The Midnight Folk Read online

  “It must be nearly time to move off to the Spinney,” Brassy said. “I heard the clock go one.”

  “They’ll not be finished before two or three, we hear,” the keeper said. “What I want to do is to come in among them with my good gun, just as they’re packing up my rabbits. I’ll soon settle their hunting.”

  “Ah!” his brother said, “what I want is to get their rabbits and get the money for them. I reckon to get four times drunk out of what we get tonight.”

  “What I’m for,” Whatto said, “is to bang them black and blue with my knoppy blackthorn.”

  “Ah!” Brassy said, “a few good bangs on the heads with that, and they’ll not poach so gamesome another time. But I’ve got my nice brass knuckle-dusters. That’s what I’ll dust them with.”

  “Why, mercy me,” the keeper’s wife said, “if we haven’t left the game-bags down at the Hall! Whatever shall we bring their rabbits home in, when we’ve beaten them?”

  “Ah!” the keeper said, “why, whatever shall we?”

  “We shall want a big thing. There’ll be a hundred rabbits, they said.”

  “A hundred rabbits,” Brassy said. “They’ll kill and we’ll eat, and bang ’em into the bargain.”

  “But what shall we bring the rabbits home in?”

  “I don’t know. Except we each carry twenty.”

  “I know what we can pack the rabbits in,” the keeper cried. “My old grandfather’s sea trunk, or chest, as he called it. That will hold the rabbits. I’ll fetch it down.”

  Kay heard him go upstairs. Soon he came down, trundling the chest after him. It was a big black wooden chest, bound with iron at the corners. It had the name “R. Bilges” painted in dirty white letters on the side. There were rope beckets or shackles curiously wrought, instead of the usual handles to lift it by.

  “He might be your grandfather’s coffin,” Brassy said.

  “He was a seaman gunner, my grandfather was,” the keeper said; “and a fine old drunken boy he was. It’s my belief he had something on his conscience. There’s some of his things still in here.”

  On opening the box to empty it, he pulled out some old bottles covered with wicker-work, an old leather kneeboot, a patched pair of shoes from which the buckles had been cut, and some books. “That’s my old grandfather to the life,” the keeper said. “Just some empty bottles that you can’t drink, and old leather that you can’t wear. Into the woods with you!”

  Kay had just time to slip aside before bottles, boots and books were flung out past him into the wood.

  “Now, Brassy,” the keeper said, “if you’ll take that end, I’ll take this, and we’ll move off to the Spinney. We won’t take the dogs.”

  “Come on, then.”

  The three men moved off towards the Spinney.

  “Make an end of them all, my Bilges,” the keeper’s wife cried.

  “Never you fear,” the keeper answered, beginning to sing:

  “My name it is Roper and Willem,

  And I do intend for to killem,

  With my good gun-and-cartridging

  I’ll finish their partridging,

  For I’ll shootem and deadem and stillem.”

  As they moved into the pine wood, Kay saw the black figure of Blackmalkin step from the hedge to join them. “They’ll be at work in the Spinney now,” he said. “You’ll catch them just as they’re packing up the spoils and planning what they’ll do with them. Oh, what fun it will be to see their faces! But I say, Keeper, what is that by the gate that your dogs are barking at?” The dogs had come out to bark at Kay, whom they could scent but not see.

  “I’ll dog those dogs,” the keeper said, turning back a little. “Get you back into kennel, or I’ll give you one. Keep the dogs in; don’t let ’em make that outlandish row, as though a basket of wild cats was turned loose.”

  The keeper’s wife called in the dogs and shut the door on them.

  “Now, Blackmalkin,” Keeper said, “and what are you gawping at there? Are you going to bark too?”

  “No,” Blackmalkin said. “I suppose it is all right.”

  “Suppose what is all right?”

  “That path there, from your house to the wood.”

  “What could be wrong with it?”

  “Look at it,” Blackmalkin said. “Didn’t you see the twigs stir on the path, just as though somebody trod on them?”

  “Can’t you see that nobody trod on them?”

  “Yes,” Blackmalkin said. “But they moved as though someone trod on them.”

  “It was the wind,” Brassy said.

