure of Disease.

  While at sea, both going and returning, Kay was quite sure that he saw the mermaids.

  The guards are very happy, too. You may be sure that there is no more witchcraft in the house, nothing but peace and mirth all day and at night peace, the owls crying, the crickets chirping and all sort of fun going on among

  THE MIDNIGHT FOLK.

  THE END

  ☆

  NOTE ON THE TEXT

  THE PRESENT edition of The Midnight Folk is the first to have been corrected against John Masefield’s manuscript of the work, held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin.

  The manuscript comprises just under three hundred pages, extensively revised with many corrections, additions, deletions, and alterations. During the period that Masefield was writing The Midnight Folk he suffered from a problem with his right hand and became adept at writing with his left. The manuscript includes writing in both right and left hands together with typed passages.

  Masefield’s process of writing The Midnight Folk created many different versions. Often new passages were pasted over older versions. Due to the deterioration of the manuscript over time several revised passages have disappeared, however, and these sections of text consequently rely entirely on the first published edition as a source.

  Here then, is a text based on the first English edition, corrected from the manuscript. I have resisted the temptation to include deleted passages unless there seems a compelling reason for their restoration. We are not to learn of the importance of teatime to Kay, for example:

  Tea did not matter to grown-ups, but it mattered to Kay, because he had no other meal after it except a cup of bread and milk . . .

  nor of the various clocks at Seekings:

  There was not any clock in Kay’s room; but he could hear the cuckoo-clock, in the nursery at the end of the passage at the hours and half-hours. He could hear the church clock and the Squire’s stable clock chiming the quarters.

  But there are a few new details or expanded passages within the book which may interest readers of this, John Masefield’s favourite book.

  —DR. PHILIP W. ERRINGTON

  Deputy Director, Department of Printed Books and Manuscripts, Sotheby’s

  Honorary Research Fellow, Department of English, University College London

  Archivist, the John Masefield Society

  AFTERWORD

  JOHN MASEFIELD’S The Midnight Folk was in my bookcase when I was a solitary only child growing up in New York. From this and other books I was made familiar with the world of the English orphan
in the charge of a guardian and brought up by a governess. Governesses were either beautiful young women who had fallen on hard times—and who usually ended up marrying the guardian (if the guardian was nice) or the hero who took over the guardianship when the horrid guardian’s vile deeds were uncovered—or tall, handsome women who were very wicked, and it didn’t take me long to guess that young Kay Harker’s governess was a witch.

  This witch and her wicked companions were after the treasure with which Kay’s great-grandfather Harker had been entrusted and which, through a series of misfortunes, he had lost.

  As a child I gave a willing suspension of disbelief to Kay’s travels through time and space, first with the good cat, Nibbins (there are two bad cats, involved in witchcraft, which Nibbins has put behind him), then into Great-grandfather Harker’s portrait.

  Great-grandfather Harker tells Kay that he needs his honor restored. He had been entrusted with the great jewels of the churches of Santa Barbara, and he will not rest until they are returned, though they were lost through no fault of his own but through mutiny, shipwreck, capture. When Captain Harker returns to England, many people assume that he has not, in fact, lost the treasure but has been living off ill-gotten gains, and that most of the treasure is hidden somewhere on his estate—quite possibly under the great hearthstone in what is now Kay’s bedroom. Of course this is what the wicked governess thinks, and she is determined, by hook or by crook, to get the treasure for herself and her evil companions.

  Masefield makes no bones about calling evil people evil. The nastiest one of all, Abner Brown, is described as being “like a white, sweet, sanctified horse-dealer, or a hymn-singing cut-throat, or any cherry-lipped poisoner who will drop a tear at your pain and put ratsbane in your beer at the same breath.” John Masefield, the poet, makes it possible for the reader to accept the convoluted and perhaps overly complicated plot—though when I was a child such complex interweaving of strands delighted me more than they confused me, and I doubt that they will daunt the young reader today.