The Midnight Folk Page 3

  “That will catch your light feet, Mr. Lightfoot,” he said; “and then, with my good gun, I’ll put an end to your snibbing of my rabbits. Many a young hunter will give a pound for that mask of yourn, and your brush shall be a cobweb cleaner before you’re a week older. I’ll get up my tree, my master, and watch till you walk click into it. You’ll be coming home within an hour. I know your ways.”

  Kay saw him move into the wood above the quarry, where he began to climb a tree. As soon as he was climbing, Kay hurried back to tell the others what he had seen.

  “A trap?” Bitem said; “and Keeper watching from a tree? I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Kay. I must be gone from here by the secret door. I’ll move off to my place Wicked Hill way.”

  “There’s something on at Wicked Hill, the owls said,” Nibbins said. “Do you think it would be safe?”

  “A lot safer than this,” Bitem said.

  “Yes, for you,” Nibbins said. “But I meant for us.”

  “They don’t harm anyone as long as they keep outside the magic circle.”

  “I’d love to go, just to look on,” Nibbins said. “It’s probably a big magic night, Kay, when they have a bonfire; and oh, I do love to see them at magic. It’s terrifying, but I can’t resist it.”

  “Well, come along,” Bitem said.

  “We can steal round to our horses and give you a lift, Bitem.”

  The fox led the way out of his study into a narrow passage, where Kay had to crawl on hands and knees. This led into a biggish room from which several passages branched; water was dripping in one of them.

  “Very convenient in here,” Bitem said. “Lots of ways out and plenty of water; but this is the way we’ll take tonight.” In a few minutes they scrambled out among some gorse roots (at least a hundred yards from the keeper) near the spindle trees where the brooms were tethered.

  “You mount with me, Bitem,” Nibbins said; “and you, Kay, just follow us. There are spindles where we can tether; lots of them.”

  In a moment the brooms were sweeping through the air over the treetops. Kay saw a few white houses here and there below him, and many gleaming ponds and brooks. Far ahead, among the hills, was the glow of a bonfire. Soon they could see people dancing round it. Kay came to ground with Nibbins and Bitem beside a spinney on the hill. There were many spindle bushes in the spinney, but to many of them brooms were already tethered.

  “I’ll be off to my place,” Bitem said, “over there among the Old Ones. You’ll find the Night Folk up at the top. Good night.”

  Wicked Hill was a big round lump with a hollow top. The lower slopes grew bracken and bramble, but near the top nothing grew except a short bladed grass. The stump of an old gibbet stood at one end of it. An earthwork with two gates ringed the top of the hill. On the top of this earthwork the magic circle was burning in a narrow line of blue fire, which was being fed by little black cats who walked round the ring dropping herbs on it.

  “That used to be my job when I did this kind of thing,” Nibbins whispered.

  The bonfire, which had now sunk to a glow, was in the midst of the circle. The people who had danced about it were now drawn together in a group. They were listening to a wizard, in a long scarlet gown, who seemed to be their king or chief.

  “That’s Abner Brown,” Nibbins whispered. “He’s always the head of these big parties.”

  “Hush,” Kay said. “Let’s hear what he’s saying.”

  “So, my brothers and sisters,” Abner was saying, “we have had our evening’s frolic; now let us come to our evening’s business. The great task before us is to find the Harker Treasure.” (Here there were cries of “Hear, hear!”)

  “We all know what that was: it was the treasure of the great South American cathedral of Santa Barbara. It was a barge-load of gold, silver and precious stones, wrought and unwrought, but worth, so the records prove, at least one million seven hundred thousand pounds. There are seven times seven of us. If we find it, the share of each one of us will be some thirty-five thousand pounds. I ask you, is it worth trying to find?”

  (There were loud cries of “Yes!”)

  “You say ‘yes,’ and you may mean ‘yes,’ but will you all work for ‘yes’?”

  (There were shouts of “Yes, to the death!”)

  “Very well, then,” he said, “I am glad that we are all resolved. We will now break up our party. Let all the Sevens leave the hill except the Pouncer Seven.”