  “Or a mouse running across.”

  “I know when a mouse runs across,” Blackmalkin said. “This wasn’t a mouse.”

  “Well then, it was the shadow of a leaf, or a moth, or a bat.”

  “It looked like a person’s footstep.”

  “Well, there isn’t a person, so it can’t have been.”

  “Look here,” Pimply Whatto said, “how much more time are we to waste? Nice fools we’ll look if they’ve gone with the rabbits before ever we get there.”

  “Yes, come on,” the keeper said. “You go in front, Blackmalkin, and forget all about what you thought you saw.”

  They all moved off after this, growling at Blackmalkin, who kept looking back suspiciously at where Kay stood. He had seen the earth and twigs displaced by Kay’s feet. Kay saw him looking back until the party was so far downhill that he could look no more.

  When they were all out of sight, Kay looked at the things which the keeper had flung away. The bottles and leather seemed useless to him; but he looked at the books with interest. They were:

  Mother Shipton’s Prophecies Explain’d.

  Zimmerman on Solitude.

  The Execrable Life and Death of Scarlat Blackbones, the Barbadoes Pyrat.

  A Book to Reckon Tides.

  The Sea-Gunner’s Reckoner.

  Tom Maggot’s Fifty Merry Jests.

  The Sea-Gunner’s Practice.

  All of these books, except the last, were dirty, tattered, dog’s-eared pamphlets without covers. Kay left them where they lay, but took The Sea-Gunner’s Practice to look at it later. He did not think that this could be wrong, since the keeper had flung it away.

  He was not sure of the way to Coneycop Spinney. He went down the hill as the others had gone. The path led over a brook into the valley below two rolls of down. He went on till he came in sight of Coneycop Hill, which there was no mistaking. A strip of wood in a bottom below the hill seemed likely to be the Spinney. It was a still, moonlit night, with nothing stirring except himself. He could not see the keeper’s party. He went cautiously. Soon he caught sight of Brassy Cop staring into the Spinney from behind a tree; Blackmalkin was beside him. Coneycop church clock, which was just beyond Coneycop, struck four. Kay marvelled that the time had gone so quickly; but every instant had been lovely, being out there alone in the moonlight, seeing everything, but not being seen. Suddenly, quite silently, two figures crept past him, peering at the Spinney. They were so intent on what they were doing that they never scented him. Both were very muddy and shaking with excitement. One was Nibbins, the other was Bitem.

  “There’s the keeper,” Nibbins whispered. “He’s got no dogs now, hush!”

  Kay saw the two Bilges, followed by Pimply, come up to Brassy.

  “Not much good waiting any longer,” the keeper growled. “Here it is beginning to be light. Not a sign of any hunt, nor of any rabbit.”

  “I suppose they got the alarm and didn’t come,” Pimply said.

  “How could they have got the alarm? And here we’ve waited hours in the cold and have to drag that empty trunk back.”

  “Where’s the hundred rabbits you promised?” Brassy asked.

  “I’ll hundred rabbits you if you ask that again,” the keeper said. “Of all the withering watches I’ve ever watched, this has been the witheringest and the watchiest. Here, you Blackmalkin, if that’s your name, where’s your friends that were
to come, eh? Where are they?”

  “Well, they said they were going to come,” Blackmalkin said.

  “Ah, they said, did they? And on what you said we’ve suffered.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t get the night wrong?” Pimply asked.

  “I’ll bet they said Friday next week and he mistook it,” Brassy said.

  “No, I didn’t mistake it.”

  “Well, if you didn’t mistake it, where are they, then?” young Bilges asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nor we don’t know.”

  “Wait a minute,” Pimply said. “Here’s people coming. Perhaps it’s them, after all.”

  Kay saw a woman and a man coming hurriedly towards them.

  “It’s your wife, Bilges,” Brassy said. “With that young Artful Artie.”

  “Is Bilges there?” Mrs. Bilges asked.

  “Yes, I’m here; of course I’m here. What is it?”

  “It’s about Brady Ride Wood, Bilges. Here’s Artful just come from there. While you’ve been watching here, that Bitem and his friends have cleaned out all the rabbits from the whole South Warren.”

  “Not a scut left white in the whole boiling,” Artie said.

  “They’ve been and cleaned out South Warren?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why they never came here, then. The whole thing was a blind to bring us here, so that they could hunt in peace.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “How many rabbits would there be in South Warren?”

  “A hundred and fifty, if there was one.”

  “You’ve been made a fool of, Bilges.”

  “Yes,” Bilges said, “I’ve been made a fool of. We’ve all been made fools of. And this sneaking, prying Blackmalkin that told us all the story is the one that made us the fools. Don’t you try to sneak away, you Blacksneakin’ sneak, for I’ve got you by the scruff.”

  “I didn’t make you a fool. I told you the truth. Oh, please let me go, you’re almost choking me,” Blackmalkin said.

  “I’ve a very good mind to quite choke you. You were in the plot with them. You knew they were going to Brady Ride Wood.”

  “Oh, please, sir, I didn’t, sir!”

  “Yes, you did,” Pimply said. “Don’t you dare deny it.”

  “Of course he knew it,” Brassy said.

  “And we gave you milk and the bit of sardine,” Mrs. Bilges said.

  “Oh, please, ma’am, they disagreed, ma’am, indeed, indeed, they disagreed.”

  “Yes, and we’re going to disagree,” Bilges said, swinging him up by the scruff. “He’s led us all here for the whole night, and his friends have robbed our rabbits. I vote we fling him into Sousepig Pond.”

  “Yes, with a stone round his neck.”

  “Oh, no, please, please! Not into a pond; I shall catch my death. I can’t stand water, indeed I can’t.”

  “Who’s going to put you into water, to poison what’s good drink (when mixed with gin)? No. Sousepig Pond is mud, and mud is what you’re fittest for. Take his tail, Pimply, and twist it if he tries to escape.”

  Kay saw them carry Blackmalkin away down the hill. He followed them at a little distance to see what they would do. Not very far from the end of the Spinney was a big shallow pan fed by a spring, and full of water in the winter, but now full of soft pale mud in which Farmer Fattenham’s pigs loved to wallow as a protection against the flies. It was a most filthy, messy place.

  At the brink of this hollow the party paused.

  “Now, Blackmalkin,” the keeper said. “This is Sousepig Pond, and as you’re a dirty little pig, you’re going to souse in it: once for sneaking and once for squeaking and once for telling us lies, oh.” As he sang these lines he swung Blackmalkin round his head and pitched him SWOSH into the mud. They all laughed at him and mocked him as he tried to clamber out.

  “There. Now we’ll go home,” the keeper said. “Another time perhaps he’ll be careful who he tries to make an April fool of.”

  The party moved off for home in a very bad temper. Kay heard them growl as they passed.

  “And we’ve got to drag that sea-chest up the hill!” “And all those rabbits, which we could have got sixpence apiece for; let alone the soup and the skins . . .” “If I’d shot that Blackmalkin with my good gun, I’d only have given him some of what he deserved,” etc., etc.

  Kay saw Nibbins and Bitem peering from behind the hedge, both of them shaking with laughter. When the keeper’s party had passed out of sight, Nibbins and Bitem hopped over the hedge to the brink of the pond. Kay heard them call out:

  “I say, I say! how did . . . how on earth . . . Here, there’s someone in the mud. Get a stick, quick. Here, give us a paw. Stick out your brush, Bitem. Poor fellow, he’s pretty nearly smothered. Catch hold, now. Pull now, Bitem; pull; he’s coming . . . I say, he’s nearly stuck past saving. Heave together now. There he comes! Why if it isn’t poor old Blackmalkin! Why, Blackmalkin, whatever brings you here?”

  “Whatever brings you here?” Blackmalkin growled. “This is a pretty sort of time to come hunting, just as it’s getting light. You’re nice people to arrange to go hunting with. I turned up, according to the plan; Keeper catches me and souses me in the mud; you two silly asses go gallivanting somewhere, and turn up grinning, hours too late to do anything. Oh, do for pity’s sake stop grinning in that insane way; it’s nothing to laugh at, that I can see.”