  When most of the party had gone, Kay saw that Mrs. Pouncer, Sister Nightshade and the rest of the Seven drew near to Abner.

  “Sister Pouncer,” Abner said, “why are you vexed?”

  “Enemies are at work,” she said. “They took my broom and Nightshade’s broom, so that we had to walk.”

  “Do not be vexed, my Pouncer,” Abner said, “because I am far from vexed. I have discovered something very important about the treasure.”

  “Oh! what, dear Abner?”

  “You are quite wrong about it. It is not in the Harker home, but Somewhere Near Here.”

  At this there came cries of “No! It cannot be. How can it be? Where do you suppose it is? Why is it not in the Harker house? Where is it?”

  “We will find out that presently,” he said, “of WHERE it is. Listen to what I have to say of WHEREABOUTS it is.”

  The Seven drew nearer, intently listening.

  “You know,” Abner went on, “that when I was little, I helped my father and grandfather (both of them Abner Browns like myself) to look for the treasure. I might say I was at this quest from birth.” (Here there were remarks of “Hear, hear!”)

  “As you know, my grandfather once had the treasure, but lost it. For more than twenty years he and my father dug for it where they thought it would be. One of my earliest recollections is of helping them to dig for it in a hot country of very red mud.

  “Then my grandpop disappeared, and within a week my pop died of the yellow fever. I had the harsh world to wrestle with before I could take up the quest.

  “But I took it up, just thirty years after those two laid it down. It wasn’t easy to pick up the threads. At last I went down to that place in the red mud to make enquiries. The yellow fever had killed ’most everyone who had lived there when my pop and grandpop dug there. But I met an old negro who knew just why my grandpop gave up digging and disappeared.

  “He gave up digging, because someone found the treasure and carried it off to sea.

  “He disappeared, so as to settle matters with that finder. The finder was an Englishman, named Benito Trigger.

  “That is not much to go upon, is it? Thirty-five years ago, an Englishman gets to sea with the stuff three thousand miles away and disappears. My grandpop goes after him and disappears. At first I thought that this Benito Trigger might be Captain Harker himself, for, as we know, he lived for many years in quest of the treasure.”

  “Or pretended to, so as to lull suspicion, while he lived on it,” Mrs. Pouncer said under her breath.

  “But it was not Captain Harker,” Abner continued. “For when I came here to make enquiries, I found that Captain Harker was at that time upon his deathbed.

  “I need not tell you how interesting it was to see the very house in which old Captain Harker lived, and to see his tomb, and to stand within just a few feet of those bones which, when they were alive, had started all this treasure hunt.

  “For the moment I ruled him out. ‘You didn’t get the treasure, brother,’ I said. ‘You were in your tomb before it could have reached England, if it ever did reach England.’”

  “It was in his secret den before he ever sickened,” Mrs. Pouncer muttered. “Of course he had it; had it all the time.”

  “But,” Abner continued, “I fell right plumb in love with this green countryside, so full of real old buildings; so I just didn’t rest till I’d taken Russell’s Dene, that Queen Anne mansion, in the oak wood, where tradition says the Druids once practised their rites. There, as you know, we have been able to establish our M
agic Circle, for the Quest of the Treasure, upon the Lines of the Ancient Knowledge.

  “And there are red birds that come out of the wilderness with Knowledge. One of them came to me this spring, just after I was settled in Russell’s Dene. He led me to visit a certain church, not many miles from here. And what did I find there?”

  Here some of the Seven said “The treasure? Some of the candlesticks? The church vessels in use again?”

  “No, none of those things,” he answered. “I found the tomb of my long-lost grandpop, Abner Brown. He had been drowned in the Great Flood here in February, 1850: February Fill-Dyke, as you call it.

  “Was not that wonderful?

  “I have now raked out something of his end. He was last seen alive at the Condicote Inn, the Ring of Bells, on the last night of January, 1850. He was then heard quarrelling, with whom?

  “With Sir Piney Trigger, a rich Honduras merchant, who had just returned from two years’ absence in the West. That Piney Trigger was the Trigger who had found the treasure and carried it off to sea: my grandpop had run him down.