  “No, we’re really ever so sorry,” Bitem said. “But we’d better be off to our beds; it’s too late to do any hunting now.”

  “Perhaps at least you’ll explain where you two grinning idiots have been passing the night, while I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “We got into a bit of fun out Brady Ride Wood way,” Bitem said, “and the time slipped away just like magic; we’d no idea it was so late. But we mustn’t keep you talking here, old man; you’ll be taking cold.”

  “Yes,” Nibbins said, “you must hop off home, old man; have a good rub in the bracken shed: nothing like bracken for mud; and then have a good stiff bowl of hot milk, with a sardine to it, if you can get one.” With this they set off to their homes.

  Kay followed at a little distance, and let himself in just as the blackbirds were stirring. He was visible by this time, but very dim and blurred. As he climbed into bed, the thought occurred to him, “Suppose I’m invisible at breakfast time. What on earth shall I do then? I’ll give Ellen a jolly good scare, that’s one good thing.” At this he fell fast asleep, till Ellen called him for the second time, by shaking him hard.

  “You’ll be late again, Master Kay, and then you’ll be punished.”

  He sat up in bed, blinking, not knowing quite where he was. He stayed there blinking long after Ellen had gone. He was not quite sure that he had not dreamed all his adventures; he was no longer invisible, that was very sure. Then as he sat blinking, a nibbling, scrunching noise came from the dressing-table. Something there was grinding and eating one of his lumps of sugar. He sat very still, staring at it. He could see nothing, but the lump was being turned about and becoming smaller. Presently it was all gone, and the scrunching ceased. Then a queer thing happened. There was a little odd flickering sort of a noise upon the dressing-table. One of the other lumps of sugar moved in a most odd way to the edge and toppled over to the floor. After lying there for a few seconds, it began to move again, along the edge of the skirting-board, behind the dressing-table, where he could no longer see it. Soon after this, the scrunching noise sounded from somewhere in the wainscot. “I know what it is,” he thought, “the mice have been licking the Invisible Mixture.”

  He hopped out of bed and pulled the phial from the mouse-hole. Alas, they had been more than licking it. They had contrived to pull or to knock out the stopper, or perhaps he had not fixed it in properly, and the precious mixture was gone, either drunken by the mice or evaporated. Even the smell of green bracken and the flavour of peppermint had gone from it. It was just a tiny empty phial of red cut-
glass. In his grief and disappointment, he flung it through the open window into the bushes. “I’ll never be able to be invisible again,” he thought. “Just as I’d set my heart on it!”

  As he entered the dining-room he noticed Nibbins curled up on his chair with his chin twisted up underneath his paw, sound asleep. The governess asked for Blackmalkin.

  “Oh, I can’t let him in, ma’am,” Ellen said, “he’s in such a pickle. He’s plastered with mud or something, just as if he’d been down a rabbit hole.”

  Blackmalkin was brought in plastered with the mud of the hog-wallow.

  “He’d better be bathed,” Kay said, “because that mud is like tarring and feathering. It closes all the pores of the skin, and he may die.”

  A big pan of hot water was brought and, although Blackmalkin objected very strongly, he was soaked, scrubbed, rinsed and dried.

  “Another time,” Ellen said, “you keep out of those rabbit holes, you foolish thing. You get enough food here without crawling down rabbit holes which don’t belong to you. Another time the rabbit hole will fall right in on you, and then where will you be?”

  After lessons that morning Kay went to his bedroom to the cool, pink secret cave made by the valance of his bed. “I don’t suppose the book will be here,” he thought; “that was probably only a dream, though it was a jolly one.”

  When he turned back the flap of rappy carpet, the book was there. He turned over on his stomach with a sigh of pleasure, to examine it in peace.

  “The Sea-Gunner’s Practice,” he read to himself, “With a Description of Captain Shotgun’s Murdering Piece with the improved Breech Action for use upon Salvage Coasts; Together with Tables and Proportions for all Pieces usual to that Service, by B. Blastem, Master Gunner.” On the flyleaf, in a neat handwriting, with a clove-hitch flourish below it, was the name of the owner:

  Aston Harker, Seekings House, 1804.