  “That night, after their quarrel, both my grandpop and Sir Piney disappeared. What happened, do you suppose? Many asked that at the time. I answer it. I say that Sir Piney had the treasure here; that my grandpop had discovered so much and asked for a share. They quarrelled. I say that Sir Piney flung my grandpop into the flood and then fled the country. Left the country, left the treasure, and never dared come back for it because of blood-guiltiness.

  “The case is reported in the Condicote Remembrancer for February, 1850: they knew nothing of any treasure, of course; only enquired into the disappearance. The coroner’s jury supposed him to have been washed out to sea by the great Flood.

  “Now Sir Piney was a well-known sportsman, mixed up in many shady matters. His daughter is still alive; I have seen her; there’s no getting anything out of her.

  “What I have tried to find out is: what brought him to Condicote that night? In the coroner’s notes I found this: that it was supposed that he had come to look after a big barge of his which had come up the river some days before. It was a sea-going barge, fitted like a yacht: he had been in her in the West.

  “I say that he brought the treasure in her. He hid it somewhere not far from Condicote, and had come to see to it, or to remove it, when my grandpop interfered.”

  Here, as Abner paused as though for applause, Sister Nightshade asked: “May he not have taken all the treasure away in the barge when he took himself away?”

  “No,” Abner said. “Because the barge (dead empty) had been washed ashore and stove-in in the floods two days before he disappeared.

  “No, my sweet Seven; depend upon it, the treasure is near here; and somewhere here, probably near the river, we’ll find it.”

  Here there was a sensation among the company: all were much impressed and excited. Sister Pouncer said: “Was there ever such a Mind as our Abner’s? Like crystal from the spring.” But after saying this, she moved nearer to Kay and muttered: “This is all pure surmise. You have a Bee in your Bonnet, my good sir. I, too, have my views of where the treasure is, and we shall see who is right. Magic is a surer guide than a grandpop or a little-pop. For all your Tingo and Tango, Sister Pouncer holds the silken clew.”

  “And now, my dear Seven,” Abner continued, “we will have one short dance more, and then away, for the stars are dim and the cocks are stirring on their perches. Join hands and dance.”

  A strange music began from somewhere in the air; the Witches and Wizards at once swept into a dance.

  Nibbins was very uneasy. “I can’t keep out of a dance like this,” he said. “Oh, it goes right through my marrow; and then in a minute they will all join hands and swing round and round and round, till they see all sorts of things.”

  “You come away,” Kay said, pulling him down the hill. “You always were one for getting into scrapes. Let’s get back home, before they all come hurrying for their horses. If Mrs. Pouncer catches us at the spindle trees, we shall be in a mess.”

  He made Nibbins run, keeping one hand on the scruff of his neck all the way lest the sound of the dance should prove too exciting. In a few minutes they were high in the air again upon their horses, sailing far from the hill.

  “It’s just as well we started when we did,” Nibbins said, “for there’s the dawn beginning.”

  Sure enough, the sky behind them was showing colour: the two horses began to droop down towards the ground. Presently they were dragging along the ground, and at last they collapsed.

  “We left it till too late,” Nibbins said. “However, we’re almost at home. Come along; the gate’s locked, but we can get over the wall by the ivy.”

  They left their horses in the road, scrambled up the ivy, over the wall, and then along behind the laurustinus till they were near the house. “This is the place,” Nibbins said. They were within thirty yards of the house, in a thick shrubbery, but Nibbins must have touched a spring, for the ground gave way beneath them, and down they went into a secret passage. In another minute Nibbins was gone, and Kay was in his own room.

  “What a night I have had,” he thought. His slippers were muddy from the soil in the garden. “I shall catch it,” he thought.

  The cuckoo clock struck five; the room was quite light. He popped into bed at once. He did not stay long awake, you may be sure. Just before he fell asleep, however, he heard a curious noise on the wall of the house, not far away, as though the jasmine had broken away and were scraping as the wind blew it. “I suppose it’s the jasmine,” he muttered drowsily, “but it may be Ellen up already, sweeping the stairs.”

  When he came downstairs to breakfast the governess was not down. She entered just as he was at the sideboard, helping himself to pork pie. She looked a little cross, as though she had not slept very well.

  “You know,” she said, “that you’re never allowed to help yourself to pork pie. It’s a very bilious, rich food; and then you won’t be able to do your French. You must have an egg like any other boy. And you don’t mean to say, Kay, after all the many times that I’ve spoken to you, that you’ve been in the garden again in your slippers, and on the beds too! And then you wonder if you catch your death of cold!”

  “But I haven’t caught a cold,” he said.

  “Don’t answer me back, sir,” she said. “You’re a very naughty, disobedient little boy, and I have a very good mind not to let you have an egg. I wouldn’t let you have an egg, only I had to stop your supper last night. Take off one of those slippers and let me feel it. Come here.”

  Kay went up rather gingerly, having been caught in this way more than once. He took off one slipper and tendered it for inspection.

  “Just as I thought,” she said. “The damp has come right through the lining, and that’s the way your stockings get worn out.”

  In a very pouncing way she spanked at his knuckles with the slipper. He had expected a blow of the sort, and by drawing his hands swiftly aside, the slipper struck the spoons on the table and made them dance.

  “Now, you naughty boy, put that slipper on, and you’ll learn the whole of ‘pouvoir’ before you go out this morning. What were you muttering under your breath, Kay?”

  “I was just wondering if this was a duck egg or a hen egg.”

  “Use the subjunctive and the genitive,” she said. “Were a duck’s egg, not was a duck egg. And it’s a hen’s egg. Ducks’ eggs are a great deal too rich.”

  At any other time Kay would have boasted that it was a double-yolker, but refrained, thinking that this would probably lead to confiscation, as too much for a young stomach. He ate his egg, but his mind was intent upon many other things.

  Ellen came in.

  “If you please, ma’am,” Ellen said, “would you mind speaking to Jane.”

  Jane was at the door behind her.

  “If you please, ma’am,” Jane said, “would you please to look at this.”

  This was the dish on which the cold goose had lain, b
ut, alas, now nothing remained but a few picked bones and a skeleton almost bare.

  “The cats have been in again, ma’am. I don’t know how they get in; and the chine’s gone the same way, and there’s two more brooms gone.”

  “Did you lock the larder door, Jane?”

  “Yes, ma’am, and I took the key and had it under my pillow. And if it isn’t cats—and I don’t know how cats get in—then somebody must have a key and come in in the night, and I don’t like it.”

  “I’ll look into this after breakfast, Jane,” the governess said, “and I’ll speak to Wiggins.”

  Kay stared at the bones of the goose. He knew how that goose and chine had disappeared. Almost immediately Jane reappeared.

  “If you please, ma’am, Wiggins has found the two brooms, the besom and the broom. They were in the road outside, near the spring.”

  “Well, how on earth could they have got there?” the governess said.

  “I don’t know how they got there,” Jane said, “but I don’t like it.”

  The governess did not talk during breakfast, but seemed to be considering this question of the brooms and the goose. Kay’s thoughts were far away with Nibbins, Mr. Bitem and that gathering of witches on the hill.

  “Of all the dreamy boys,” the governess said suddenly, “going off into day-dreams. It’s my belief that you need a dose. It’s my belief you eat too much. You’ll put on your boots before you come to lessons, and ask Ellen to dry those shoes in the oven.”

  “Please can’t I wear my slippers during lessons?”

  “No, you won’t wear your slippers during lessons. For one thing, they’re not dry and you’ll catch your death wearing them; and, for another, you fidget me distracted, by rubbing one slipper off and then the other, just as though you were playing a game with them.”

  This was a cruel thrust, because Kay did play games with them. When he had scraped off a slipper, he could push it about with his toes, and imagine that it was a canoe full of Redskins on the warpath, going down the rapids; or a diving bell at Tobermory, bringing up treasure from one of the ships of the Armada; or great-grandpapa Harker’s ship, the Plunderer, engaging seven French privateers; or that famous horse Lottery, at various stages of the steeplechase, the prints of which hung in the study. But the boots were laced-up things that gave no solace. There they were, and there you were.